From spring of 2017 to August 2023, I worked as the Assistant Editor (managing editor) for Escape Pod, the internet’s premier science fiction podcast and many-time Hugo Award finalist. Every week Escape Pod offers short stories from some of today’s best science fiction writers, in convenient audio format for listening pleasure and in full text on our website.
As Assistant Editor, my primary job was to manage our submissions (a.k.a. the “slush pile”). That involved:
- Designing the workflows and processes that kept the submissions moving and ensure prompt responses;
- Recruiting, training, and managing our team of amazing Associate Editors who do the first line of reading;
- Reviewing the stories selected by Associate Editors to choose which few to pass up to our illustrious Co-Editors;
- Taking internal notes on every story to ensure a visible track record of feedback for future training and editorial review;
- Sending out rejection letters, which includes writing the personal feedback we tried to include whenever possible.1
You can learn more about our submission-reading process and responses here. This is a snapshot of the processes I developed as Assistant Editor but I believe these procedures remain largely unchanged since my retirement.
During my time on the masthead, Escape Pod received its first nominations for world-level editing awards, and throughout my tenure we were honored to receive finalist nominations for the Hugo Award 6 times (Best Semiprozine), and the Ignyte Award twice (Best Fiction Podcast).
Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation and their family of fiction podcasts. It’s donation-supported, so if you enjoy their stories, consider chipping in via Patreon or the other methods offered on the right side of the homepage!