October’s Table of Contents

From the Editors

Ah, October. The beginning of autumn weather (at least in the northern hemisphere), families gathering for Thanksgiving (in Canada, anyway), Halloween candy… and of course, Halloween stories.

We are ecstatic to have our old look back, and all of our features and pages functional again at last. Please let us know if you’re still having any problems with the site, but as far as we can tell everything should be back to normal.

And now, let’s take a moment to pause and appreciate everything our excellent slush readers and editorial assistants do to keep us editors sane and the magazine running. In fact, it’s a great time to appreciate all the slush readers and editorial assistants in the wider publishing community who make online reading and e-zines possible at all. So here is a big “thank you, you’re awesome” to our team, and to all the volunteers and interns and token-barely-paid and for-the-love people who keep the flow of stories going around the world, often with little or no recognition and appreciation — it couldn’t and wouldn’t happen without you!

Here’s hoping your month is no tricks and all treats!

For Readers

The second weekend in October is Canadian Thanksgiving, and in honour of that, we’re featuring “Personally” by Barbara Mountjoy on October 9th.

Then, at the end of the month, we have a whole string of ghost and horror and Halloween stories for you, starting with Peter Tupper‘s “Worn-out Monsters” on October 24th and ending up with Gretchen Bassier‘s “Lady Gaga’s Revenge” on October 31st.

For Writers

We’re still looking for Veterans’ Day/Remembrance Day/Armistice Day stories for November, and we’re ready for your Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter Holiday stories too.

Did you know that stories published in Every Day Fiction keep getting read long after their publication dates? For instance, “The Only Difference Between Men and Boys” by Nicholas Ozment was published on July 21, 2008 — it was read an average of six times a day during the month of September 2011 — and “The Unstoppable Evelyn McHale, May 1, 1947” by Jason Stout was published on October 5, 2008 — it was read an average of eight times a day in August 2011 and spiked up to seventeen times a day in September. Stories that make it onto our Top Stories list can do even better; “Darren Is Updating His Facebook Status” by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (published on October 28, 2008) is currently averaging 30 to 31 reads a day. Not only does this make our story sponsorship an even better deal, it primarily means that a story published in EDF can keep on generating reads and new fans for the author indefinitely. That makes us feel, well, rather good.

And now, on to the stories we have lined up for readers this month…

October’s Table of Contents