Adding my own experience when it comes to solicited / slush pile stories as a writer who started sub'ing to SFF zines (in English) in 2015. I've written three solicited stories so far. Two were solicited for anthologies (Abandoned Places and one coming 2021), 1 for Black Library.

(The Black Library story still had to pass the test of me writing a pitch and outline of the story I had in mind. Writing a pitch almost killed me. LOL. I was approached a couple of years ago by them and did not come up with a good enough pitch that time.)

No lie: it's an absolute THRILL for the ego to be asked to write a story. It's definitely something I loved doing, and I would not mind being approached again that way. I also think all publications should be open about that part of the process.

All my other stories in @BCSmagazine @FiresideFiction Black Static, Interzone, @ApparitionLit @augurmag @flashfictionmag @ShimmerStories @gamutmagazine @kaleidotrope @Pseudopod_org & elsewhere were accepted from the slush-pile. It's often a huge waiting game to submit that way.

I've had so many rejections I don't even know how many I've had. I accept them as part of the game. I know how many awesome writers are out there submitting. I know that even if I write MY best story, chances are good that it won't make it to publication.

I do think that if there is a hierarchy in SFF short story writing, and there certainly is, one of the ways that hierarchy works is by who has to make it through slushpiles for anthos and zines, and who is ASKED to write something for those publications.

And I GET IT. Big names, award winning names, are most often freaking excellent writers. They make people more likely to buy a zine or antho. An obvious way to use solicitations is to put a bunch of big names up front and then keep lots of space for new/newish writers from slush.

We've all seen anthologies do this. They announce a Kickstarter with certain writers attached and then have open submissions for a number of stories. I've submitted to anthos like that. I've been accepted (from slush) or rejected (from slush) multiple times.

Anyway. I agree with what others have said repeatedly on my timeline: soliciting stories is totally OK. Just please, let people know who is attached for solicited stories and how much space (if any) is left for slushpile stories.

And for all the writers out there: there are LOTS, LOTS of zines that take all or almost all of their stories from slush. It is a road full of rejections, rewrites, edits, reading, re-writing, and WAITING. But there are definitely zines that take stories from new writers.