In 2001 Sanford, along with poet Jake Adam York, founded the literary magazine storySouth, which focuses on literature from the "New South." One of the early journals of the online literature movement, works published in storySouth have been reprinted in anthologies such as Best American Poetry 2008, Best of the Web 2008, and e2ink: The Best of the Online Journals, and have won a number of awards and honors. Sanford served as the fiction and nonfiction editor, while York served as poetry editor. Both editors were heavily involved in the debate around the alleged plagiarism of Southern author Brad Vice, with Sanford defending Vice's work and his essays on the affair being mentioned in the subsequent press coverage. Sanford turned over publication of storySouth to Spring Garden Press in 2009 and now serves as Editor Emeritus for the journal. In 2004, Sanford started the storySouth Million Writers Award, which highlights each year's best online short stories. Even though Sanford turned over storySouth to a new publisher, he continues to run the award. In 2012 he edited two anthologies of stories from the Million Writers Award.
Writing career
Sanford is best known as a science fiction author, although he also writes fantasy and has been published in other literary genres. His fiction has been described as "new weird SF," and compared to both the anime of Hayao Miyazaki and the early writings of Brian Aldiss. Sanford has described his writings and those of others as part of an emergent storytelling form called SciFi Strange, "which sets high literary standards, experiments with style, is infused with a sense of wonder, takes the idea of diverse sexuality for granted, focuses on human values and needs and explores the boundaries of reality and experience through philosophical speculation." Sanford's science fiction and fantasy has been published in Interzone, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Year's Best SF 14, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Tales of the Unanticipated, and other magazines and anthologies. His non-genre works have been published in The Mississippi Review, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, and other places. He is a two-time winner of the Interzone Readers' Poll and his novella "Sublimation Angels" was a finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella. He has also received a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and been nominated for the BSFA Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Pushcart Prize. SF critic and reviewer Patrick Wolohan named Sanford to his list of 25 authors worth watching in 2010 and beyond. His critical essays and book reviews have been published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, The Pedestal Magazine, and The Fix Short Fiction Review. Among Sanford's more influential essays is "Who Wears Short Shorts? Micro Stories and MFA Disgust," which ripped both the claimed incestuous nature of Master of Fine Arts programs and flash fiction. The essay prompted a large amount of online discussion on the merits of Sanford's claims.
Books
Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy -, anthology of short fiction, Spotlight Publishing, 2012.
Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices -, anthology of short fiction, Spotlight Publishing, 2012.
