Interview with Ellen Datlow

Multiple award winning editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow has just won her 6^th Hugo award as Best Editor.

Datlow has edited many science fiction, fantasy and horror anthologies both alone and with collaborators. She was fiction editor for Omni magazine between 1981 and 1998 and is now a consulting editor with “Tor.com.”

Recently Open Road Media released a number off her anthologies as ebooks and asked SFFWorld to interview her in connection with them.

————————-

Congratulations on your recent Best Professional Editor – Short Form Hugo win.

This interview is to tie in with the recent re-release of your anthology Lethal Kisses as an ebook through Open Road Media. Do you remember what inspired you to theme an anthology on the theme of vengeance?

ED: As with many of my theme anthologies it came to me out of the blue. It’s such a fertile idea that I knew I could acquire a variety of fascinating stories for such an anthology.
Jonathan Lethem, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Christian Matheson. You certainly have some impressive names in this book. Did you put out a call for submissions on this book or did you commission stories especially?

ED: I rarely do open calls. They all were solicited specifically for the anthology.

Open Road Media have also re-released some of your other anthologies in science fiction and fantasy, books like Alien Sex, Off Limits and Sirens and Daemon Lovers. Which is your favourite of all the speculative fiction genres?

ED: I actually think that horror is my favorite, although I also very much enjoy sf and fantasy.

How did you start out as an editor? What drew you to the speculative fiction genre?

ED: I worked as an editorial assistant at several mainstream book publishers before getting my first magazine job, which was as Associate Editor at OMNI Magazine. I was subsequently made Fiction Editor, something I did for seventeen years. I read sf/f/h growing up. Although I’ve dabbled in mainstream fiction, my heart is with the genre (crime fiction, too).

Aworking life spent reading SF, Fantasy, and horror short stories sounds like a dream come true. Are there down sides to being an editor? Do you have any advice for aspiring editors?

ED: I’ve always loved short stories, so working in the short fiction field is indeed the perfect job for me.
It’s hard to find time to read outside the genres in which I’m currently working. I mostly read short fiction for work, so picking novels that I hope I’ll enjoy is the challenge. They usually have to be dark/horror so I can cover them in my annual Best Horror of the Year. The administration is a pain: sending out contracts, paying royalties to a hundred writers is onerous (even with Paypal). But everything else is great. I love the whole editing process, from soliciting new stories that would not exist except for me asking; working with my authors on story revision (if necessary); and even the line edit.

Advice: Read. Read slush. If you don’t love reading, you have no reason to be an editor.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

ED: Read widely. Don’t only read in the genre that you want to write in. Short stories are a great way to experiment and also keep your name out there while you’re writing a novel. Don’t be so desperate to be published that you’ll allow just anyone to publish your work. You deserve to be paid for your writing. Be patient and keep writing and keep submitting. If a story has been submitted everywhere and you can’t sell it, put it aside and then go back to it in a few months and reread it. If it doesn’t work, cannibalize it. Never throw a story out.

Do you write at all yourself?

ED: No.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

ED: I’ve just gone over the copy edits of Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror, a kind of sequel to my anthology Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror. The new all-reprint anthology covers the years 2005-2015. It will be out in a couple of months from Tachyon.
I’m also going over the copy edit of Black Feathers, an anthology of bird horror, coming out early next year from Pegasus. I’m co-editing Hallows’ Eve with Lisa Morton, for the Horror Writers Association. It’s an anthology of horror stories based around the theme of Halloween. It’ll be out in 2017 from Blumhouse.
I’m also working on an anthology of stories inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It’ll be published by Tor.

What 3 artworks (books, music, visual arts, films) have most inspired you?

Harlan Ellison’s classic anthology Dangerous Visions, fairy tales that I read and had read to me by my mom when I was a child. Also, I was obsessed with the Surrealists as a teenager, especially Salvador Dali, but also Rene Magritte and Max Ernst. As an adult, I began to become aware of and appreciate James Ensor and Francis Bacon.

Many thanks for your time, Ellen.

* * * * * * *