Bewildering Stories News

Pilots and Autopilot

We have three new sketches in our Biographies and Bibliographies department, those of Claire Yvette Colón, Steven Utley and Jerry Wright. I’ve copied part of Steven’s and all of Jerry’s from the Asimov’s forum.

Jerry had some kind words for me in last issue’s editorial. But he put his finger on the most important point in saying that he and I really need each other. Jerry’s a hands-on kind of guy: he tools up the engines that keep us flying. He’s heavy into Net technology, feeding the hamsters that spin the wheel that keeps our server running. He’s our “first-contact diplomat,” sending e-mails of acceptance or regret to contributors. He’s always on the lookout for new opportunities for us on the Net, in advertising, in new contacts... He also has an eye for art and supplies us with a wealth of book reviews, which have always been one of Bewildering Stories’ primary strengths.

My job is to try to make our spaceship comfortable and keep the paint fresh. In practical terms, I do the copy editing, which Jerry could do but really does not have the time or patience for. I’m the spell-checking Editor from Heck who puts in the curly quotes because, doggone it, a literary webzine ought to look good in print, right?

And as long as I wanted our contributors — including Jerry — to be known on the Net, I realized we had to make Bewildering Stories searchable to Net finders. Which meant that — to put my money where my mouth was, so to speak — I had to learn how we might do it. Believe me, that took a lot of research and experimenting. Formal courses in website design, HTML and Javascript are hard to find; I’ve had to take advantage of on-line tutorials and teach myself. As always, that’s a work in progress.

But I love that sort of thing, because Jerry and I both have a kind of pioneer spirit: we like to solve problems ourselves, not settle for what we’re given. My trusty PageSpinner — a manual HTML editor — lets me fine-tune things and see how they’re supposed to work. As a result — and with Jerry’s help when the going gets tough — our web pages are custom-designed; they don’t look like anything else I’ve seen on the Net. I think they’re as reader-friendly and bandwidth-economical as you can find, and we’re very proud of our progress.

My recent “vacation,” which Jerry mentioned in the editorial, was actually one of two annual family visits, at opposite ends of the continent. I’ll have to take another, unscheduled leave of absence probably in mid-July, possibly sooner; we don’t know yet when. Jerry already has a set of templates into which he can copy-paste submissions, when the time comes. I’ll try to get ahead on any serials outstanding; but the Readers’ Guide, the News, and the Challenge may have to be suspended for an issue or two. I’m mentioning it now so you won’t be surprised when it happens.

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