So what should I say? Hello? Welcome? Do read on?
++++++Let’s start with a ‘Yo!’
++++++Not that I’m a ‘Yo!’ person or a casual high-fiver; I’m shy and nerdy and weep at sad adverts, but it feels peppy and appropriately enthusiastic. So ‘Yo!’ to you, careful reader.
++++++Allow me to introduce myself, first of all.
++++++I’m Gill. Not Gil, the bathmatted cowboy from Parenthood. Not Jill, tumbling down the hill. Not Gill like the slit on the side of a fish. Not Gill as in an awful lot of whisky. Not Jill as in female ferret. Just Gill short-for-Gillian which I only hear when I’m pretending to be a grown-up in the bank or post office, visiting my aunt, or being scolded by my mother for saying something shocking (again).
++++++And the surname. Hoffs. Hoff with an ‘s’. ‘S’ for stegosaurus, or Superman, or something-equally-cool. We’re the only ones in the UK, my husband and son and I. Or if we’re not, the others must be hiding in a bunker or molehill as we’ve never found one yet.
++++++My husband had a crush on Susanna Hoffs of Bangles fame. He still kinda does. She’s talented and beautiful so it’s understandable. She has a good name too, solid, unusual, visually pleasing when written or typed. So when he turned 17 he took her surname, and when I married him, so did I. But most folk forget the ‘s’. Our mail has some odd approximations, ‘Houghes’, ‘Houffes’, ‘Horefish’, ‘Huffs’, ‘Hoofs’ etc. etc.
++++++So allow me to repeat myself. It’s ‘Hoffs’. Gill Hoffs. Now I sound like a secret agent. But I’m not. I’m a writer, and now also an editor.
++++++Some people love flower arranging. They go to classes, cast a critical eye over other people’s flopping tulips and crumbling mud-green oasis, appraise vases and jugs with an eye to possible contents season by season, room by room. Pheasant feathers are collected on country walks to ‘add interest’ or ‘fit the theme’, and aspirin crushed carefully and added to the water to keep the arrangement ‘fresh’.
++++++I’m a word arranger. I think words are fantastic.
++++++I love everything about them. How they sound in different accents and tones of voice, how gender and age can alter their sensual resonance, how they look in exotic handwriting or on a screen or page. How some typefaces and fonts beckon the eye and some repel without reason.
++++++I love how some people have their favourites while others casually toss out anything that might get their meaning across to the intended audience. I get shivers reading old pamphlets and newspapers, smelling the richness of the inky paper and imagining its history. The etymology of words and phrases fascinates me, the translation of foreign sayings and proverbs enchants, and I have a weakness for puns and wordplay that makes my husband groan with disgust.
++++++So, having spent the last couple of years compulsively writing and since before I can remember obsessively reading, I’m now co-editor at one of the first places I was ever published. I’m not sure if I’m awake or whether I want to be if I’m not.
++++++Spilling Ink Review publishes different, challenging, thought provoking fiction, as well as a wealth of other creative complexities. As an editor here I get to see it first, and I love it.
++++++It takes a special kind of guts to send off your work. You might know me online or in real life, you might not know me from Adam Savage (Mythbusters – I love it), either way it’s still difficult. Sending your creation out into the world, whether to strangers, acquaintances, family, or friends, requires a kind of masochistic bravery. The more pieces you send out, the less it hurts when you get a ‘no, thank you’ – and the greater the chance of your work finding a home. So do keep sending out your babies. And know this:
++++++
++++++We read your work with respect and applaud your courage.
++++++We root for every submission that enters our inbox.
++++++We want to publish where we can.
++++++
++++++But this isn’t always possible.
++++++Sometimes you’ll just be unlucky. It would have been the perfect granny-turns-into-a-bank-robber-just-so-she-gets-a-heated-jail-cell-then-turns-out-to-be-an-assassin-and-kills-her-cellmate story but we just okayed another one for the same issue.
++++++Sometimes there’s no sense of story or no love of language evident on the page. It’s almost as if you’re telling us about a story you want to write, someday, maybe soon. But not here and now with this submission.
++++++Sometimes, and this is possibly the most frustrating thing, we get what might be a great story – if it used the correct tenses, spelling, and punctuation.
++++++Think of presentation and formatting like this: I’m reading you a story. You’re lying in my double bed in the sunshine with line-dried sheets, soft pillows, and a feather duvet while I stroke your hair and read to you and you’re drifting off, aware only of my voice and the exquisite comfort of lying there, listening as if hypnotised…
++++++Then I poke you with my little finger. There’s an ‘hte’ instead of a ‘the’. I keep reading, and you’re back there, back in the comfort zone, back in the story. It’s playing out in your mind’s eye, and you’re there – then it happens again, this time because of an inappropriate apostrophe. I flick your eyelid with my nail. You’re on edge now, still lying there, still willing me on and hoping to get back to the good place, the happy place, the otherness in your head. But you’re braced against the mattress, stiff and uncomfortable, waiting for a pinged earlobe or twisted nose.
++++++How can you relax into the story when you’re just waiting to be pulled out of it? That’s the power of presentation, or rather, the power of bad presentation. If that analogy didn’t work for you, how about this one. Presentation is like a bra. You don’t notice it unless it’s lent something wonderful to what it holds within, or it’s doing a terrible job.
++++++We don’t mind the odd typo or grammatical lapse; indeed we’ll no doubt be guilty of them ourselves. We’re human and humane. A piece we’re struggling to decipher because of the your/you’re/youre or there/ther/their/theire’s within will not be read all the way through, and will not be selected. And we hate rejections. So don’t make us do it!
++++++Send us your babies. We’ll treat them with love. And if you don’t get a ‘yes’ this time, do try again. We’re rooting for you.
