It was a pleasure for me to ask Teresa Keene questions because it was like writing to a friend rather than doing an "official" interview. Aside from producing a much needed magazine for the market (it's hard to find classic sci-fi pubs these days!) Teresa Keene is an extremely nice lady with a wonderful sense of humour. It's a pleasure to be able to bring you an interview with her.

SHAUNA: All right, Teresa. Tell us about Keen Science Fiction. What makes it different from other science fiction magazines?

TERESA: Well, it's different in that I try to showcase my writers. I don't see too many publications, either amateur, semi-pro or professional that do that. I don't know why they don't. As a reader, I've always enjoyed it when I could read something about the writer of a story I'd just written. Also, I enjoy setting up their stories. This is not a new idea. Asimov used to love to introduce the writers and short stories in the anthologies he edited, and that was always one of my favourite things. And also, look at Bob Dorian on the AMC cable channel . . . you tune in, thinking, "What am I doing here? this movie doesn't look any good!" Then Bob says something interesting about the film, and by golly your mouth is watering, and there you are, stuck, watching the film. So I prime the pump, and lots of readers have told me they really enjoy that.

SHAUNA: As an editor, do you have any pet peeves regarding submissions? Aside from submitting the wrong genre, what is it about a story that gives it the "kiss of death" and makes you reject it?

TERESA: I look at a ms and the first thing I want to know is, is it under my word limit, 4k? If not, boom, it's out the door, I don't look at it. I can't afford the time to read something I can't possibly publish, and over 4k is my strictest no no. Next, I sort the stories into 4 piles. 0-1K words, 1-2K words, 2-3K words, and 3-4K words. I read the shortest ones first, as I prefer them. I spend two whole days a month, a reading marathon, going through them all. I really enjoy it, but by the time I get to stories that are around 2,500 words or more, I'm getting a little tired, so a story has to be really, really good at that length! You can rail at this fact, but that's the way I do things. It's my way of discouraging writers from sending me so many, but they still gripe and push my word limit! You gotta love 'em.... I constantly get mail saying, "Doggone it, Teresa! When will you accept something in the 5-6K word range? I can't possibly develop my plots and characters in a meaningful manner in a shorter format, *#&%#!!!" Well, sorry, gals and guys, but I like 'em short, period. Other editors like 'em long, send your stuff there if you can't hack it. But I'll always be waiting when that short short pops out of your head! Other things that cause instant rejection: Filthy language! I mean the bad stuff, not hell or damn or that sort. I'm talking the biologically offensive words. I see one, boom, that's story's out. Next, sex. Leave it out, I don't want it, it doesn't belong in classic SF, let your story rely on good storytelling instead of titillation. Finally, and I have a real peeve about this, AGGRESSIVELY WEED OUT YOUR PASSIVE VOICE !!! I hate that! I like stories that are, yes, expository. Beginning, middle, end. No flashbacks. No, "We were in the ship, and I had been eating dinner, when John was struck by a thought." All passive voice. Drives me nuts.

But please, writers, remember . . . you have a wayyyyy better chance of getting your story accepted if it's on the low end of my word count. Of course I publish lots of 3-4K stories, too, but they've really gotta have some oomph to them.

SHAUNA: Who are some of your favourite writers being published in the semi-pro market today?

TERESA: That's easy. All my writers! Ha ha, I know you want specifics, but before I give them to you, I just want to say to my writers, hey, I can't name all 80 or so I've published so far, so if you're not here don't have your little feelings hurt, I still love you! I think Michael Ambrose, editor of the defunct "Argonaut", who is just starting to work seriously on his own writing career, shows tremendous talent. When I read his story, "String of Pearls" for the first time, my mouth just watered. I think I mailed off the contract faster than I ever had before, I was so worried that someone else would buy it. That was the first time I cursed my relaxed attitude toward simultaneous subs! I also think very highly of Gail Hayden's work . . . she writes smart, yet reader-friendly. Sandra Saidak writes really sensitive, human stuff . . . Albert Manachino is terrific, really humorous. John Rosenman, Charlee Jacob, Chris Holliday and James S. Dorr all pull my chain. I have upcoming work from all of them, too, fortunately. But I gotta mention a couple of writers who are really rocking my acceptance file . . . Resa Nelson and D.A. Houdek. Fantastic!!

SHAUNA: What advice would you give someone who wanted to have work published in Keen Science Fiction?

TERESA: I'd say, relax. Send me a nice, chatty cover letter with your ms. Forget the rules that say, "Be succinct, short and business-like in your cover letter." Man, I'm just a nice, normal, woman who is also a writer. I get rejected too. I like you right off the bat, unless you give me reason not to by deliberately trying to goad me, and you have to be really, really nasty to do that. Assume that I'm your sister and we haven't caught up in a while. How's your career going? Why'd you write the story? Whatever. Just be yourself is what I mean. I'm not saying that I want to wade through a six page letter! But good friendly covers really warm me up to a writer, make me eager to get on to the story, make me WANT to like it. Helps me when I've just read my 195th manuscript and am feeling a bit crunchy. Perks my interest back up, refreshes me for your piece, so to speak. Coffee and donuts can only go so far. I'm totally serious about this. The best thing you can do, (once you've followed all the above mentioned rules, of course.)

SHAUNA: Since you're a writer as well as an editor, I have to ask. Which do you enjoy more? Has being an editor helped you as a writer?

TERESA: I like the anonymity of being an editor. I take guilty pleasure in it. I say that because, although I love to write, I am not enjoying the other stuff that comes along with it. For example, I have several readings and interviews coming up for publicizing my new book, and I hate doing that!!! I really hate it. I dread it. But the writing is a wonderful thing, isn't it? I mean, you can't get around that basic fact, can you? I want to write without having to do all the business that comes with it. But I'm not famous enough to get away with that! Not famous enough to get away with being a solitary, curmudgeonly writer. My dream is to be Salinger when I grow up. Holed up somewhere, God knows where, writing "Field of Dreams" under a pen name (my theory, anyhow) and being left blissfully alone.

SHAUNA: I understand you won a literary award of some kind. What was it? Tell us about it!

TERESA: I won the 2nd Quarter, 1995 Masters Literary Award, along with 2 others for that quarter, sponsored by Circle Press. But they sent me a note saying that with government cutbacks to the arts, they've suspended publication of their "Arts and Literary Journal" which would've published my story. Now I'm wondering lately if I've been had, as their recent listings in "Novel and Short story Market" say they're paying even more money than ever to winners, etc. Cutbacks? Or screwing some of us over? Maybe this'll get back to them and I'll get a angry letter . . . anything would be nice! The story was a sf short entitled, "Waking Up Helpless in the Post Impact Era." I love it, but ten magazines have turned it down since the Masters people released it back to me. So maybe it wasn't so great, or maybe it's just too old-fashioned. Probably the only contemporary SF zine who would publish it now is Keen Sci Fi, because it likes old-fashioned stuff!! Unfortunately, I don't publish my own work!

SHAUNA: How about the books you've written; what are they about?

TERESA: Well, the one that's out is "White Cats and Lilacs," a collection of essays, published by Howell Press in Virginia. They were originally columns I'd written for a small Texas paper during 1994 and 1995. I'm proud of this book, if I do say so. It's a sweet thing, sometimes I can't even believe I wrote those things. I'm working on another collection of essays with a writing partner. We're seeking out essays from Western women writers on "western gentility," or on the manners we were taught by our mothers, what society expects of us, etc. We're just starting, so any Western women who'd like to submit a contribution for possible use in the book may certainly contact me!!! Address queries with your thoughts on possible essay work to me: "Western Women," c/o Teresa Keene, PO Box 9067, Spokane, WA 99209-0067. I'll send you a more complete idea of what we're looking for. My writing partner and I will be contributing plenty of writing, too, but mainly we'll be editing and marketing it. We have a NY agent lined up who is eager to get started. Also, I'm outlining a mystery. Those take time. I usually don't outline, but mysteries, of course, are puzzles. You can't just jump into it unless you're Albert Einstein, or something, able to keep all the facts and pieces straight in your head for 100,000 words! At least I can't. I wrote a novel about a masseuse called "Patsy," and the fireman who's in love with her, but it's rocky and my husband, who is my official partner now on it, is reworking it for me. I spent two years on it and can't be objective anymore. He says it's great but it looks like a stinker to me. But who wants to waste a whole novel? So he's fixing it and I am delighted. That book, if it ever gets published, will be by "John and Teresa Keene,"!! I also work on another little book of essays every time I have a spare hour or so. It's entitled, "You look Like Ten Miles of Gravel Road," subtitled, "Or, It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!" This is a collection of essays about family life in an extended family. I think my forte is with essays.

SHAUNA: Other than your own pub, do you have a favourite science fiction magazine?

TERESA: Shauna, I love these questions! They're interesting, but still not too hard to answer! I've just read my first issue of Blythe Ayne's "Year 2000, " and it is really delightful. I also really enjoy the new "Fantastic Worlds," as well as Bryan Lindenberger's "Fortress." Very strong editors of very nifty, fascinating magazines. And I tell everybody this, but it's hard to say when she's the one interviewing me, but I LOVE Shauna Skye's Moonletters Netletter for Editors. God, that thing cracks me up.

SHAUNA: What do you find appealing about science fiction?

TERESA: Oh, my, I'd have to say the whole idea of human beings doing something right to the point that they have this incredible, rich, fascinating future ahead of them! That we make it 100 or 1000 years more! That we discover really groovin' things like how to travel across the galaxy, the Universe, or time! I find the whole thing delicious. But I can't stand alien abduction crap. I don't think it's happening, and I veer away from stories that take it seriously. I'm afraid we're getting carried away by some sort of bizarre mass hysteria. I recommend that everybody read Carl Sagan's stupendous book, "The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a candle in the dark," that he wrote with his wife, Ann Druyan. He explains many things in an orderly, logical and calm manner, without putting down anyone's beliefs. Crop circles? He's got the answers. Same with so-called "aliens," "faces on Mars," etc. You think as an SF fan you've got an open mind? So many refuse to read his books because it doesn't tell them what they want to hear. Real SF should be fun, not based on some panic-based, primordial fear of "haunts" or little green mean who, coincidentally, steal us away while we sleep. Ever heard of bad dreams?

SHAUNA: Do you have any guesses about the future of sci-fi?

TERESA: I'd guess that SF is going to continue to appeal to people, as long as the hard-core nuts don't scare everyone away. I won't name names, but if you persist in putting out stuff that only appeals to an infinitesimal section of the population that can understand quantum physics and left-wing utopian allegory, then you're going to lose a lot of people, and that's why SF zine circulations are shrinking or stagnating. Hey, I admire that stuff . . . it's intelligent, it's based on really smart scientific extrapolation of contemporary science as we know it. It's incredible. But it's a lot of work to read, and most of us just don't have the time to go back to college, get our PhD's, and figure it out. Liven it up. Get their blood flowing. You may look down your noses at us if you wish, but we're still the ones with the dollars that you want, and we want to be entertained. We want some hope for our futures.

SHAUNA: Last but not least, do you have anything you'd like plug, promote, or comment on? If so, please feel free to ramble. The floor is all yours.

TERESA: Well, just because SF fans are reading this doesn't mean you won't like my collection of essays, set against a backdrop of flower gardening. Sounds wimpy, but once people read it they find themselves wanting to spend way too much money on their seed catalogues, so I know it's influential! (giggle) Also, if you'd like to subscribe to Keen Science Fiction, but are a bit cash-shy at the moment, you can just write or email me for your order. I'll get your subscription started and include a bill, you can pay when you can afford it, I'll give you a couple months, so relax. You'll really enjoy it!

For subscribers, they get Novembers full-sized "All Time Travel!" edition included at no extra charge. But if you want to order it all by itself, it's $6.50 ppd. It's a cool issue, with way more stories, and longer stories, than usual, and everyone of them is a neato-bandito time-travel piece. Writers include: Jonny M. Duffy, Mark Wolverton, J.D. Jacob, Templeton Rex, Christopher Holliday, Tony Plank, Bradley E. Duncan, Ray Roberts, Robert A. Koslover, and poetry by Charlee Jacob.

Copyright © 1996 by Shauna Skye. All Rights Reserved.