ANN VANDERMEER: New Weird Tales Fiction Editor

HUGE congratulations to my wife, Ann, who is now the fiction editor for Weird Tales. Full press release below. I'll be posting the answers to a few questions posed to Ann later today or tomorrow.

Somehow it's appropriate it's Valentine's Day. We have an odd tradition of going to the weirdest, most surreal, least romantic movie possible on Valentine's Day. So Ann becoming fiction editor of Weird Tales today is fitting.

Woo-hoo!

Jeff


FEB. 14 -- Weird Tales publisher John Gregory Betancourt announced today the selection of Ann VanderMeer as the magazine's new fiction editor. VanderMeer, formerly the founding editor of the surrealist fiction magazine The Silver Web (1988-2002), will take over the Weird Tales position as of issue #347 in October 2007.

"We're thrilled to have Ann working on Weird Tales," said Betancourt. "Her work on Prime Books' new Best American Fantasy anthology is exciting and provocative, and we can't wait to see what she'll surprise us with in the magazine."

Ann VanderMeer has been a publisher and editor for over twenty years, running her award-winning Buzzcity Press. Work from her press and related periodicals has won the British Fantasy Award, the International Rhysling Award, and appeared in several year's best anthologies. In addition, she has been a partner with her husband, Jeff VanderMeer, on such editing projects as the World Fantasy Award-winning Leviathan series and the Hugo finalist The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. A Best of the Silver Web is forthcoming from Prime Books.

Currently, she is serving as one of the guest editors for the new Best American Fantasy, and is co-editing anthologies including The New Weird (Tachyon Publications), Fast Ships, Black Sails (Nightshade Books), Last Drink Bird Head, and Love-Drunk Book Heads.

“I am very honored and excited to be the newest member of the Weird Tales team," says VanderMeer. "I'm inspired by all the extraordinary work I see being created today and can’t wait to bring a diversity of experience to the Weird Tales audience.”

VanderMeer will be accepting fiction submissions via email beginning March 6 at weirdtales@gmail.com. Writers lacking email capabilites are welcome to send hardcopy submissions to her, attn: Weird Tales, P.O. Box 38190, Tallahassee, FL 32315. Updated submission guidelines will be available online as of March 1 at www.weirdtalesmagazine.com.

Creative director Stephen H. Segal will serve as interim editorial director for issues #344-#346, which are now closed to fiction submissions. He will continue thereafter to serve as Weird Tales' nonfiction editor. Nonfiction submission guidelines will be available online as of March 1 at www.weirdtalesmagazine.com.

Weird Tales, the world's first fantasy fiction magazine, introduced the world to such legendary authors as H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Ray Bradbury. The magazine will celebrate the 85th anniversary of its founding in early 2008 (as well as the 20th anniversary of its modern-day incarnation).

Contacts:
Stephen H. Segal, creative director/general manager, segal@wildsidepress.com
John Gregory Betancourt, publisher, jgb@wildsidepress.com
Ann VanderMeer, weirdtales@gmail.com