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Interview with Michael Pederson

Editor of Nth Degree Magazine

Michael G.: Hello, Mr. Pederson. I can't tell you how pleased I am that you agreed to take some time with me to answer these questions. I'm sure it will prove to be useful to both of our readerships. The first thing I want to ask is for me personally. If it's a question that interests someone else, well then, that's cool too. But where did you come up with the name for your magazine? I love it dearly, but "Nth Degree" isn't exactly the first thing that would pop into my mind while searching for the title to a magazine.

Michael P.:  Ha! That’s a bit of a story there, even got a good Rant out of it for one of my editorials. When I started the zine, I pooled together some friends to help out and asked them for suggestions on what to call it. Initially we were leaning towards something with the word “zine” in the title. Suggestions included CognoZine, SceneZine, Zeenic, Zeenix, Zined and ZineOphobe. From there we veered into names with a sci-fi sound to them like Stand By…, Chrome Magnon, and Probed. Then, of course, there were the inevitable silly names that we came up with just to get people’s attention — Mike’s Magazine, Anything But Goth, The Hotel Lobby Hot Dog Report, 9 NonGoths, and Meatspace came up in this round of suggestions. Finally, my then girlfriend saw a bumper sticker that had something to do with astronomy on a car with a licence plate that read “NTHDGRE”. It immediately struck a chord with me. We were doing something completely new — a genre-oriented zine that would be modeled after city entertainment papers, given away at cons for free — so being able to say that we were doing fiction to the Nth Degree had a nice ring to it. The only downside has been that people keep calling us the Ninth Degree.

Michael G. I have a confession to make. I spend an inordinate amount of time on your site browsing through some of the stories. It is an oddball mix you manage to come up with. Yet your print magazine seems to be more fixed on Sci-Fi. Is it just me or do you plan it that way?

Michael P.: Actually, except for a couple of stories, everything on the site right now has run in the zine at one time or another. I do admit to having a preference for science fiction but I like having a wide variety of stories in the zine. I’m in the process of trying to get the site updated to the point where I will be running stories that haven’t appeared in the zine. When that happens, you’ll definitely be seeing a lot more fantasy on the site.

Michael G. Here's a question I ask all editors. I tell my readers it's so they'll have a better idea of how to get published in your magazine. In reality, I'm still trying to figure it out for myself. When you're making your way through the slush pile each and every issue, looking for that perfect gem, just what is it about a story that makes you want to grab it and run?

Michael P.: Ah, the slush pile. That’s where things get difficult. I’m not receiving as many pieces as Analog or Asimov’s but I’m looking at about 500 stories a year. Since we’re a relatively small magazine that only publishes quarterly, I can only accept 4 stories every three months. That makes it very tough to decide. First off, I weed out the stories that are poorly written. The next ones that fall out are the ones that I’m simply tired of; lately it seems like every other story has had a religious theme, which is fine but after reading 20 of them in a day I just don’t want to see them any more. Same with twist endings, it’s a neat idea but you have to do it better than Rod Serling did if you want it to sell. So I guess you can say that I’m looking for some level of originality. And, of course, strong characters.

Michael G. On your submissions page, you indicate an interest in "alternate history" stories. Can you give me an example of what it is you mean by that?

Michael P.: Well, the classic example of “alternate history” would be Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle. Basically, a story where history has taken a different turn (i.e. the South won the Civil War). In the latest issue of the zine I ran a story that was a twist on the alternate history story. In “The Assaulters” by Mike Ripley, a village is raided by a high tech civilization and the citizens are hauled away as slaves. In the original version of the story there was a tag that revealed that the slaves were being taken to Colonial America. Unfortunately though, the tag didn’t work because of POV problems but when I removed it the story became this great allegory that could take place anywhere or anytime. The ambiguous nature of the story was very cleverly thought out. I didn’t want to run any illustrations in the story so as not to prejudice the reader but, as an experiment, I sent it to an illustrator and he came back with a piece showing aliens.

Michael G. In reading some of the work you've published, I can't help but notice that you seem to appreciate dry humor. This is particularly prevalent in Conspiracy Theory and Debbie Does Deuce, both featured in this month's on-line issue. Is this something you look for specifically, or did I simply pick up on an anomaly?

Michael P.: Oh, yeah. I’m a twisted bastard. Love that kind of stuff.

Michael G. This next one is a two-part question. First of all, what are your pet peeves with wannabe writers like myself? Secondly, what character traits turn a person into one of your favorite writers?

Michael P.: I think my biggest pet peeve is seeing people trying to emulate what they think is popular. This goes back to what I was saying about my slush pile. The religious-themed stories didn’t really start coming in until after Passion of the Christ. And the twist ending story has been seeing a comeback since the Sixth Sense. The writers that I’ve “discovered” so far that impress me the most are the ones that really work at their craft. They go to workshops and they go to great lengths to really hone their stories before sending them out. There have been a couple of pieces that I sent back suggestions on and ran the stories after the author made changes.

Michael G. Your submissions guidelines proclaim that you like all genre fiction. Still, I don't see a lot of horror. Some of your stories flirt with some of the classic horror themes, but really don't bring up any shivers to your spine. Don't you like horror, or am I just fixating on the science fiction and missing some good stuff?

Michael P.: I haven’t really received much in the way of horror. I had a Lovecraftian humor piece (“The Return” by Ruthanna Gordon) and the next issue will have an X-Files style thriller by CJ Henderson but there really hasn’t been a lot of horror coming my way so far.

Michael G. Have you ever toyed around with the idea of an indefinitely long serial, written by various authors? For example, you could take a story line that is close to your heart, and solicit stories that will carry the epic drama to each successive step.

Michael P.: We tried running a serial in the zine and discovered that 4 issues a year isn’t frequent enough to keep people interested in an ongoing story. That’s not a bad idea to try on the website though. I’ve got a small stable of writers now that would probably be interested in something like that.

Michael G. I was looking at the photos of the Nth Degree staff on your web page, and I gotta say. If that crew ever all marched into the bank together, it'd make the bank guard really nervous. You must have some great office parties. How did you all get together? Was it random?

Michael P.: Most of the people on our Staff Page are old friends of mine. I’m kind of the Kermit the Frog of publishing. Every once in a while I’ll get a new idea and call up all of my friends to help out with it. For the most part though, Nth Degree is a one-man operation. My wife used to help out a lot but we’re separated now. The other person that contributes the most to getting the zine out is Rob Balder, who I’ve known since elementary school.

Michael G. One last thing before we call an end to this. Where do you see Nth Degree heading from here? Do you think we'll eventually see your magazine next to Isaac Asimov's magazines at B&N? What can your readers do to help (aside from the obvious contribution they could make by buying a subscription, that is)?

Michael P.: Right now I can’t imagine going pro with this. I like our semiprozine status. I would like circulation to increase — get out to more cons, have more subscribers. I’m hoping to get the zine on the shelf in comic shops, there’s been a lot of interest in that. But I think that turning it into a professional magazine would change it too much. Buying a subscription is always the best way to show your support for any publication. Recommending it to friends is always nice too.

Michael G. Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Pederson. It's always good to spend some quality time with someone who knows exactly what they want and what they need to to do to get it. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.