Murky Depths

Gosh. When I submitted a piece to Murky Depths last year, the auto-reply warned that their response times were anything between a week and nine months, and when nine months duly went past, I assumed that they had lost interest in it. I duly queried them and was surprised, not to say delighted to receive a reply to the effect that if I made a couple of (very sensible) changes, it was very likely to be accepted. So I did and after another agonising wait, I eventually received my acceptance last week.

I’m especially pleased about this, firstly because it’s a prestigious print magazine (voted Best Magazine / Periodical in the 2010 British Fantasy Awards) which publishes work by the likes of Robert Rankin, and secondly because I really, really love the piece they’ve accepted. It’s called “Teamwork”, and it’s an odd, dark and unexpectedly deep story with existential overtones, and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written.

Interesting point for those of you out there who worry about querying long-standing submissions for fear of annoying people. I’ve done this a few times now (albeit very politely), and I would say that it’s resulted in an acceptance just as many times as it’s ended up with a rejection.