In July 2013, I served as the “editor-in-residence” for the Codex Writing Group, which meant basically I was asking a month-long AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) interview. With Codex’s permission, I’m re-posting the Q&As here on my blog. The questions were all provided by members of Codex.

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Do you ever read a story and think, “Yeah, this is great. Great story, well done, an important story even. But I don’t like it.”

Oh, sure. I don’t like plenty of “important” stories! I can think of any number of classics that seem universally loved yet I don’t connect with them at all, though at the same time I can appreciate why so many other people found them to be excellent.

One of the challenges as an editor is whether or not to publish such stories. Obviously if I *hated* a story I wouldn’t publish it even if it seemed like one of those “important” stories, but in the cases where it’s maybe not quite my cup of tea, but is obviously a good story…that’s where it’s tough. Because at least some readers are reading my magazines and anthologies at least in part because they specifically trust my taste, so if I ever deviate from my completely honest opinion (i.e., trying to guess what other people will like), that’s dangerous territory.

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