World sf writers? Get used to disappointment

I'm a little disheartened right now. Not angry, just sort of bemused.If you've been following the World SF News Blog, you might have seen that Charles Tan and I have been compiling lists of stories published in 2009 by what you might called "world SF" writers - writers from outside of the traditional anglo-saxon world, as it were. It was Jeff Ford's idea, and it seemed like a good one (though it took a chunk of time for each posting) - and the results were quite positive. Fantasy Magazine, Apex Magazine, Clarkesworld - the big online publications have proven that fiction by international writers can sell and be published. We also did Analog, but in all honesty I didn't really expect much from Analog - and wasn't disappointed. Analog published none.We did Asimov's and F&SF today (Charles in the Philippines, me in Laos, both of us on the Internet). The result surprised and disheartened me. I really wasn't expecting it.Zero.Let me repeat that. The Big Three American SF/F magazines have published, over 2009, exactly zero stories from world writers.Apex Magazine published seven. Fantasy Magazine published eight. Even The New Yorker published one!Let me repeat that: The New Yorker published more science fiction from international writers than all 3 big American SF/F magazines.So I don't know what to think, right now. Is it just about electronic submissions? As I note in the summary, both Asimov's and F&SF did published some world sf writers in the past. But none at all for the whole of 2009? When everyone else paying professional rates published several?So I'm bemused, and a little disheartened. I really did think the situation was different.I guess I was wrong.Lavie Tidhar is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2009) and Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (2010) and, with Nir Yaniv, of The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island-nation, and currently lives in South East Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010, and will be followed by two more.