Shakeups

I have just made the official announcement on the Galley Table podcast, which will be up on Youtube later, but I should mention it here also.

Effective a week ago, I stepped down as managing editor of FlagShip and Flying Island Press. Reasons are many, and I won’t go into them here. As for anyone looking to submit new stories, FlagShip is on hiatus for now while the team determines how to proceed. They are in discussions now.

For anyone who’s submitted stories to those outfits and gotten no or slow feedback, that’s on me, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart. It was my fault, and should not be taken as a reflection of the professionalism of anyone else on the staff.

What does this mean? Well, for FlagShip, watch that space. I’m not sure how they’re going to proceed, but I have faith in the crew, and I still believe that its mission of publishing positive fiction is a good one – one which should continue to be pursued.

For me, well…

I can’t promise anything, and it would be inappropriate of me to do so. I have no current plans for podcasting anything in the near future. I do have a short story that is WAY behind schedule and a book sequel that need finishing up, so I do believe I’ll be giving those some loving attention. Also, our cat just had kittens, and a lot of my time is being taken up by being super distracted by those adorable little fuzzballs. All four of them. (Frodo, Mary, Pippin and Sam, if you must know).

Meanwhile, I’ll admit that there are places where I’ve done a lot of self-editing. And there are things that I haven’t said here because of how I thought it would impact FIP. I haven’t always been able to keep a lid on things, and I honestly expected that I’d have more to say on a plethora of issues, and that I’d be posting more often here. A lot more often. But for a variety of reasons, I haven’t felt comfortable asserting my voice here. In formally separating myself from FIP, I want to clearly restate that my views here are my own, and not those of FIP, not those of the crew members of FIP, and should not be construed or interpreted as such. (Hi! I’m a lawyer.) Heck, even my views over there are my own, and not the views of FIP. I hope to be able to to say a lot more on a lot of things. No promises.

This was, at least on my part, an amicable parting, and I hope not to have hurt any feelings by stepping down from a role that I could not in good conscience continue performing (and wasn’t doing a very good job with, let’s not fool ourselves).

In the meantime, watch that space. I’m sure there will be some kind of announcement as to their plans going forward, perhaps around Balticon. And to those people who supported and encouraged our venture, and those who will continue to do so in the future, I thank you.