The cover titles weren’t really meant to mock anything other than what might be considered “good names, etc.” to put on a fantasy cover in order to sell it. Just about anything penned by Neil Gaiman — including his grocery list — would be “hot.” Harlan, God bless and preserve him, is often considered a name writer, although fewer and fewer fantasy readers recognize it and, let’s face it, Harlan is not writing at his prime now. As for Harry Potter, vampires and fairies, that’s the stereotypical content.

They whole thing was inspired by Tempest’s teasing comments about, “Hey, when we going to see some male butt on RoF?”

Now, I was not there for this, but my sources are multiple and reliable. Apparently on Thursday evening during a party, someone asked Warren about e-submissions and Realms. The discussion that ensued was described to me as a ‘fight’, with Warren very much against e-subs. When someone said to him that he was basically cutting out a whole generation of younger writers by being against e-subs, Warren reportedly said something like: Why do I need those writers, I’ve got Harlan Ellison in my magazine!

(Apparently there’s a Harlan story in an upcoming issue.)

This attitude is very much at odds, it seems, with the Fiction Editor’s. I don’t know how McCarthy feels about e-subs, specifically, but she doesn’t seem to feel that the presence of an Old Reliable Writer like Ellison is of so much more value than newer writers.

Later in the weekend I myself asked Warren if Realms would be accepting e-subs, and he told me something different. He said something about how if a writer rises up to a certain level, they can send submissions any way they please. I believe the words “Neil Gaiman can submit to me in crayon, if he wants” were uttered. But as concerns lower-level writers, he can’t have them sending in e-subs, that would be a disaster. But if you rise up — say have a book on the NYTimes bestseller list or something — you certainly can.

Again: Old Reliable Writers can do what they want because we want them! Young/New writers? Pfft!

shweta_narayan

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