Contents

• Introduction by Nisi Shawl, Somto Ihezue, and Zhui Ning Chang
• Inside the Fiction Editor’s Mind: Does the Writer’s Identity Matter?  by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
• Take Editing Humor Seriously. Please. by James Beamon
• Working with Your Career’s “Track Changes”: Advice from One BIPOC Editor by Diana M. Pho
• Yes, We Need Diverse Books, But We Also Need Diverse Reviewers–Still* by Erika Hardison
• The Ballad of the Slush Reader: What I’ve Learned (And What I Want to Know) about Reading Slush – by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas
• Culture: Moving Beyond Set Dressing by Kanishk Tantia
• Dance the Exotic Dance for Me! by Yoon Ha Lee
• The Inexorable Growth of BIPOC in Publishing by Emily Jiang

The Publishing Taught Me anthology project was created, proposed, and supported by an all-SFWA volunteer team, and funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Essay selection and revision was overseen by multiple award-winning editor Nisi Shawl and their two editorial interns, Somto Ihezue and Zhui Ning Chang.  Shawl, Ihezue, and Chang, and our stalwart SFWA volunteers also created and presented the project’s two online panels.  Here are links to our YouTube recordings of the panels, which took place on October 25, 2024 (with Somto Ihezue, Zhui Ning Chang, Diana M. Pho, and Erika Hardison) and on October 29, 2024 (with Nisi Shawl, Kanishk Tantia, Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas, and Emily Jiang).

We hope that the insights offered on the panels and in this anthology prove helpful for many years to come.

The Publishing Taught Me project was overseen by multiple award-winning editor Nisi Shawl and two editorial interns, Somto Ihezue and Zhui Ning Chang.