Two summers ago, I participated in a series of workshops for an anthology project. There were six anthologies, all with a different genre or theme and a different editor for each. One of them was a mystery anthology. All writers got personal feedback from the editors if their stories weren’t selected.

None of my stories were selected. Not a big surprise, but I got some useful feedback.

Fastforward to January of 2025. Igot off my butt and sent the mystery story to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. for those who might not be aware, AHMM has an abyssmal response time. The few stories I had submitted before had a response time of a year. Or longer.

Time marches on, I put the submission out of my mind, the ownership of AHMM changed, (as did the ownership of Ellery Queen, Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF. I’ve written about that here.) I focused on other projects.

There have been some complaints about the contract terms the new publisher has put into the contracts. I know some writers who no longer submit to any of these magazines because of some of the terms the publisher won’t negotiate on.

Then I got an email recently.

The story had been accepted. Contract attached. Publication date August.

Sixteen month response time.

I read the contract and withdrew the story.

This was the first time I’d seen one of the new contracts, although I had heard plenty about them from a few writer friends.

The word “irrevocable” was used frequently.  I would be signing away all rights, including audio, film, and media. There was no reversion clause.

Sorry, but I’m only interested in licensing first North American and/or English language serial rights. Not anything else. And certainly not in perpetuity.

It was a thrill to get a contract. On the other hand, I have to wonder if I would have gotten the acceptance if the contract terms hand’t changed. Have enough top writers stopped submitting to AHMM that they are buying from second-tier?

I don’t know. I’m not going to worry about it.

As for the story, I don’t recall that much about it. I’ll reread it and decide what I want to do with it.

But that’s what’s been going on with me lately.