I’m going to write this post without digging into my old journals, notes, and memos, so I may end up being off on some of the dates, a point I want to get out of the way first thing. But the spirit of what I’m about to share with you is true, and I want you to hear it today even though I don’t have the time for that. I may someday write something longer and more detailed on the subject with all the i’s dotted, t’s crossed, and details revealed, but for now, this will have to do.

I edited Science Fiction Age magazine from 1992 through 2000, but what very few people know is that I almost quit before the first issue ever appeared. (Or perhaps it was during the space between the first and second issue. I can no longer be sure without doing that research I mentioned.) And the reason for my possible resignation is a short story that’s just gotten published in the September/October issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a story which you’re only finally getting a chance to read nearly two decades later than you should have.

Sometime during 1992, before the first issue of Science Fiction Age was published, I read a submission titled “Anise” from writer Chris DeVito. I loved it, and sent out a contract immediately. If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, or if the name does mean something to you, but you only know Chris as the editor and publisher of the magazines such as Fuck Science Fiction or Proud Flesh, well … I still feel guilty about that.

Because “Anise” was NOT published in the second or third issue of SFA. Instead, the publishers overruled my decision due to the story’s explicit sexual content. I was told that maybe we could publish it a couple of years down the road, but not during the first year or two of our existence, when the chain stores were still paying close attention to the magazine’s content.

I was furious.

What was the point of editing a magazine if I didn’t have full control over the stories that were published? (Go ahead. Call me naive.) I felt that if I let this pass, I’d be going down a slippery slope which would lead me to being involved with a magazine of which I was not proud. I tried to convince the powers-that-be to change their minds, even going so far as to photocopy the explicit content then being published by other science fiction magazines in order to show them that we were an adult genre … but they would not be swayed.

While trying to decide whether or not to quit, I discussed my quandary with friends in the business, which included other magazine editors, more than one of whom told me, “You think I got to buy every story I wanted to buy?” Which didn’t really make me feel any better. There was a week or two there when I almost turned in my resignation each day, because I felt that if I was going to have my judgment questioned, how could I go on, knowing I could always be second-guessed? (I should add that I also had the luxury that editing a bimonthly magazine wasn’t my primary employment at the time, as I had other full-time work, so while I’d take a hit financially, it wouldn’t be as large a dent as it might have been otherwise.)

In the end, after much grumbling, and much dithering, and a lot of back and forth involving both of my bosses and Chris (which I’ll share someday if I ever have the time for a full history of SFA), I decided to hang on. Why? Because I rationalized that in the end I might be able to do more good than harm, and that whoever took over after my potential departure might not have cared as much as I did about putting out a quality magazine. I’m glad I stayed, pleased I published stories I loved, work that sometimes made it to the Hugo and Nebula ballots and saw Nebula Awards go to Martha Soukup and Mary Turzillo.

And yet … I’ve always felt guilty about Chris DeVito and “Anise,” which has remained unpublished for nearly two decades … until now.

“Anise,” which is as powerful today as it was in 1992, was just published by the perspicacious Gordon Van Gelder in the latest issue of F&SF, which you can purchase right this second on your Kindle if you’re so moved. And I do hope you are so moved. I’ve got a couple of decades of guilt that need to be assuaged, guilt that I didn’t resign over this and make a public stink, guilt that I wasn’t more forceful and successful in getting the story into print … and if you give the story a read, that might take a little bit of the weight off my shoulders.

If that’s not enough to get you to read the story, then listen to Colleen Chen over at Tangent (“compelling and raw … clever, often funny prose”) and Jugular Josh at Where There Had Been Darkness (“‘Anise’ never stumbles … DeVito shows an extremely deft touch … as universal a story as there is”), who are a whole lot less biased in this situation.

I’m sorry you didn’t get to read “Anise” in 1992. But most of all, I’m sorry that the 1992 publication of “Anise” didn’t lead to a demand for much more Chris DeVito fiction back then. We should have had a chance to read many more of DeVito’s stories over the past two decades. I hope we’ll finally be getting that chance now.