By Melodie Campbell  on Anne R Allen site:

It all started in 1992.  I’d won a couple of crime fiction awards, and the local college came calling. Did I want to come on faculty and teach in the writing program?  Hell, yes!  (Pass the scotch.)

Over the years, I continued to teach fiction writing, but also picked up English Lit, Marketing (my degree) and a few odd ones, like Animation and Theatre. Such is the life of an itinerant college prof.  (Pass the scotch.)

Twenty-four years later, I’m a full-time author. Except for Wednesday nights, when I put on my mask, don a cape, and turn into SUPER TEACH!  (Okay, ‘Crazy Author Prof.’ Too much time alone at a keyboard can be scary.  (Pass the scotch.)

Recently, a jovial colleague asked me if I was a good teacher or an evil one. I’m definitely on the kind side of the…

Whatever the field we observe, there will be successful people in them. There will be the people who are the master of their craft and are considered to be the elite in that particular field. So, what is that makes them so and what is that they do differently from the masses?

This is what John Hayes, a cognitive psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wanted to know.

He studied the life of legends in music and other art forms like Mozart and Picasso and tried to figure out what they do differently and how long it took them to become world class.

He wanted to start by studying the legends in the music industry. He studied successful composers between the years 1685 and 1900. He wanted to find out how long after they became interested in music did they become world class, that is, how long before they produced…

We all know that top-tier short story markets receive tons of submissions, likely hundreds every submission period, but how many of those submissions are actually accepted? Excellent question, and we have some data that can at least get us in the ballpark.

Since I’m primarily a horror writer, I’m going to give you stats on five markets (three pro and two semi-pro) that accept horror: Apex Magazine, Black Static, The Dark Magazine, Pseudopod, and Red Room Magazine. I’ve listed the acceptance rates for these markets below, pulling the data from Duotrope and The Submission Grinder and then taking an average. The numbers are fairly close between the two submission tracking services, but not always. Check out the disparity between the two for The Dark.