So back in January of 2009–a few weeks before Sovereign Media announced the impending closure of RoF–I read an article online about Warren Lapine making a return to speculative fiction with his new publishing company, Tir Na Nog Press. The first magazine under his new company was supposed to be the return of Fantastic Stories. I had heard of Warren from his days as publisher of DNA Publications, though I had never met or communicated with him.
And as I read this article, I thought this news was all to the good. Be it print or online, I’ve never viewed other short fiction venues as competition since joining up with Realms of Fantasy. I tend to view them as neighbors. Now of course I want RoF to do better than its neighbors (grin), but I still want our neighbors to do well. And the writer in me was and is always happy to see another venue emerge. So it seemed like a good thing.
And as I’m reading this article about Warren’s impending return to the world of speculative fiction, I also read that he’s also starting a speculative book line called Fantastic Books, and that he’s seeking acquiring editors. So figuring I have nothing to lose and that it never hurts to explore my options, I fired off a cover letter and resume.
Weeks go by without me hearing back. But I had plenty to deal with for RoF, because a few weeks after sending off this resume the news broke that Sovereign would be canceling RoF with the April issue. I’ll pass on going over everything that came with this bombshell. I think most people are quite familiar with most of what happened anyway.
Suffice it to say that after the news broke I stayed pretty busy, fielding emails about the magazine and wrapping up a lot of loose ends. And all the while there was a movement building to save the magazine, accompanied by vague rumors that perhaps Sovereign Media might sell RoF. I didn’t pay too much attention to these rumors, not because I didn’t believe them, but rather because I was afraid to believe them and have my hopes crushed. And even if the rumors were true, there was no guarantee that a new publisher would keep the same staff going forward.
At some point in mid-February, I received an email from Shawna, who had received an email from the publishers at Sovereign, confirming that the magazine would in fact not be sold. And that, I thought, was that. It’s been a while, but if memory serves correctly, we were under orders to keep this quiet at the time, so while some people were nursing hopes that the magazine would in fact be saved, I already knew better.
Or so I thought.
Then early in March, I received an email from Warren Lapine, apologizing for the delay in getting back to me and asking me whether I was still interested in being an editor for Fantastic Books. The abridged answer was “Sure, what else can you tell me about the position?”
A few days later, on a Sunday morning, I received a call from Warren. He was calling to offer me a position with Fantastic Books, and to also let me know that had just purchased Realms of Fantasy. “I’ve been calling Shawna but haven’t been able to get in touch with her yet,” he said. “But in the meantime, I wanted to know if you’d like to come back to the magazine.”
Needless to say, I was flabbergasted …and more than a little confused. After all, Sovereign’s publishers had told Shawna they weren’t selling the magazine. Now Warren owned it? Huh? What? But yes, that is what had happened. There were some extenuating circumstances that had prevented Warren from purchasing the magazine earlier, and so Sovereign had come to the conclusion they wouldn’t be selling the magazine. But all of that had changed now. Warren owned the magazine and he wanted to bring me and Shawna back.
Yes!
As you might imagine, we didn’t discuss Fantastic Books too much during the course of that phone call. My mind was still spinning around the fact that RoF was back and that I was back with it. Emotionally, I had already closed the book on this magazine and had no more than a few final details to wrap up. Now we were back and I was trying to wrap my head around that.
Two days later the news went public that Warren had bought RoF and that Shawna and I were coming back to the magazine. So once again I found myself swamped, answering emails of congratulations, answering a million questions, and coordinating with Warren and Shawna to get the magazine back on track. Shouldn’t be too hard on my end, I thought. I just have to get caught up with the slush. No problem at all.
Heh.
I believe it was all of two days later that Warren asked me if I wanted to start handling the magazine’s nonfiction and art. *Cue speechless moment. Um, yes? Yes I do? Mental slap! Answer him!* “Yeah, Warren. That would be great. Thanks so much!”
And thus began my long journey of “catch-up” with the magazine. There was always something to catch up on. Early on it was hunting down our columnists and seeing if they were interested in coming back, replacing those who decided to move on, giving myself a crash course on the history of RoF’s art, which involved me flipping back through my entire collection and putting together a log about all the artists and their illustrations. If I was going to handle the artwork for RoF, I intended to understand its history. There was also the matter of getting caught up with the slush, putting together production schedules to keep all these departments organized, opening the art department to submissions, and oh, like a billion emails I needed to swap with Warren and Shawna in order to keep us on track to relaunch the magazine in time.
And somehow, we did, using Readercon 2009 as our official premiere. All to the good. But even after we launched, there was always something else for me to catch up on. Whether it was assigning new artwork …dealing with stories that were stuck in limbo when the magazine was first canceled …opening back up to fiction submissions …getting a new nonfiction column ready for the magazine …suffice it to say that no matter how many proverbial leaks I plugged up, there was always another one waiting to happen.
Then around November I finally had all three departments I worked with–fiction, nonfiction, and art–caught up and balanced to my satisfaction …just in time for Warren to heap more on my plate! We were moving ahead with the website, and I soon learned that Warren wanted me to have a hand in getting it ready for launch and it keeping it running. So that was another project I had to incorporate with everything else. Lots of fun, but also lots of work.
And while all this was happening, at some point in December (IIRC) Warren promoted me to editor. With this promotion came the added responsibilities of handling all of the managing editor duties. So once again I had to develop a system that worked for me and incorporate it with everything else I did.
I’d say it was around mid-January that I finally thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. It seemed that at last everything would be caught up and balanced to my satisfaction. But alas, I learned that launching a magazine’s website and maintaining that website were two very different things. All sorts of updates were necessary for the website to keep it current with the forthcoming issue, and there were lots of little things that needed doing on the site that neither I nor the webmaster seemed to have time for.
Enter light bulb! We would bring in a website assistant! But that entailed conducting a search, getting the new guy up to speed, etc. But eventually we managed to do all of this, and with the new guy caught up and the website updated, I had just a few more details to wrap up. And now, today, after very close to a year, I am happy to say that I am finally finally FINALLY 100% caught up with this magazine. Some might say that me saying this will cause loads of new work to be dropped upon me. I don’t think so. And I don’t care. I. Am. Caught. Up. Done and done …and I mean done (bonus points to anyone who can tell me what I’m quoting here).
*Breathes giant and triumphant sigh of relief* My life is my own once more. I can’t wait to start getting back to a regular writing schedule. 
