All responses have gone out. I'd promised mid-October and mid-October I delivered ... so to speak. Again, I apologize for having to spread it out over the course of a few days. I wish there was a magic button somewhere I could have pressed and sent everyone a response at the same time, but alas, that button does not exist (as far as I know). Plus, if you send out too many e-mails in a short amount of time using Gmail, Google thinks you're a spammer and suspends your account for an hour or two, so that didn't help matters either. Anyway, I'd said this anthology would include between 100 and 150 stories. The magic number falls right between that: 125. Could I have added more stories? Probably. But for me this was a matter of quality over quantity (not that there weren't a lot of good stories, because there were, but, well, I will explain more about the entire process and my thoughts in the next blog post).
So 125 stories out of more than 2,500 stories submitted (counting both the initial contest and this open reading period). That's a lot of stories, even if they are 25 words or less.
Note too that four writers have two stories each -- which is fascinating, as the stories were read blind. Also, what's very cool is that this anthology marks the first sale for a handful of writers.
A few of the writers whose stories I've accepted have yet to get back to me, so I haven't included their names, but here are the writers whose work will appear in Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Less (still working title) that is tentatively scheduled to be published by Norton in the fall of 2010:
Jenn Alandy, Nick Arvin, Samuel Baldwin, Max Barry, Kirsten Beachy, L.R. Bonehill, Ryan W. Bradley, Gary A. Braunbeck, William Brazill, Yvonne Brockwell, Jeremy D. Brooks, Randall Brown, Ken Bruen, Stace Budzko, James Burt, Frank Byrns, Jonathan Carroll, John Cashman, Adam-Troy Castro, Douglas Clegg, Danielle Combs, Chris Compson, John Connors, Hannah Craig, Brian Crawford, Blake Crouch, Kirk Curnutt, Tara Deal, Gay Degani, Stephen Dunn, Nicole Duson, Stuart Dybek, David Erlewine, Camille Esses, Merrilee Faber, Nada Faris, Jamie Felton, James Frey, Janet E. Gardner, Roxane Gay, Shanna Germain, Tess Gerritsen, Bill Graffius, Charles Gramlich,Val Gryphin, Jane Hammons, Ann Harleman, Bruce Harris, Donora Hillard, Rachel Lopez Hohenshell, Robin Hollis, Kevin Hosey, Eric Hsu, Gregg Hurwitz, Ben Jahn, Ha Jin, Jason Jordan, David Joseph, Michael Kelly, Jack Ketchum, Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath, Christina Kopp, Minter Krotzer, Joe Lansdale, Don Lee, Min Jin Lee, Sarah Lyons, K. J. Maas, Nick Mamatas, Lewis Manalo, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Michael Martone, Natalie McNabb, David Miller, Sarah P. Miller, Ty Miller, John Minichillo, Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz, Christoffer Molnar, Madeline Mora-Summonte, Rose Rappoport Moss, Barry Napier, Joyce Carol Oates, Brendan O’Brien, Daniel A. Olivas, Will Panzo, Edith Pearlman, Benjamin Percy, Sophie Playle, Jason Rice, Katrina Robinson, Jess Row, Robin Rozanski, Kathleen A. Ryan, Marcus Sakey, Joe Schreiber, Jessa Slade, Noel Sloboda, Andrea Slye, Jenn Sober, Kelly Spitzer, Agnieszka Stachura, J. J. Steinfeld, Peter Straub, Jake Thomas, Bob Thurber, Jade Walker, Ben White, Amber Whitley, Sue Williams, F. Paul Wilson, Robley Wilson, Mercedes M. Yardley, Mabel Yu, J. Matthew Zoss
Thanks again to everyone who submitted. There was a lot of great work, and as always this publishing game is subjective. Also, I'm behind on e-mails, so if you e-mailed me in the past couple days and haven't heard back, I'm not ignoring you and will respond as soon as I can. Until then, I'm off to rest my weary head.