The View from the Slushpile

When I was starting out, I submitted dozens and dozens of stories to various magazines and anthologies.  At one point, I had 30 different manuscripts in the mail to different markets.  I always wondered what went on in the slushpile when an editor would pick up the stack of envelopes from that day's mail, and how my manuscript was treated among all those other clamoring submissions.

I've served as editor on seven anthologies, most of them specific-concept anthologies where I solicited...