The Alchemist

Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show has rejected "The Alchemist." They wrote:

Thank you for offering your story to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. We're sorry to tell you that we will not be using it; you are free to submit it elsewhere.

Ah well. I have already sent this out to the next market on the list I drew up. It's now been submitted to Heliotrope Magazine. They say their response time is about 30 days.

George H. Scithers, 1929-2010

I learned just a few moments ago that George H. Scithers, the man from whom I received my very first handwritten rejections, died on April 19. Per the web site for Weird Tales, where he was Editor Emeritus:

George passed away today at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, from complications following a heart attack suffered the morning of April 17. He was 80. He had been in declining health for the last few years, due to complications from diabetes and a heart condition.

He will be greatly missed in the world of speculative fiction.