Innovation at Smokelong Quarterly

Here's an interesting post at HTML Giant by Dave Clapper, editor of Smokelong Quarterly, about a new approach to submissions. The basic idea, as I understand it, is that guest editors will read unsolicited submissions for a week to find ONE worthy story, while the regular editors will work on solicited stories and otherwise filling the quarterly quota of 20 stories.

From the editors' point of view, it sounds great, a way to avoid the burnout that seems inevitable. From the writers' point of view? I'm not sure. It seems to introduce a larger element of chance into the equation than there was before--your submission has to be the "best" of the week in the eyes of whoever happens to be the guest editor that week. Maybe the end result is no more capricious than the way it works now. Hard to say. But I applaud Dave and Smokelong for thinking outside the box!