Datlow was the fiction editor of Omni magazine and Omni Online from 1981 through 1998, and edited the ten associated Omni anthologies. She co-edited the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series from 1988 to 2008 She now edits The Best Horror of the Year published by Night Shade Books. She has edited many original science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies on her own, as well as collaborations with Terri Windling, one with Nick Mamatas, and one with Lisa Morton. She was editor of the webzine Event Horizon: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror from 1998 through 1999, and was the editor of Sci Fiction until it ceased publication with its last piece of fiction, December 28, 2005. She currently is consulting editor for "Tor.com." Datlow won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor in 2002 and 2005, and the Hugo for Best Short Form Editor in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017. Her editing work has also been recognized with five Bram Stoker Awards, ten World Fantasy Awards, two International Horror Guild Awards for Best Anthology, three Shirley Jackson Awards for Best anthology, twelve Locus Awards for Best Editor. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre." In 2011 she was given the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association. She is a long time trustee of the Horror Writers Association. She has been the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction reading series at the KGB Bar since 2000, a series which features luminaries and up-and-comers in speculative fiction. The Best Horror of the Year is an annual compendium of the critically acclaimed editor's selections of horror fiction and poetry published in the previous year and has included fiction by Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones, Michael Marshall Smith, Joe R. Lansdale and Nicholas Royle. The books also contains an annual summation of publishing in the field and a list of "Honorable Mentions." Volume Ten was published in June 2018. The Best of the Best Horror of the Year: Ten Years of Essential Horror Fiction was published in 2018. She has also edited the anthologies Nebula Awards Showcase 2009, , Hauntings, Lovecraft's Monsters, The Cutting Room, The Monstrous, and Nightmares for Tachyon Publications. Queen Victoria's Book of Spells an anthology edited by Datlow and Terri Windling, was published by Tor Books in 2013, followed by The Doll CollectionMad Hatters and March Hares and The Devil and the Deep. Datlow won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2014.
