Jason Sizemore's Blog

Running a digital literary zine is rewarding, fulfilling work. I’ve been doing it in one version or another since 2011.

It’s also quite difficult to finance.

Back in 2022, Lesley Conner and I elected to make a run at trying to build a subscriber base large enough to solely support the zine’s costs. We fell short and all of 2024 has been a scramble for the company to find enough money to pay everybody.

After plenty of discussion with Lesley and the Apex team, we decided to shift course. We did the math and determined that our 2023 shortfall was approximately $30,000 for six issues. Not wanting to ask our readers for that much, we elected to to set our funding goal to $15,000 and promise three issues if we hit that goal. Every additional $5,000 beyond will see the release of another issue (up to six).

The funding goal has been structured to account for a monthly stipend for Lesley, Becky, Marissa, Leah, and Arie. They’re an incredibly hardworking crew, one I’m proud to be associated with and want to make sure they receive a bit more for their contributions.

Naturally, we plan to continue to pay SFWA pro-rates to our authors and fair rates to our other contributors.

If you love dark genre fiction and have a few bucks to spare, then check out our Kickstarter. We’d love to bring you another year of Apex Magazine!

Hey gang! Here I am once again making an effort to keep an active and up to date website. I must warn you, this will involve a whole lot of posts like this one where I will share news about my upcoming workshops, company ventures, and personal achievements.

But what is a professional website if not a place to showcase all the great things about yourself?

One of my proudest achievements is the Snap Judgement live critique series where the first 250 words of a story or first chapter is read aloud and feedback is given by three editors. I was inspired to start the series after participating in a similar event for a local writing center. Snap Judgement has taken on a life of its own and now runs without my direct involvement (though I do help find guests and work some behind-the-scenes).

Of the many writing subjects I’ve taught over the years, the first page workshop is among my favorite. So I’m bringing it back as our next Reach Your Apex workshop titled “Creating An Effective First Page.”

Registration is only $40. That nets you access to the workshop, the webinar lesson, and detailed feedback from me about your first page.

Sign up is limited to the first 20 students. Link is below!

Creating an Effective First Page

In the winter of 2020, I was diagnosed with a rare, invasive disease that required the removal of my mandible, a bunch of teeth, and various random glands. In their place the doctors built a new jaw out of my left fibula, leaving me with a pound of titanium and a wicked scar across my neck.

Thank goodness for doctors and science.

I was out of commission for a year. Then Covid happened. When the world (and I) were healthy enough once again, I charged out of the gate. I was mentoring for the local writing center, I joined the board of a local charity, I started Reach Your Apex, launched Snap Judgment, I’ve attended a bunch of conventions, ran three Kickstarters, am editing an anthology with Lesley Conner, another with Sheree Renée Thomas…it’s…a lot.

Around a year ago, I made managing editor Lesley Conner the co-editor-in-chief of Apex Magazine. The position fit her like a perfect mold. I saw someone doing the job far better than me, particularly since I was stretching myself thin in so many directions. The decision to make her editor-in-chief, singular, was easy.

Rebecca Treasure, our flash fiction editor, has added managing editor to her titles. Becky is also a perfect fit.

I’m still active with the zine, but more behind-the-scenes.

I’ve also disabled most of my social media accounts. We’ll call that the culling of time wasters. I’ve been dormant on Twitter since Musk took over, hardly used Instagram, and spent too much time on Facebook. Excising them from my life has been nice.

There is big news to share with Apex Book Company that will explain a lot of the reshuffling. I hope to be able to share next week.

In regards to my health, no surgeries on the horizon. Let’s keep it that way.

It took several months, but I finally have my personal website to a point where I’m happy to share it with you, the undulating masses! I hope you find it easy to navigate and full of interesting and useful content.

While I do plan to do some original content in the form of reviews, commentary, and travelogues, today I want to unload a bunch of information. I have somewhere north of sixteen coals in the fire that I want to share, so let’s get the show rolling.

Word Economy in Short Fiction — April 19th, 1pm, $15
This is an upcoming online webinar I’m running via the Apex Book Company’s Reach Your Apex program.

Junk words and phrases. We all use them: just, barely, hardly, look up to the sky. Apex Books and Apex Magazine editor Jason Sizemore will share his tips for making your writing tighter, more impactful, and less wishy-washy.I’m taking a limited number of freelance clients for editing work. If you’re interested head here and let me know.My personal online shop is live. Why order here rather than through Apex Books? Eh…convenience? You’re already here. Oh! Also, books bought through my site will be signed.My next in-person Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy writing group at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning starts on April 10th. If you live or near Lexington and you’re a new writer this is a great way to receive feedback, encouragement, and motivation to write!

Cheers!

When the news broke that Elon Musk was buying Twitter, I was thoroughly unimpressed and ambivalent. One rich asshole is the same as another to me, so I didn’t think much of the acquisition. But I failed to take into account that Musk would use Twitter as a tool to flex his enormous wealth, ego, and general reckless nature. Consider me out of the Twitter business.

I’m leaving my personal account active, but you won’t find me logging into Twitter unless the situation improves. I do have several other social media platforms I use regularly.

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jason.sizemore1

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jasonbsizemore

DISCORD: Jason Sizemore#3374

Be seeing you!

Hello there.

I am Jason. The last time I blogged here was January 2020.

I decided to give the website a facelift. Before my comeback in early 2020 was derailed by more health problems, I was in the process of launching the freelance side of my career. The site now has all that information.

Very soon, I plan to launch my first online workshop. Folks tell me they want them, so we will see if that’s the case.

If I’m able to find a routine and post weekly, I’ll be covering more fun topics such as writing, editing, movies, books, music, and television. Just like I’ve been doing intermittently over the past decade.

I’ll also be oversharing some of my medical trauma since 01/2020 related to my jaw replacement. It’s been over 3 years since the big surgery and I’m still undergoing painful oral procedures that feels like they occur every other month.

Oh, and Apex is still around. There will be plenty of alien head talk.

Thank you for rejoining me, friends. Let’s see what the world has in store for us.

On Monday, the Kickstarter to fund my latest anthology launched. Invisible Threads: Cutting the Ties That Hold Us will be co-edited with Lesley Conner and includes a great list of contributors including: Alix E. Harrow, Maurice Broaddus, Fran Wilde, Damien Angelica Walters, Chesya Burke, A.C. Wise, Andi Buchanan, Jordan Kurella, Beth Dawkins, ZZ Claybourne, Geoffrey Girard, Merc Finn Wolfmoor, KT Bryski, Michael Wehunt, Stephanie Malia Morris, and Sabrina Vourvoulias.

You can check out and back the Kickstarter here. As of this post, we are 48 hours into the project and we’re up to $2530. There is a long way to go until we hit $20,000!

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What am I referencing when I talk about invisible threads? Perhaps the clearest way to describe the anthology theme is to describe the short story by Beth Dawkins that inspired it. You’ll be able to read Beth’s story as it will appear in the book.

Roughly a year ago, Beth mentioned a piece she had submitted to popular genre publication. Her story had been originally written for Apex Magazine, but since I had placed the zine on hiatus, she needed a new home for it. I had published her before in the magazine, so I was interested to read her newest work.

Beth’s story is about a female protagonist who lives in a poor, rural community. She likes the people, her home, but she is constantly frustrated by her inability to jump over a massive wall that blocks her from escaping the outside world. Naturally, this metaphor is multi-layered and the plot is more intricate than this simple explanation would lead you to believe. The way Beth uses the wall as a representation of the poverty trap, societal expectations theory, and rural resentment serve as barriers of those who wish to enhance and explore their world was fascinating to me.

We all have different walls to climb unique to our geographic, economic, and social upbringing. I wanted to do an anthology with diverse perspectives that examines these barriers with stories containing protagonists overcoming and/or facing the obstacles that are attempting to hold them back.

Whereas Do Not Go Quietly was about revolution and was more politically charged, Invisible Threads will be more triumphant and inspirational. Certainly, the stories will contain plenty of anger and a call to fight, but it will strive to do so with a message of hope.

Below is the fabulous cover art by famous artist agnes-cecile (what a bit of luck Lesley and I had landing her!). I hope you will consider backing Invisible Threads. The Kickstarter runs through March 18th.

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I like commas. I detest semi-colons – I don’t think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn’t need them, they were fly-specks on the page.

E. L. Doctorow

Did you know that of the 1,146 pages comprising the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, 325 pages are dedicated to the proper usage of commas?

Okay, I pulled that fact out of thin air. But I bet many of you (myself included) would not be surprised if this was true. Out of all the elements of composition and grammar, the application of commas is simultaneously the most contested and the least important aspect of writing.

One of my most embarrassing editing experiences involves commas, a well-respected and uniquely talented writer of cosmic horror, and my personal obstinance. Way, way back in the early days of Apex Magazine, I approached this writer for a reprint. (She’ll remain anonymous because I don’t want anyone sending her this essay and reminding her of my mistakes.) Having her name in the zine would be a Big Deal. A stamp of quality and a statement of the type of content we wanted.

The query went well. She was gracious and obliged me with a fantastic story to reprint. I immediately accepted it and returned it to her with a couple of minor punctuation edits. 

Big mistake.

She castigated me via email. In terms of anger and vitriol, it was epic. To this day I turn to it when I need inspiration for self-righteous anger.

Like any good castigation, I was hurt terribly by her response. My edits consisted of what I considered easy-to-fix comma typos. I thought I was doing her a favor by pointing out the egregious mistakes that every reader was sure to spot, make note of, and file as a formal complaint to their favorite social media feed. An editor’s number one job is to make the writer look good, right?

When I throw back the curtain of time and view this incident from a distance of ten years, I recognize the error of editorial hubris. Perhaps it can be argued that her reaction was a bit harsh, but in truth, I see what fueled her frustration with me. At the time, I did not know that reprinted works are often published “as is,” meaning that they’re basically a facsimile of the original publication. This means the reprint publisher will run the work with a simple end-of-story tag like “Presented as originally published in Storyzine Weekly (2009).” I also failed to understand that commas, really, aren’t important enough to piss off a writer who you respect and admire.

Perhaps if I had simply apologized for my error, the situation could have been salvaged. But I was a young firebrand at the time (now I’m simply incorrigible). I wrote a response to her remarks with a precise argument outlining the importance of clean copy and the reader’s perception of a publication based on the quality of its copy editing. She withdrew her reprint and asked that our correspondence end.

I still cringe at my brashness. And, sadly, I’ve never had the opportunity to publish her work.

It wasn’t until a conversation I had a year later with renowned fantasist and vagabond, Lavie Tidhar, that I had my comma awakening. Lavie and I have a friendship of brutal honesty nurtured by a decade of running insults and showmanship. I had submitted edits to a story of his that was to run in Apex Magazine. He responded by sending me another copy of his original unedited manuscript. I asked him what was up.

I’ll paraphrase and edit for profanity. Lavie said, “Sizemore, you have to stop with the heavy comma edits. It makes you come across as a hack.”

I requested that he please elaborate. I’m many things … but a hack?

“Writers use commas as stage direction. Every comma I use has a purpose, regardless of whether it is grammatically correct or not. Don’t f*ck with them.”

*

Because this essay is about grammar, exceptions must be pointed out. Unless you’re dealing with a writer who is known as a grammatical stylist, there are a few basic comma rules that must be followed:

Commas need to be used to set off dialog tags.

Commas should be used in a list. Whether you use an Oxford comma is up to you. 

Use commas in numbers, e.g., 1,342. And to separate dates.

After e.g. and i.e.

You need a comma to accompany a conjunction with independent clauses.

Use a comma between a city and state.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s it. 

Grammarians will argue that there are other instances where commas have to be used. Technically, they are probably correct. In those cases, I will highlight the comma and add a comment that according to the Chicago Manual of Style the comma should be deleted, removed, or moved and let the author decide if the comma stays or the comma goes.

*

Even though I practice a laissez-faire philosophy to commas, there is one type of comma malpractice that makes me die inside when a writer stets a correction.

Comma splices.

Groan.

A comma splice occurs when authors try to smash together two independent clauses with a comma and no coordinating conjunction. E.g., “Jason Sizemore is a skilled editor, his rules on editing supersedes all others.” The correct form is to replace the comma with a period in the sentence.

Writers tend to use this erroneous construction when they’re trying to build urgency in their prose. Or they want the reader to mentally be out of breath. Or they simply want to annoy their editor. Or maybe all three!

*

Remember that copy editors aren’t targeting your commas out of spite. Sometimes, we are trying to save the day. Otherwise, you might end up with this sentence that appeared in a New York Times TV listing for a Peter Ustinov documentary: “Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.” 

On the other side of the spectrum, not editing rogue commas can create a sticky political problem, such as the grammatically atrocious second amendment of the US Bill of Rights.

As a writer, you have control of your commas. But be careful how you wield them!

Editorial Content is the name of the monthly essay I write about editing topics for the Apex Book Company Patreon backers. Here is a preview of this month’s essay “Comma Sense.”

Did you know that of the 1,146 pages comprising the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, that 325 pages are dedicated to the proper usage of commas?

Okay, I pulled that fact out of thin air. But I bet many of you (myself included) would not be surprised if this was true. Out of all the elements of composition and grammar, the application of commas is simultaneously the most contested and the least important aspect of writing.

One of my most embarrassing editing experiences involves commas, a well-respected and uniquely talented writer of cosmic horror, and my personal obstinance. Way, way back in the early days of Apex Magazine, I approached this writer for a reprint. (She’ll remain anonymous because I don’t want anyone sending her this essay and reminding her of my mistakes.) Having her name in the zine would be a Big Deal. A stamp of quality and a statement of the type of content we wanted.

The query went well. She was gracious and obliged me with a fantastic story to reprint. I immediately accepted it and returned it to her with a couple of minor punctuation edits. 

Big mistake.

To read the entire essay, head over to the Apex Book Company Patreon and join at the $1 tier.

My recovery from a triple mandibular resection last February continues. The debridement surgery in September created a major quality of life improvement. Pieces of the bone that didn’t survive the transplant in February were removed, allowing my gum tissue to finally heal. My food options multiplied greatly. I’ve even gained a few pounds back from the 30 I lost.

The next step is a bone and marrow transplant from the pelvic area of my hip bone to the area of my replaced jaw that was excised in September. They grind up the bone and marrow from my hip and mix with a substance call bone morphogenetic protein. My surgeon described it as a kind of fertilizer for bone regrowth. This stuff is surgically placed in the debridement area in a mesh and allowed to heal and grow for several months.

The date of the bone graft surgery is January 24th. I can expect at least one night in the hospital. Lots of swelling. Plenty of pain. Liquid only diet for 5 days. It won’t be pleasant, but compared to what I went through last February, this will be a walk in the park!

All of this leads to the moment I’ve been waiting for…the installation of my implant posts and my new set of teeth. The surgeon and I hope that I heal quickly enough so that he can do the procedure before May 1st (when I’m set to travel to Indianapolis to be a guest of honor at Mo*Con). I will be a lot less self-conscious with my teeth than without!

Why self-conscious? Because not having bottom teeth affects my speech. I can be hard to understand at times due to the lack of teeth and the partial lip and face paralysis. From a vanity standpoint, the right side of my face is going slack due to the lack of a large bone presence and teeth to support the tissue. The permanent dentures should alleviate that issue.

Plus, it’s hard to eat and I make a mess. I don’t want Maurice Broaddus to have to hire a handler to dab sauce off my chin!