Chris, first congratulations on getting another paper publlished. But I am shocked to hear you have to pay for publication. That is unheard of in the fiction world unless you are being published by a vanity press. Usually journals pay the author, sometimes only in copies of the magazine, but never the other way around.

The more lucrative papers pay $$$, up to $750 per short story, and if you win a contest, you get even more, up to 2K in some cases.

These scientific journals must know about publish or perish, else they wouldn't be charging authors for their contributions. As I recall, you do work for UCSB, so that might be a viable explanation.

At any rate, good for you for getting your work published at all. I know that is hard, but you must be very good to have such a fine success rate.

Cathryn

P.S. As an aside, when you post a long message, could you break it up into shorter paragraphs to read? One big block of text is really hard on the eyes. I know this has been mentioned here before. Not trying to nit pick, just get through your text. Cheers.