Bewildering Stories Editorial

by Jerry Wright

The Heart

No matter what we do, or where we go along the stream of time, it is good to remember that the heart of what we do is the little magazine that started this whole farrago: Bewildering Stories! Yes, without BwS, we'd never have come up with the concept, or even the thought of Bewildering Press. And certainly not a print magazine. There has been a concern that a Bewildering Quarterly could rip the heart out of the e-zine, with people sending stories saying: for the print magazine only...

Could that happen? Well, certainly. In fact, in sense it already has. But no worries... Or maybe some worries. We haven't worked out the details yet, and of course, "the devil is in the details". Remember the old days when our supposed course was to empty out the trunks of all the unsaleable, and in many cases unreadable manuscripts extant? We have come far away from THAT! We are now perhaps, a magazine where writers old and new may hone their skills. BwS is a magazine with an SF sensibility, and yet the desire to print stories and articles that otherwise might not find a home because "they just didn't fit".

And yet if we pay for the stories that will appear in the print magazine, we have not only the right, but the responsibility to present the best stories we can, which means that we have to determine a policy. Do they appear in the online version first? Do they disappear with only a link once they appear in the magazine? Will the magazine find enough readers to make the whole concept work?

I have no idea. But it will be an interesting ride.