Back in the early ’70s (yup, that long ago) I was a kid besotted with science fiction. I loved the stories and novels of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, James Tiptree Jr., Ursula LeGuin, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, and many others.
My favorite magazine was Analog. It was the first magazine I ever subscribed to, and I yearned to be in its pages. I began sending them my science fiction stories when I was 14. The editor then was Ben Bova. He didn’t buy that first one, or the next dozen or so I sent him. They were all rejected. (Rightfully so. I was just a beginner with lots to learn.) Ben left the magazine soon after, but I kept submitting to his successor editors. I have lost track of how many stories I submitted to Analog over the years. Certainly in the dozens, possibly close to 200.
I placed stories in other magazines and anthologies, I published many poems, I wrote and published novels, but I never managed to crack Analog. Until today. I just got my contributor copies for the Sept/Oct 2019 issue which includes my short story “The Swarm.”
I loved seeing my name on the Table of Contents and thumbing to the page with my story. I couldn’t be more pleased with finally achieving this goal, over 40 years from when I first tried.
The issue will be on sale in the next week or so.
