Six years ago I posted an update here saying I was joining Strange Horizons as a fiction editor. A brief update now—having read over 5000 submissions since, edited over half a million words in 117 stories from 112 authors—to say I am stepping down again. My whole career, and indeed the world, has changed a lot in that time. Six years is a good solid shift at the editor’s desk: I’m grateful to have had the chance, and to be leaving the magazine in the extremely capable hands of the new editorial team.

Of the 112 authors I worked with, for 49 of them it was the first time they’d sold a short story at professional pay rates. For 19 of them, it was their first time being published at all. I wanted to honour a long-standing Strange Horizons tradition of making space for brilliant new writers, so I’m particularly happy with these two facts. It’s been amazing to be part of a project like this, one of the world’s most prestigious genre magazines but also a genuinely unique internet collective: a massive, distributed, evolving, all-volunteer team, non-profit and reader-funded for over twenty years. This was an opportunity to influence the shape of the genre in a small way, and I hope I did it justice.

I am honoured to have worked with all the excellent editors and readers at Strange Horizons as well as with the many writers who trusted us with your work. Thank you so much to all of you!