Because of these several impediments, as well as other technical difficulties, you will find typos and occasional replication of text. In our humble opinion, typos show that the logs are of *live* chats, not canned interviews, and minimal editing of these logs has taken place.

Datlow's solo anthologies are BLOOD IS NOT ENOUGH, ALIEN SEX, A WHISPER OF BLOOD, OFF LIMITS, LITTLE DEATHS, LETHAL KISSES, and just out, an sf anthology called VANISHING ACTS, on the theme of endangered species. Datlow was formerly the Fiction editor at Omni for 16+ years and Editor of Event Horizon, online.

[Ellen_Datlow] Hi everyone.
[Cybling] Good morning Ellen!
[Pam_M] hi, Ellen
[Cybling] So good to see you here at the WorldCon!
[DavE] If she's an editor, that means we get to criticize her typing and grammar...
[Cybling] If you have questions for our guest, please just ask. But please, let the guest answer one before asking another. Thanks!
[RWC] Hi Ellen
[Ellen_Datlow] Noooo.
[VeronicaMatrix] Hello Ellen
[Ellen_Datlow] That's not fair.
[DavE] Ellen: Just kidding, irc is informal.
[Ellen_Datlow] Hi Veronica and everyone else.
[Cybling] LOLOL....folks, please remember that our chat guests are typing on an unfamiliar laptop at a lousy height.
[Ellen_Datlow] I know. I've done it before.
[RWC] Do you type right?
[Ellen_Datlow] I hate proofreading.
[Cybling] LOL...RWC?
* VeronicaMatrix hates proofreading too
[Cybling] Ellen, how's the convention treating you so far.
[VeronicaMatrix] lol
[RWC] Too bas, it helps the reader;)
[DavE] Ellen: Have you bought any stories at this convention?
[Ellen_Datlow] Very well, I'm having a great time. Just not enough sleep. But that's usual for a worldcon.
[RWC] And I type wrong, shame on me
[Ellen_Datlow] I wouldn't buy a story at a convention. (Unless I went to a reading and bought it right then)
[Ellen_Datlow] I nag all my writers to send me stuff while I'm at conventions.
[DavE] Let me rephrase: What new professional connections have you made?
[Ellen_Datlow] Usually, a few weeks after I get home I get a bunch of mss in.
[TheThe] Ellen: How would you define the difference between scifiction and EHorizon?
[Cybling] Good question DavE. Ellen, and editor's trip to a convention is a lot different from a fan's or a writer's experience I would assume.
[RWC] What about a story of an editor who slept badly and was abducted by aliens?
[Cybling] Folks...let's hold on the questions for a minute.
[Ellen_Datlow] SCI FICTION is aimed at a mass audience. I'm not buying things that are that different from EH...
[Ellen_Datlow] but I've got to be aware of the difference in audience and not buy something too esoteric--yet.
[Cybling] cool.
[Pam_M] Are you taking submissions?
[Ellen_Datlow] you can always throw in a ringer once your venue is respected and you get the readers used to what you're doing.
[Cybling] Hold on questions please...don't make me get out the cast-iron skillet.
* VeronicaMatrix hides
[Ellen_Datlow] (sorry You're and 'your" crisis)
[Ellen_Datlow] Yes, I'm taking submissions.
[Ellen_Datlow] Do you need my submission address?
[Pam_M] yes
[Ellen_Datlow] It's not on the site.
[Ellen_Datlow] Yes, it IS on the site. Sorry.
[Ellen_Datlow] It's under the guidelines.
[Cybling] Thanks Ellen.
[RWC] Would you be very submussive?;)
* Cybling thwaps RWC with the Sears Tower Pillow.
[Cybling] Folks..would you like the submission address here?
[RWC] Oh sorry
[Ellen_Datlow] 48 Eighth Avenue, PMB 405, NY NY 10014.
[Pam_M] Are we talking EHorizon?
[Ellen_Datlow] EH is dead. I'm now editing Ficiton for SCIFI.COM.
[Ellen_Datlow] The fiction area is called SCI FICTION and it's under the sf presents section of SCIFI.COM
[Pam_M] That's what I thought
[Cybling] Okay, we're ready for more questions, so ask away...just remember let her answer one before asking another.
[Ellen_Datlow] It's a little confusing to find if the fiction is not features on the front page.
[TheThe] I must say I love the work you do in scifiction. When some of the originals are better (to my mind) than the classics, you know you've got something good going.
[DavE] Ah, I'm glad to see the scifi.com domain being used properly.
[Ellen_Datlow] But we've got six section competing for space on the front page.
[Cybling] HOld Now...we have two.
[Ellen_Datlow] TheThe. Thank you.
[Cybling] Sorry...just a comment.
[Cybling] Okay, Ellen...you're an award winning editor...
[Cybling] so I need to ask you what the most recent analogy on the shelves is?
[Cybling] Sorry...early...Anthology.
[Ellen_Datlow] Uh. You mean anthology?
[Cybling]
[==Brain dead here.
[Ellen_Datlow] I've got four this year--the last adult fairy tale antho, Black Heart, ivory Bones (with terri),
[RWC] What criteria are you using to choose fiction?
[DavE] Do you think editors should be credited in the books they edit?
[Ellen_Datlow] Vanishing Acts, my endangered species antho from Tor,
[Ellen_Datlow] A WOlf at the door, a fairy tale antho with TW that's aimed at 8-12 year olds and the YBFH #13.
[RWC] But it could reach adults
[Ellen_Datlow] RWC: it depends on the venue. For SCIFI.COM I mostly want sf but am buying some hard edged fantasy.
[DavE] The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12.
[Ellen_Datlow] I want really good, well told stories with three dimensional characters and lots of subtext.
[Ellen_Datlow]
[g]
[Ellen_Datlow] In other words, the perfect story.
[TombAFK] bbl all
* DavE writes four dimensional characters.
[Ellen_Datlow] Re: credit on books I have mixed feelings about that...
[RWC] Well, if you take Harry Potter, a lot of adults are buying it
[Ellen_Datlow] on one side I feel that the editor of a novel should be invisible but as an editor I know how much editors need the validation of...
[Ellen_Datlow] the readers knowing what they do.
[Ellen_Datlow] I'm consulting for Tor and have bought two books for them. I'd like to think my authors will acknowledge me in the books but they probably won't.
[Cybling] Folks, this is a rare opportunity. We have Ellen Datlow taped to the hotseat in the Green Room, if you have a question for her, now's the time. And questions are those sentences with question marks on the ends.
[RWC] And Barnes and Nobles don;t seem to aim "A wolf at the door" to children
[Pam_M] do you prefer any particular length for stories?
[DavE] Good comment on the editor's credit!
[Ellen_Datlow] Pam: Right now I want stories under about 12,000 words. I take novellas but am booked through next year on those.
[RWC] Okay, Cybling, I shut up:)
[Ellen_Datlow] I'm doing one original per WEEK so have a lot of slots to fill with all sorts of fiction.
[Ellen_Datlow] Isn't A WOLF AT THE DOOR in the children's section of bn.com?
[Ellen_Datlow] I haven't really checked. I do know the book is in its second printing, less than a month after publication.
[Cybling] This is wonderful.
[Cybling] Folks...if you've asked a question that we've missed, please repost.
[Ellen_Datlow] And adults have been coming up to me saying they really like Wolf--which at first completely shocked me.
[Cybling] Because you are marketing it to children?
[Pam_M] Good fiction knows no age limit.
[TheThe] Ellen] What books did you buy for Tor?
[Ellen_Datlow] Yes. Funnily enough I had lunch with Gahan Wilson a few weeks ago and he was reviewing Wolf...
[Ellen_Datlow] for Realms of F. While he was in the men's room I looked at the galleys and his notes made it..
[Ellen_Datlow] obvious that he thought it was an adult antho. I told him it was fro children and he insisted it wasn't.
[DavE] Yeah, but that's Gahan Wilson...
[Ellen_Datlow] I pointed out that the galleys clearly say S&S children's and 8-12 year olds and he was very embarrassed.
[Cybling] lol
[Ellen_Datlow] He had to reread the book and rethink his comments, I think.
[Ellen_Datlow] I bought Jonathan Carroll's new novel THE WOODEN SEA which is coming out in Feb.
[Ellen_Datlow] Brilliant--and a great, satisfying ending.
[DavE] The ship sinks?
[Ellen_Datlow] And Paul McAuley's next novel THE SECRET OF LIFE which is a marvelous sf novel. Smart, great characters, thrilling real sf.
[Cybling] If you have questions for our guest, please just ask. But please, let the guest answer one before asking another. Thanks!
[RWC] What do you think is a plus in a novel?
[Ellen_Datlow] No ship in it at all
[g]
[DavE] Oh yeah, I was thinking of Titanic...
[RWC] Lol
[Ellen_Datlow] Be more specific RWC0-do you mean what do _I_ like to see in a novel?
[RWC] Yes, what makes you tick in a novel?
[Ellen_Datlow] Engagement
[Ellen_Datlow] Liking to read about the characters even if they aren't all nice people. They've got to be interesting.
[RWC] In the story?
[Ellen_Datlow] A quirkiness.
[Cybling] Sorry...RWC..what are you referring to...we're a little confused here.
[RWC] Oh okay, something like you can sense them even if they are fictitious?
[Cybling] If they're not in the story they're not in the novel.
[Ellen_Datlow] Well, they need to be believable.
[Ellen_Datlow] I also am turned off my bad dialog.
[DavE] Real people aren't believable. Why should fictional characters?
[Ellen_Datlow] In other words, dialoge that doesn't sound like dialoge.
[RWC] I was referring to the response "Engagement":)
[Ellen_Datlow] I want to be sucked into the story--there has to be enough that engages my senses and my intellect to make me want to continue reading.
[DavE]
[-- produces a radio program. All dialog.
[Cybling] Folks, I have Ellen duct taped to the Green Room interview chair and it will only last about 7 more minutes before she gets free. Put up your questions!
[RWC] Engagement towards, it would have been a properer answer
[DavE] Bad dialog like "Yo, Adrian!"
[Cybling] Okay... Ellen...you're on a panel later today titled...
[TheThe] What's coming up on scifiction?
[Cybling] The Sources of Fantasy: Fairy Tales. Can you tell us a little about that?
[Ellen_Datlow] "Yo , Adrian" was appropriate to that character and it worked on the screen; the same dialogue would not work on the page necessarily.
[RWC] Do you think so?
[Ellen_Datlow] I've got a novella by Rick Bowes Sept 6 & 13th and Joan Vinge's classic "To bell the cat",
[Cybling] Wonderful.
[RWC] I mean, what you read must not be litterary if it's dialogue
[Ellen_Datlow] Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Hand, Steven Utley, another Jeffrey Ford, A.M. Dellamonica...
[Pam_M] what, RWC?
[Cybling] That's quite a line up.
[Ellen_Datlow] classics by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tom Disch.
[TheThe] Ummm Good! More Ford!
[TheThe] More Waldrop!
[Pam_M] ditto
[RWC] A dialogue that does not reflect spoken language may be unbelievable
[DavE] Edgar Pangborn!
[RWC] Whatever:)
[Ellen_Datlow] Exactly, RWC. The best writers to study for writing dialogue are Elmore Leonard and other crime writers.
[DavE] The problem is that most people don't speak exposition.
[RWC] No, but that should not be in dialogue
[Ellen_Datlow] I'm waiting for a new Waldrop.
[Ellen_Datlow] Did you catch the one we just published?
[Cybling] Folks, we have Ellen for one more question. Then we have to let her run back to the convention.
[Cybling] She still has another panel to do today on Fantasy and Fairy Tales.
[DavE] So, what's your favorite Chicago food?
[Cybling] Do we have a final final question?
[Ellen_Datlow] steak
[Cybling] LOL. That was easy.
[Cybling] Okay folks...let's thank Ellen,
[RWC] And french fries?
[RWC] Thanks Ellen
[Pam_M] Thank you, Ellen.
[Riesengrosser] @----]-----
[Ellen_Datlow] Not necessarily. I had homemade potato chips though and they were great!
[Cybling] for taking time out from her busy day and this *very* busy convention to join us in chat.
[DavE] Thanks Ellen! If you're ever up Minneapolis way, I'll interview you on my radio show!
* Cybling applauds
[TheThe] Re: Waldrop. Yes it was excellent!
[Ellen_Datlow] Thanks. DavE
[TheThe] thanks, Ellen
[Ellen_Datlow] Gotta go. SOrry it's so short (and badly spelled).