The Candle Still Burns October 16, 2006 – Posted in: Sybil's Garage

Yes, we are still reading. The Sybil’s Garage candle still burns. We heaped through a large pile of slush this weekend (and one of our readers even experienced an earthquake — thankfully she, her husband, and all of her birds are safe), and now we are finally catching up again.

Here are the latest statistics:

• 105 story submissions so far
• 78 rejections emailed
• 3 acceptances

For poems:

• Approximately 20 submissions
• 10 rejections
• 3 acceptances

Response times are averaging 8 days (not bad, eh? Send us your stuff! We respond quick!)

The quality has been very good so far, and we’ve seen some very good stories that just weren’t quite right for us. Some, of course, have been awful. But then there’s that special feeling you get when you pull a gem out of the slush pile — the same feeling Archimedes probably had when he discovered buoyancy and ran naked through the streets. Devin J. Poore calls that feeling “like a kick in the gut.” There are few things in life where I’d want to say this, but please, kick me some more.