In NYC, small grocery stores (i.e. one of many retail storefronts on a block) are often colloquially referred to as bodegas, no matter the economic status of the area.
1,148 karma · joined March 22, 2010
Including more biographical information on the website about yourself and any editors making acquisition decisions would help. You don't need to have industry cred already (though that helps), but writers like to know that (a) you're not a publisher/editor known not to pay, has a bad rep, etc. and (b) that you're a real person. It's also very helpful to know how long the magazine is funded for when it's not yet established -- so you have confidence that if you submit and are selected, it won't go under before you get paid.
Also, you should include what the publication format is, what specific rights you'd be buying, whether they're exclusive, etc. You say "first English publication rights" -- I'm assuming you mean exclusive First English Language serial rights? Print or digital? Or would it be nonexclusive? Are audio rights exclusive or nonexclusive? If you have a template contract you plan to use, you could link to it.
You have an expected response time, which is great; consider also including time to payment/publication. If you have formatting guidelines/preferences (i.e. standard manuscript format like Vonda McIntyre's), include those.
You can take a look at the guidelines/sites of established short fiction magazines to see what best practices are -- i.e. Asimov's, Clarkesworld, Analog, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, etc.
Hope that helps! Always exciting to see more short fiction markets!
Here's a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHzie6XRGk
As a side observation, I think you can actually make "fellow" in particular a bit more cool/casual, especially since it is a rather ambiguous term anyway and there are many kinds of fellows working on many levels out there. All it reliably seems to connote a learning environment, some degree of selectivity in participation, and less structure than a traditional school program.
As an example, I can tell you, I go to a lot of startup events and they are often centered around activities like ping pong or beer drinking. I know many women interested in entrepreneurship and try to get them to go with me, but they tell me they don't like ping pong or would feel uncomfortable. And, at the events themselves, there are typically only one or two women who actually came.
Changing the ratio would involve creating an atmosphere that would encourage women who already have an interest to act on it and thus be better represented.
Where you rank on any scale is a function of the population you're being compared to - so, for instance, if you take an assessment as an undergraduate, you may score lower in Extraversion or Openness compared to your peers (since studies show people tend to peak in those values at that time of life) as opposed to the general population. Practically speaking, your results from an assessment are often benchmarked against a group, but it's rare you know who that group is.
Most people are probably just not self-aware to be able to accurately answer those questions (from things like the mechanics of how a future event should occur all the way to "are our values/work styles aligned").
Do you, or anyone here, have suggestions for alleviating that?
A good rule of thumb for ANY mass email communication is to lead with a short explanation of why they're receiving the email: "Thanks for signing up for updates from Newproduct, a new platform for knitters to connect online."
Remind them 1) they signed up, 2) what they signed up for (updates), and 3) who you are (descriptively).
There's a difference between supporting someone through their difficulty and someone who is not supporting you, whether that means (consciously or unconsciously) belittling, undermining, or dismissing you or your ideas, or just not meshing well or productively with you.
The most dangerous moment in building a new habit is the moment when you realize that the best case scenario (aka sticking with the awesome new habit) is just not going to happen. For me, unless I have my Plan B ready to go, I tend to just revert to the status quo or worse (since I already failed, why not go all out). Having the Plan B - a glorified "if failure to complete Plan A, then do B" - already articulated lets me immediately move on to the next thing without beating myself up.
This was really helpful for me when I was getting going with a regular early morning jog. If I didn't get it in before work, plan B was a quick run after work before I drove home. The latter wasn't the habit I wanted to stick, but it helped me forgive myself the lapses until morning running became a habit.
The surprising thing, even to someone like me who considers herself a good writer to begin with, was how important working through each "level" of writing was. While I haven't reviewed the foundations in a long time (I probably should), because I spent so much time painstakingly memorizing the contents of each earlier on, I can now write quickly and confidently and usually be pretty close to correct.
Here are some books I'd recommend for each level:
1) Vocabulary - Wordly Wise (the older the version of the book, the better the word lists), such as here: http://www.amazon.com/Wordly-Wise-Book-Kenneth-Hodkinson/dp/...
2) Sentence structure - The Art of Styling Sentences, http://www.amazon.com/The-Styling-Sentences-K-D-Sullivan/dp/...
3) Paragraph construction - Paragraphs and Essays (the part on paragraph construction and patterns is very straightforward, basic, and clear, I don't think it's worth buying the whole book though), http://www.amazon.com/Paragraphs-Essays-With-Integrated-Read...
4) Expository essays - Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry (this is the textbook NYU uses to teach "Writing the Essay"), http://www.amazon.com/Encounters-Exploration-Inquiry-Pat-Hoy...
Here's an explanation of why and how it works: http://www.thesaleslion.com/blog-talk-about-competition/
"A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it -- by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs... Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture."
The whole essay is really worth reading - looking specifically at photography, you could make an argument that our other tools like Facebook are growing to fill a similar aggressive, certifying role in our culture...
You can find it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/On-Photography-Susan-Sontag/dp/0312420...
Otherwise, it's the cold email...
Acting like you know everything doesn't come from a place of intelligence - it comes from a place of fear, that the other person knows more than you, that they will judge you, that a "smart person" would know what you don't know. I've forced myself to ask questions many times in meetings when I thought the answer was probably obvious to everyone else - only to discover that others had been wondering the same thing.
Of course it matters to his reputation, but by definition if we're talking about the larger question of sexism in the industry, it doesn't seem relevant to me. In fact, I think it serves to excuse or ignore the question of sexism that was raised.
I'm not trying to convict anyone - in another comment I note that these situations are often unclear, and many very well-intentioned people may not even realize they are harming or undermining someone (and they probably think highly of that person, too!). To be honest, my primary impetus was to explain why a comment like this is actually sexist (there seemed to be some disagreement on that part) and why it is harmful. It's not always intuitive, since we often describe our friends as "attractive" or "sexy" without a second thought in a friendly/social context.
I'm not trying to say that the introducer was sexist - the behavior was.
Edit: From the downvotes, it seems that there is disagreement here - which part do people take issue with?
If someone is about to give a talk, then (depending on the venue) it may be appropriate to say "Stacy is very funny," because it has a clear implication for the situation at hand.
But imagine this. A woman walks by - your colleague Bob knows her and waves. You say, "Bob, who was that?" He says, "That's Stacy from Accounting. She has a great sense of humor." Do we think Stacy is great at her job? Probably not.
The point is that in a professional context (certain professions excluded), it is never relevant to comment on someone's appearance or sexualize them. Like many things related to sexual harassment, the waters can be murky, and many people don't realize they are undermining their colleagues (often people they do in fact greatly respect) by their words and behaviors.
And there is just no excuse for commenting on someone's appearance or sexualizing them in a professional context. Even if you don't know them well.
Look, it doesn't matter what someone said before or after they sexualized someone in a professional context. Here's why: human beings are smart. They know that things people say matter. Thus, if you are commenting on someone's appearance or sexiness in a professional context, that must matter to you.
Why is that important? It serves to undermine the person it's said about. Rather than being judged on their work, or their connections, or what not - they are now being judged for their appearance. And that steals credibility they may have had in other, legitimate arenas.
It says, I like you because you're attractive, not because you deserve it.
("Oh, Nancy's not a good lawyer - everyone just thinks she's pretty." "Well Bob got that promotion because he's so good-looking. He didn't really deserve it." Etc.)
And yes, in some contexts, we expect to be more casual and colloquial. But if you're in a professional setting, unprofessional remarks do insidious harm to the subject.
The OED is a historical dictionary, with a structure that is very different from
that of a dictionary of current English such as ODO... For each word in the OED,
on the other hand, the senses are dealt with in chronological order
according to the quotation evidence. This way the senses with the earliest
quotations appear first, and the senses which have developed more recently appear
further down the entry – like a ‘family tree’ for each word.Not to mention, those familiar enough with the word to understand what Apocrypha are should hopefully be able to infer why someone may be referring to apocrypha without a capital A. It's not a long cognitive leap.
If you're suggesting that a number of people may not actually understand how to interpret or use the word, then I agree (as in this thread, I suspect). But that is the case for many descriptive and useful words in the English language and has rarely been a good argument for dumbing down the level of communication.
There are other meanings as well which cast doubt on the authenticity of the story (not surprising actually when you consider the Bible's Apocrypha's relationship with the Church.) Here are the 2 definition OED gives:
1. A writing or statement of doubtful authorship or authenticity; spec. those books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament, which were not originally written in Hebrew and not counted genuine by Jews, and which, at the Reformation, were excluded from the Sacred Canon by the Protestant party, as having no well-grounded claim to inspired authorship.
2. [As in Greek] Hidden things; secrets. rare.