Spotlight on Diabolical Plots & The Submission Grinder
David Steffen is an editor, software developer, and cross-stitcher. He is most well-known for editing Ignyte Award-winning online zine Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology and for administering the Submission Grinder. He has restored an old mill to working order, gone skydiving, and worked as a model (one of these things is not true), but his favorite hobby is collecting more hobbies.
What is the origin story for The Submission Grinder? How (and why) did you and Anthony Sullivan get it started, and what drives you to keep it going?
In 2013, a void had opened for science fiction writer tools to find publications and track submissions without requiring a paid subscription. Anthony and I both independently thought, “I could do that.” We joined forces and the site launched three weeks later. I feel driven to keep the site going because the starting purpose is still important to me: to remove barriers to writers who want to be published by giving them a frequently updated and free source of information. Financial barriers disproportionately affect new writers and marginalized writers. Anyone should be able to write, and the Submission Grinder helps make submitting more accessible and I’m proud of that. I’ve been working on plans to try to ensure that The Submission Grinder will outlive even me.
What are some of the biggest challenges or trickiest aspects with regards to the Grinder’s ongoing operations?
Thankfully, there have been quite a few volunteers who have helped check and update market listings, which has helped keep the workload manageable. The biggest challenge has been just trying to find more time to implement all of the features I want to see. We finally just rolled out non-fiction listings, just last year, which had been one of our most frequent requests.
What are the things you wish more people knew about the Grinder?
That people knew about the full set of features. It’s not uncommon for someone to reach out and request a feature we already have. Though I do enjoy replying to them to tell them we have gone back in time and fulfilled their request already! Such as the customized weekly newsletter that lists newly added and newly opened listings.
The site is free to use and the site notes the need for donations. Many publications in the genre short fiction industry find funding to be a major challenge. Some of the most popular magazines have even commented that a tiny fraction of readership financially supports their publications. How is the Grinder doing, and what do you need in order to keep going?
Diabolical Plots started as a blog in 2008. In 2013, the Submission Grinder launched. In 2015, DP started publishing stories from open submissions. The order is significant. For the first year or so of SG we had no route for donations but people kept on asking us for one so they could help out, so we were like “I suppose if people really want to support us we should let them.” Our hosting costs were pretty modest and those were covered by donations before too long and we started thinking about what else we would like to do, and using it to help usher more fiction into the world was a great way to use it. Sometimes people who want to start a magazine ask how we manage it and I always note that first starting a successful writer-based webtool is what worked for us but it’s not easy to apply that broadly! We get some from Patreon, PayPal, ebook royalties, speaking fees when I give the occasional publishing seminar, and we’ve done all right. In the beginning the donations were probably all for SG but I think now it’s a mix of donations for DP and SG together.
What was your original vision for Diabolical Plots, and has the magazine lived up to your vision, or has the vision changed over time?
I like the weird stuff, and at the time I felt that not enough publications were publishing stuff that fit my peculiar tastes. I’m talking about stuff like Everything Everywhere All at Once or Doom Patrol, that makes me want to laugh and cry and boggle all at once, and to be welcoming to everyone who wants to write or read that kind of fiction, regardless of demographic. My core vision was simply that if I published the kind of weird fiction I love to read most, that I could help increase the profile of weird fiction, and more weird fiction would be written. And, yeah, I think it has lived up to the vision, in my opinion!
For folks unfamiliar with the mag, if there were to take a look at two stories, which would you most want them to look at, and why?
“Regarding the Robot Raccoons Attached to the Hull of My Ship” by Rachael K. Jones and Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, written as a series of letters between two inventive and competitive sisters on a race to Mars.
“Beneath the Crust” by Phil Dyer, about a dangerous expedition into a parallel universe which takes the shape of whatever food you imagine, and the professional foodies who specialize in exactly this to ensure mission success.
You launched Diabolical Plots in 2015. As an editor and as someone who keeps tabs on magazines, what do you see as some of the most important changes in the genre short fiction industry over the past decade?
I have seen increased welcome to diversity instead of focusing on the old status quo. I have seen increased accessibility to the submission process, including but not limited to a shift from mailed submissions to electronic submissions in even the most venerable genre print mags, and a great increase in guidelines that allow simultaneous submissions. The biggest change from the outside is generative AI policies about fiction – I have been heartened that most genre magazines prioritize human creativity.
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