Stephen Leigh & S.L. Farrell

Roaming at the intersection of fiction and reality

A New Reality for Publishing

In the year 2000, I sold my first book to DAW—HOLDER OF LIGHTNING, the first books of what would become the “Cloudmages Trilogy,” (published under my pseudonym “S.L. Farrell” because my previous editor—at another publishing house than DAW Books—had informed me that since I’d largely published science fiction in the past, I would need to change my byline. Why? Because according to her, fantasy readers would think “Oh, Stephen Leigh writes science fiction, so his fantasy can’t be very good,” while science fiction readers would think “Oh, Leigh’s writing fantasy, and I don’t like fantasy.”

Honestly, I thought that logic was ridiculous at the time since I loved to read (and write) both sf and fantasy, but I thought what the heck, she’s the editor, so… In the end, when my agent at the time offered my fantasy trilogy proposal to several publishers, Sheila Gilbert at DAW Books ended up giving us a better advance for the books than my current-at-the-time editor’s publishing house, but I never changed the byline.

The trilogy went out under the S.L. Farrell byline (FWIW, Farrell’s an old family surname from my father’s Irish side). So did the fantasy Nessantico trilogy which was next—yes, I committed ‘Trilogy’ twice. Well, three times if you count my very first three books about ‘ethical assassins’ which were science fiction, not fantasy.

But Sheila, to her credit, asked me when I pitched my next book to her (a single-book fantasy, IMMORTAL MUSE) if I’d rather it came out under my real name: Stephen Leigh. Yes! I replies immediately. I’d love that. So I retired “S.L. Farrell” even though I’d written a few other stories under that byline in the meantime.

Sheila was 53 years at DAW before she retired from editing; she was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Editor (Long Form) eight times (2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022), and twice took the Hugo home with her (2016 and 2018). I loved being part of the DAW family, and Sheila and I also become friends over that time. Sheila was an incredible editor (hey, look at all the awards she’s been nominated for and won!); she made every novel of mine a better book with her critiques and editing.

In 2010, my then-agent and I parted ways. I asked Sheila if I could just send her my proposals. She agreed, and from that time forward, I just sent every new proposal to Sheila, which was how I sold every book from IMMORTAL MUSE (drafted 2011-2014) until last year (I’ll get to that eventually.)

In 2021, I’d sold my most recent novel to DAW Publishing, which was then a subsidiary of Penguin Random House. The novel was BOUND TO A SINGLE SUN. That novel was the 12th book I’d sold to DAW since coming to them in 2000 with the Cloudmages fantasy trilogy.

However, BOUND was destined to be the last book I’d sell to DAW/Penguin Random House. In July of 2022, DAW Books as an imprint was acquired by Astra Publishing House. Sheila retired as co-publisher of DAW on June 30th, 2023, though Betsy Wollheim remains now as DAW Book’s editor at Astra Publishing. BOUND TO A SINGLE SUN came out (in electronic form only) in late October of 2022—no print edition, only an ebook; an Audible book; an audio CD.

At that point in time, I was working on a new novel (among other projects), which would become WORLDS NOT VISIBLE. But given how BOUND had been handled and the fact that Sheila had retired, I wasn’t certain what to do with WORLDS. I had no agent, though a couple agents whom I contacted would express an interest but finally decline, a process that chewed up several months.

I called Sheila after her retirement and asked her what I should do. She advised me to pursue self-publishing at this point, given the current state of what used to be ‘traditional publishing.’ I was researching that when another possibility arose.

Andy Miller, my former fellow teacher of Creative Writing at NKU as well as good friend of Denise and me, along with Jim Casey (another friend of Andy’s and a Shakespearian scholar) created an independent small publisher the named EMPTY BOX PRESS. I sent WORLDS NOT VISIBLE to them, they both liked the novel and offered me a contract, which I signed. I’ve also written some short fiction that will appear in coming months, the first in an upcoming Empty Box Press theme anthology funded via Kickstarter called “Wolfsong Variations”

WORLDS NOT VISIBLE was published by EMPTY BOX PRESS on July 1, 2026, with a cover painted by our talented and full-time freelance painter of a daughter, Megen Leigh. You can view her work HERE.

So that’s my current tale of the new reality of publishing. At least it has a happy ending!