Last month, I mentioned that Asimov’s owes much to its assistant editors. These are people who toil mostly in obscurity. While their labor is essential, the work isn’t glamorous, and, except for a line on the masthead, they go largely unheralded. The assistants’ duties usually include processing the enormous volume of mail that parades through our office daily, filing, some contract work, proofreading the entire magazine, lots of production work, and, ultimately, meeting every deadline. We’ve always tried to make the office a fun place to work, but the happiest assistants and the ones who stay the longest, have come to us with a passion for science fiction.

Although many talented people have worked on the magazine, I only have space to mention a few. With one exception, I’ve limited this editorial to people who have worked for me, and I’m still forced to leave out many of those. The exception is also one of the most prominent editors in the SF field today. Elizabeth Mitchell started at Asimov’s and our sister magazine, Analog, in the summer of 1980—a year before I joined Davis Publications—Betsy is listed as the editorial assistant on the January 1981 issues, but was quickly promoted to associate editor. By the time I moved from subsidiary rights to the magazine, Betsy had actually left Asimov’s to work exclusively as managing editor of Analog. She shared an office with Analog’s editor, Stanley Schmidt. Somehow, Betsy managed to juggle her work at Analog with teaching me everything she could about magazine production. There was a lot to learn, and I’ve always felt that without her I might have drowned. It’s a good thing she drilled my duties in quickly, though, because not long after I arrived, she left Analog to become Baen Books’ first employee. Betsy is now vice president and editor in chief of Del Rey books, where one of her authors is the bestselling Naomi Novik.

One of my first editorial assistants started on the magazine as a young intern from New York University in 1984. A class at NYU had put her in contact with Omni Magazine’s fiction editor, Ellen Datlow, and Ellen sent her resume on to us. Tina Lee was one of the first people to intern at Asimov’s. She was a fast learner and a hard worker and, fortunately, we found a part-time job for her at Analog a few months after the internship ended. A year later, we were able to offer her a full-time position as editorial assistant on both Asimov’s and Analog. “Congratulations,” I told her. “You’ve climbed your way up to the bottom of the ladder.” We had become good friends, so she didn’t kill me. Tina left us in 1987 to become my counterpart at Analog.

The editorial assistant position continued to be split between Asimov’s and Analog. After we went through a couple of short-term assistants, Tina and I hired Ian Randal Strock in 1989. Ian came to us from Boston University. He was a great admirer of Isaac Asimov, and Isaac enjoyed him, too. Isaac visited the offices each Tuesday morning. When one of Ian’s birthdays fell on a Tuesday, I created a fake memo about an important meeting and handed Ian, who’d come in a little late, a stack of rush photocopying needed for the meeting. Ian ran breathlessly into our conference room to discover that the “meeting” was really his surprise breakfast birthday party with company staff and Isaac. Ian sold some stories to Analog, and worked for both magazines for six years before leaving to found Artemis, his own SF magazine. He is now the news editor of Science Fiction Chronicle, a trade journal about the SF field.

A year and a half after Ian joined Asimov’s and Analog, the staff was expanded to include another editorial assistant. Scott L. Towner came to us from the State University of New York at Fredonia on the recommendation of the poet, David Lunde. Scott was an Eagle Scout and a multiple-degree tae kwon do expert. He was something of a poet, too. Scott sold a few poems to Asimov’s, one of which “The Curse of Bruce Boston’s Wife,” received both a blessing from Bruce Boston and the 1996 Readers’ Award. Scott worked for us for six years, too, before moving on to other pursuits. He now runs a Christmas tree farm in upstate New York. His own account of exploits on the farm appeared in the “My Job” section of the December 8, 2002, New York Times.

Over the next few years, we went through a series of short-term assistants. One of those assistants was Paul Stevens. Like Tina Lee, he came to Asimov’s and Analog via an internship from NYU. Paul had left the world of banking to begin a career in publishing. He interned with us in1998, and was fortunate that this association led to employment when the editorial assistant position opened up the following year. Not much later, Paul was promoted to a higher position at Analog (after more than twelve years in science fiction, Tina had left that magazine a couple of years previously for a job closer to her home.) Due to job turnover, Paul’s rise through our ranks was quick, but he left us quickly, too. Paul has worked at Tor Books since March 2000. One of his authors is Jim Grimsley, a writer whose stories are familiar to the readers of Asimov’s.

In the fall of 2000, another recent college graduate from the State University of New York, Brian Bieniowski, applied for an entry position at Asimov’s. Trevor Quachri, who had been the editorial assistant of Asimov’s and Analog before he’d moved into Paul’s position earlier in the year, and I shared interviewing duties. We found Brian to be charming and extremely well read in SF. Little did we know that Brian would reach, and pass, the six-year mark at Asimov’s, or that one day Trevor would be part of Brian’s wedding party. I am delighted to report that Brian has recently been promoted to the position of managing editor. For the past five years, we’ve also received some assistance from the vivacious Mary Grant. Mary wears several hats at Dell Magazines, and we are pleased that one of those hats is that of an Asimov’s editorial assistant.

This demanding entry-level position best suits those who think it’s a major perk to have access to free science fiction and fantasy books, the chance to read the latest stories before anyone else, and the occasional opportunity to meet authors.  Asimov’s is fortunate that so many dedicated people who share this outlook have chosen to be a part of its history. It’s a pleasure to have the chance to bring a few of them to your attention today.