Beneath Ceaseless Skies

In 2009, I made my first submission to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I had to take a deep breath as I clicked SEND, because I had been reading BCS for about a year, and loved both the fiction they published and their overall aesthetic.

They ran fiction from authors I already loved (Marie Brennan), and authors I was only just getting to know (Erin Cashier). There were Big Names in BCS, and the idea that the editors would ever consider a story of mine was folly.

And then in 2010, it suddenly wasn't, when I sold them a story about ghosts and true love and pirates.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies has since become home to many of my traveling circus stories, with Scott being the first editor who usually sees them when they're newly finished. He has a good sense of what works, what doesn't, and has taken a chance on a few ideas I thought might've been too dark for BCS's pages.

From the start, working with editor Scott H. Andrews has been a tremendous joy. He isn't just interested in acquiring good fiction--he wants it to be the best it can absolutely be. Every story, down to its very commas, has been carefully considered and digested. Sometimes what one wrote on the page isn't how it was read on the page; Scott has a keen eye for making writer intent and reader interaction align perfectly.

Even rejections from him are instructive and helpful; Scott is someone who is invested in good fiction, but also the speculative fiction community itself. There would be a vast hole in our community if BCS ceased to be. But now, here they are at issue #200! An extraordinary feat and one that I hope repeats.

They're having a subscription drive--where more subscribers = more benefits. If you don't already subscribe, consider supporting this tremendous publication.

Congrats Scott and the entire BCS team. Here's to the next two hundred issues!