Editorial Changes at Fireside

Brian J. White is now the interim editorial director at Fireside Fiction Company. White founded Fireside in 2012 and was editor and publisher until mid-2017. In an announcement, he said,

Effective immediately, Pablo Defendini is resigning from all editorial functions at Fireside Fiction Company (comprising Fireside Magazine and Fireside Books), and I will be taking the role of interim editorial director. This comes directly as a result of Pablo’s publication of a racist audio recording of an essay last week.

I will be serving several roles in the capacity of interim editorial director: I will oversee the continuity of publication of Fireside’s contracted stories; lead a review and rework of Fireside’s quality control, production, and approvals process; and lead the search for a new editor-in-chief. While I will be working with the guest editors for each issue, story selection and editing will remain under their control.

Defendini will remain as art director and will handle finances and other administrative duties. Fireside has postponed its submission period for the Autumn 2021 issue, with a new date to be announced, will pause publishing on its website for the next several weeks, and will suspend publication of all audio recordings of stories indefinitely. White says he is “committed to finding a new editor-in-chief who comes from a marginalized background.”

For more information, see the Fireside website.

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