I’ve recently published a short story through the Military Review, which is part of the Army University Press. You can check out the story, Trust, by clicking HERE. Although writing the initial draft of the story took only about a week, publication required several months of security review by the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense. Writers who hold security clearances and who want to publish works (both fiction and non-fiction) that touch on any areas related to their government service must submit their drafts to a variety of offices for a prepublication security and policy review. This process ensures that authors are not inadvertently disclosing classified information in their writings. Thankfully, the process itself was rather straightforward once I identified the appropriate offices at the Pentagon. Writers who have worked at other agencies such as those in the Intelligence Community (CIA, NSA, etc) must also go through separate security reviews.

The security review process has occasionally made headlines when authors either neglect or forget to submit their work for review. In 2012, Matthew Bissonnette (writing as Mark Owen) released No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden. Although the book made the New York Times bestseller list shortly after its release, the Pentagon intervened when it became clear Bissonnette had not submitted the book for review. The Department of Defense claimed that the book contained classified information. Bissonnette would later argue that his lawyer had advised him that there was no need to submit the book for review. Whatever the case, Bissonnette eventually reached a settlement with the Pentagon in 2016 and ended up forfeiting $6.8 million in royalties.

I suspect it’s a little easier to get fiction manuscripts through the security review process, particularly if they only tangentially touch on military or intelligence operations. Trust is also a short story of fewer than 5,000 words, so I can’t imagine it took particularly long to screen. I’ll be curious to see how much longer it takes to gain publication approval when I eventually submit an 80,000 to 100,000-word manuscript for review. I suppose one way to gain beta readers is to force the government to do it for you.