Best American Fantasy 4 readings plus assorted Book Porn

Today I received a large box full of lit journals, genre magazines, and all sorts of fictions in-between that straddle those invisible borders between the Fantastic and the Speculative.  Best American Fantasy co-creators Ann and Jeff VanderMeer sent to me over two dozen magazines and journals that are eligible for consideration for Best American Fantasy 4.  As new series editor, I get the fun task of reading through each of these (and several more) to narrow it down to 75-100 possible stories for the guest editor, Minister Faust, to select from for final addition to BAF 4 (which will be released in early 2011, for those who are eager to place their pre-orders).  I thought it would be a good idea to highlight the magazines and journals being considered with pictorials and name references.  So here goes:

On Spec, Fall 2009; The Mississippi Review Poetry Series (2010); Catherynne M. Valente, Under in the Mere (2009; short fiction); Green Mountains Review (vol. XXII, no. 1, 2009); American Short Fiction, Spring 2009; New Genre, Issue Six (2009); The Florida Review, Summer 2009; American Short Fiction, Winter 2009.

Harvard Review, 36 (2009); Witness, vol. XXII (2009); New England Review, vol. 30, no. 3 (2009); The Southern Review, Summer 2009; The Kenyon Review, Fall 2009; The Kenyon Review, Winter 2010.

Electric Velocipede, Fall 2009; Glimmer Train Stories, 73 (2009); Ecotone:  The Brutality Issue (2009); The Cincinnati Review, Winter 2010; Stefanie Freele, Feeding Strays (2009).

Here are some "extras" that the VanderMeers sent me (well, one is a duplicate copy of what I received from F&SF a couple of weeks ago) for my "leisure reading," if such a thing will exist before June.  Several of these certainly will be read in short order and will be listed in my magazine/journal reading list (said list excludes my readings of various non-fiction magazines, I ought to add).

Here are several books that I received from the Penguin Group/DAW and from Night Shade Books.  Will browse through the Datlow anthology (which appears to be a reprint one) to see if any stories are eligible for BAF4, but the others will have to await a free weekend, if that, for reading.

More books from the Penguin Group/DAW and one from Orbit US.  Like I said above, if read, these will have to await a weekend free from BAF4 readings.

Offerings from Night Shade and from Tor/St. Martin's Press.  The New Dead will be read for BAF4, the Erikson I read last year when I imported the book in hardcover form from the UK, the Teppo books will be read in my free time, and I have no idea when or if I'll get to the Maberry book.

Recent purchases (or at least those I had on hand).  Learning both Serbian and Attic/Koine Greek, thus the grammar, as well as The Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (and the deuterocanonical works).  Oh, and some Calvino and Eco in Italian to balance out the Aristophanes in dual Attic Greek/English translation.  Not a bad haul.  These are to be read/studied over several months.


Think these are enough readings to occupy me for a couple of weeks at least?