New job - Chief Ed

Today is quite exciting for me, as I start work as the Editor in Chief of Solstice Publishing. Where before I was responsible for submissions to the new western imprint, now I’ve been hired to deal with all submissions. Fortunately, I have an excellent and keen team of editors.

Since first taking up an editing pen in the 1970s, I’ve always found it exciting to open a new submission, hoping to discover new voices and great stories. I hope to find a good number of really good stories within all genres published by Solstice.



Naturally and inevitably, there will be a goodly portion of material that ‘still needs work’. And that’s the point: anyone beginning in this writing business must keep writing regardless of rejection, striving to learn from other writers. They must persevere. A thick skin, inordinate patience and a good dollop of self-belief will help, too. Maybe a sense of humour helps too. A rejection isn’t personal, it’s subjective, merely an opinion. True, that opinion may be based on years of experience and knowledge of the market, but it’s still subjective. Many a household name author was rejected a lot of times. That’s not the point. A rejection should ask you at least to take a step back from that work and be self-critical: after time and further reflection, is it good enough or could it be improved?

A third Solstice Western – The Riflemen by Tony Masero – is being prepared, and he's just completed the cover, which is excellent. A couple more western novels are in the pipeline.

Submissions details.
Electronic only
American English spelling
Double quotes for speech
Indent paragraphs
No line spaces between paragraphs
Maximum 100,000 words
See website: http://www.solsticepublishing.com/pages/Submission-Guidelines.html
Manuscript with synopsis should be sent to:
Westerns – westernsubmissions.solstice@live.com
Everything else (see website for genres) – submissions.solstice@hotmail.com