In my obsessive record-keeping that keeps me from writing, one of the things I do is track the number of honorable mentions various magazines’ stories get in the big "Year’s Best" anthologies.
I just got my hands on the 2008 Datlow-Link-Grant Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and did my tabulations. Under the cut are the number of HMs different magazines got in 2008, and also the number they got in 2007. (Originallly I also included the 2007 HMs that had none in 2008, but it made the post too big.) (Of course I counted them by hand, and only once, so I’m sure someone will correct me if I’ve miscounted.)
I’ve made some comments at the end of the table.
***
| Market | 2008 | 2007 |
|---|---|---|
| F&SF | 18 | 22 |
| All Hallows | 19 | 5 |
| On Spec | 17 | 10 |
| Goblin Fruit | 16 | 0 |
| Asimovs | 15 | 16 |
| Postscripts | 15 | 11 |
| Realms of Fantasy | 14 | 16 |
| Lone Star Stories | 12 | 10 |
| Subterranean | 11 | 7 |
| Strange Horizons | 10 | 16 |
| Andromeda Spaceways | 9 | 6 |
| Supernatural Tales | 9 | 6 |
| Clarkesworld | 9 | 3 |
| Black Static | 9 | 0 |
| Jabberwocky | 8 | 11 |
| Weird Tales | 8 | 9 |
| Horrors Beyond | 8 | 0 |
| Fantasy Magazine | 7 | 20 |
| Chizine | 7 | 12 |
| Apex | 6 | 7 |
| Philippine Specul Fic | 6 | 3 |
| Tin House | 6 | 3 |
| Mythic Delerium | 6 | 2 |
| Phantoms at the Phil | 6 | 0 |
| Not One of Us | 5 | 6 |
| Ellery Queen’s Mystery Mag | 5 | 3 |
| Midnight Street | 5 | 3 |
| Whispers of Wickedness | 5 | 1 |
| Doorways | 5 | 0 |
| Thrillers | 5 | 0 |
| Cemetery Dance | 4 | 11 |
| Star*Line | 4 | 8 |
| Bare Bone | 4 | 5 |
| Cabinet des Fees | 4 | 4 |
| Tesseracts | 4 | 3 |
| Tales of the Unanticipated | 4 | 3 |
| Dark Horizons | 4 | 2 |
| Aurealis | 4 | 1 |
| OSC’s Int Med Show | 4 | 1 |
| Dark Wisdom | 3 | 11 |
| Zahir | 3 | 10 |
| Interzone | 3 | 9 |
| Talebones | 3 | 8 |
| Paradox | 3 | 4 |
| Albedo One | 3 | 3 |
| Sybil’s Garage | 3 | 3 |
| Cincinnati Review | 3 | 1 |
| Helix | 3 | 1 |
| Wizards | 3 | 0 |
| Mid-American Review | 3 | 0 |
| Farrago’s Wainscot | 3 | 0 |
| Orb | 3 | 0 |
| Black Gate | 3 | 0 |
| Hobart | 3 | 0 |
| Space and Time | 3 | 0 |
| GUD Magazine | 3 | 0 |
| Shimmer | 2 | 8 |
| Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wr | 2 | 7 |
| Electric Velocipede | 2 | 7 |
| Dreams & Nightmares | 2 | 2 |
| Sirenia Digest | 2 | 2 |
| New Genre | 2 | 1 |
| Ploughshares | 2 | 1 |
| Ideomancer | 2 | 1 |
| Pindyldyboz | 2 | 0 |
| Hub | 2 | 0 |
| Esquire | 2 | 0 |
| Out of the Gutter | 2 | 0 |
| Web Conjunctions | 2 | 0 |
| Aoife’s Kiss | 2 | 0 |
| New England Review | 2 | 0 |
| Reflection’s Edge | 2 | 0 |
| Stand | 2 | 0 |
| American Short Ficion | 2 | 0 |
| Columbia | 2 | 0 |
| The Harrow | 2 | 0 |
| Coyote Wild | 2 | 0 |
| Borderlands | 1 | 5 |
| Flytrap | 1 | 4 |
| Abyss & Apex | 1 | 2 |
| New Yorker | 1 | 1 |
| Dark Animus | 1 | 1 |
| horrorworld.com | 1 | 1 |
| Outer Darkness | 1 | 1 |
| Paris Review | 1 | 1 |
| Ticonderoga Online | 1 | 1 |
| Jim Baen’s Universe | 1 | 0 |
| Redivider | 1 | 0 |
| Nature | 1 | 0 |
| Guardian | 1 | 0 |
| McSweeney’s | 1 | 0 |
| Himmelskabet | 1 | 0 |
| The Blotter | 1 | 0 |
| Behind the Wainscot | 1 | 0 |
| Cicada | 1 | 0 |
| Night Train | 1 | 0 |
| Serendipity | 1 | 0 |
| Nossa Morte | 1 | 0 |
| Alimentum | 1 | 0 |
| Lovecraft’s Disciplies | 1 | 0 |
| Island | 1 | 0 |
| Prairie Schooner | 1 | 0 |
| Fictitious Force | 1 | 0 |
| City Slab | 1 | 0 |
| Horror Lit Quarterly | 1 | 0 |
| Foundation | 1 | 0 |
| Tales of the Talisman | 1 | 0 |
| Southern Gothic | 1 | 0 |
| Sword Review | 1 | 0 |
| Allegory | 1 | 0 |
| Grendlesong | 1 | 0 |
| Beyond the Borderland | 1 | 0 |
| Swink | 1 | 0 |
| Cave Wall | 1 | 0 |
| Dark Discoveries | 1 | 0 |
| Daikaiju! | 1 | 0 |
The first thing that strikes me is the raw numbers: There are 116 different periodicals with HMs in 2008, compared to 142 in 2007
Also it interests me that there are a lot more "mainstream" or "literary" (or what Michael Chabon would call "Late 20th Century Anglo-American Naturalism") magazines on this list than on Dozois’s Year’s Best SF. We see Ploughshares, Tin House, American Short Fiction, not to mention slicks like New Yorker and Esquire. Part of this, no doubt, is that more fantasy/horror writers have crossed over into mainstream respectability than have SF writers (Mr. King and Mr. Maguire have to publish somewhere, after all). But also I think that it’s easier for a "mainstream" mag to pretend that a fantasy or horror story is really a "literary" story with one or two weird elements, and accept it because of its quality despite their "NO GENRE FICTION" warning on the Submission Guidelines. SF stories are, perhaps, easier to label as such?
I like the fact that there are several periodicals, such as Goblin Fruit, Black Static and Horrors Beyond, that weren’t on the list at all last year but have multiple HMs this year. Good show! On Spec, a favorite of mine, did remarkably well, and GUD got three HMs in its first year of eligibility! Nice going, kaolinfire!
And of course I got a broad grin on my face when I saw the HM for mmerriam‘s "And a Song in her Hair." Well done, Michael!
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Kenneth Schneyer 
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