25 Mar 2025
Episode 265: Things I've Learned Organizing an Anthology
This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about lessons learned from Fable’s work co-leading an anthology project.
Recently Fable has been working with another author to put together an anthology to benefit a charity. This process included inviting other authors to contribute connected stories with a common character, reading through and organizing those individual stories into an overarching arc, and communicating feedback and line edits to each author in order to prepare the pieces for publication.
This episode serves as a sort of examination unpacking Fable’s experience in real time. She shares some unexpected experiences and lessons learned, different ways of looking at things that have helped her navigate challenges that arose, and new practices that she intends to lean on if she does any future anthology projects. But, also, we feel this conversation can be useful for those considering participating in future anthologies and those thinking of leading them to help look at the experience from both perspectives, and find ways to help strengthen the initial handshake at the beginning of a project so that expectations are as clear and well communicated as possible.
Here are some of the takeaways:
- Be as clear and specific as possible up front about the rules and expectations (who does what), timeframes (when will certain actions be taking place), and level of editing (copyediting vs proofreading vs line editing).
- Consider making an anthology submission based, allowing yourself the option to select work that fits within your intention and to gently reject work that doesn’t.
- Communicate feedback as early as possible.
- At the outset, clarify to yourself what you want the work to be (your intention) and what level of labor you are commiting to the project.
- Meet difficult interactions with patience, empathy, and compassion. Try to see from their perspective and acknowledge their feelings, and hope they will do the same for you.
- Don’t take baggage from one experience into another, but use what you learned in a thorny situation to help finesse your next interactions and communications.
- As a writer, be open to feedback reminding yourself that the intention is simply to improve the work and make it better. Within the anthology setting, it’s also meant to help it fit better with the other pieces in the project. Try not to take it personally or hold your work too closely, and if critique feels like an attack consider doing some journaling to explore why.
- Plan for what to do if the relationship breaks down, allow for other’s work to be withdrawn or ensure the project allows for your work to be withdrawn if an agreement cannot be reached.
Towards the end of our conversation, we discuss how valuable having a difficult experience can be in teaching what not to do in the future and also what you can add or adjust to make a project smoother. Reviewing and assessing what you would do differently in real time during the process — while you are experiencing pain points and see clearly where there are failures — can help streamline future projects. But, also, compassionate communication and patient understanding go a long way. However, in the end you can only control how you react, so release yourself from gilt over how an interaction ultimately unfolds.
We hope you enjoy this episode and that you can take away some of the lessons that Fable learned through doing to use in your own writing life! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
