As some of you know, I was on staff as a reviewer for
Withersin Magazine. I started in 2007 and worked hard for them up until their
website/magazine went on hiatus last year. Before that I had a review published
in a little magazine called Blood Rose (though they never credited me and I
think they died when they published the issue I’m in).
I originally starting sending out reviews because I wanted
greater exposure and I thought that I had something to say. I read anywhere
between 50-100 books a year and generally I have quite a few thoughts about
them. So when I was given the chance at Withersin to go to town I took it.
After a few hundred reviews to my name they went on hiatus like many magazine
tend to do, both small and large.
After some time I realized that I really enjoyed sharing my
views on certain things, especially those that aren’t seen by the mainstream as
much, and I missed writing reviews. With Withersin there was a certain formula
I followed but if I wanted to get more stuff out there I’d have to start over
from scratch. After a bit of searching I came up with a list of magazines
looking for reviews and started to write them again and send them in.
At first nothing happened (there is a type of rejection where
the publisher just doesn’t answer, people take this as a bad sign but in most
cases they are just too busy and you didn’t land on the right mark with your
piece). But then the rejection letters started coming in. They were hopeful and
made me change my style rapidly. And then the acceptances started coming in.
The first published review I wrote is here on Perihelion
Science Fiction, it is the second one down entitled “Hot Air In A Vacuum”:
Feel free to comment below and check out the magazine it is
pretty cool.
I’ll post the others as they are published.
