I’m pleased to report that Theric and I are making progress with our reading and decision making for Monsters & Mormons. And we are proud to announce another round of admits. As with our early admit class, these aren’t the four that are the most awesome to the exclusion of all other stories (they are pretty awesome, though), and they don’t necessarily bump any other, similar submissions out of the pile, etc. etc. They simply are the next four that we want to announce and thus give you another glimpse of the range and depth of this anthology as it begins to come together.
The next four admits are:
- The novella The Mountain of the Lord by Dan Wells — an action-packed, western/horror/superpowers hybrid set in pioneer times. Some of you may already know quite a bit about this story from Dan’s blogging about it. Well we got to read it. And it’s in.
- The short story/historical Mormon mash-up “George Washington Hill and the Cybernetic Bear” by George Washington Hill and EC Buck — a fascinating retelling of an actual pioneer journal account with a Monsters & Mormons twist to it. And semi-inspired by Kent’s AMV post.
- The short story “Recompense of Sorrow” by Wilum Pugmire — we have graciously been granted permission to reprint this finely-crafted story that brings a bit of Joseph Smith’s more mystical side in to a classic tale of horror that is firmly situated in the Lovecraftian tradition that Wilum so successfully inhabits as a writer (see comment 11 at that link).
- Two poems by Will Bishop — a pair of poems that deploy the language and imagery of genre to explore aspects of modern Mormon life. You may recognize Will’s name from his participation in the FOB Bible.
Congratulations and many thanks to our next class of admits.
And to report: we are very much enjoying reading though the submissions. We’re not even close to being done with the admits yet. Sit tight everybody. Theric and I are working as fast as we can.
And I know I’ve said this before, but you all have so totally validated the concept and then some. It has been an intense few weeks (with more to go), but very, very gratifying.
A Motley Vision 
These sound awesome. Can’t wait to read them.
They do indeed sound awesome.
What’s the word count you’re aiming for? About how many more words do you have left?
Good questions, Emily. We don’t know yet. That’s part of what we’re wrestling with now. And it’s why it may be a few weeks before the next admit class happens.
I should also add that our submitters are always informed beforehand that they are part of the next admit class (and then asked to keep quiet about it) so if you submitted something you will hear directly from us before the public announcement is made. And if you haven’t heard anything yet, that means you are still in the mix.
And FWIW the current 8 admits get us to about 50,500 words.
I can say that the final anthology will most likely not be as long as Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. *wink*
So is there any way to make this wait more excruciating for the entrants? Say, by posting how many entries are “still in the mix”. A countdown? 🙂
I’m all up for any other ideas to cause excruciation. It’s part of the fun of being an editor.
But really, the other option is for us to go silent for three months. Or often as in the case with efforts like these six months, nine months, etc. Disappear from the off the face of the earth. Heck, last year I had to wait 8-9 months after the deadline to find out if a 1,000 word story I had submitted to a contest was a winner.
We’re not going to do that. Every update, after all, also puts additional pressure on us to keep progressing, to keep proving we can deliver.
So these admits are to be considered gifts, extra tidbits that you normally wouldn’t get. Should you choose to view them as little drops of torture, well, that’s just part of the fun. 😉