A Spork in the Road

It has arrived. The package with two gorgeous glossy contributor’s copies of the Spring 2007 Fantasy Magazine and a lovely check made out to me.

“Fish Girl” is a story I wrote in 2000 or 2001, almost sold (to Rick Wilber during his stint as editor of Galaxy magazine during one of its shorter incarnations), then got a series of encouraging rejections for it (notably from Ellen Datlow who actually liked the story but had no place to put it at that time — my non-writer friends were perplexed by my ecstasy at that rejection letter), then set aside for several years. I finally revised the story last year, having finally seen and understood how to repair the story’s fatal flaw, and sold it first time out to Sean Wallace.

The story has already been reviewed on Tangent Online.

Celebration!

Daylight Savings Time is evil. Not only do I feel jetlagged without even the benefit of going someplace new, but the darn thing always sneaks up on me. I never get to shift my schedule so that I’m ready for the time change — I inevitably end up just having slept late three days in a row, so that when we set the clocks forward I feel like I just lost 4 hours instead of 1.

[gripe]

Better news: Jeff Vandermeer informed me about a week ago that one of my Alchemy stories, “A Secret Lexicon for the Not-Beautiful,” is on the shortlist for Best American Fantasy. I’m thrilled to death. Looking at the other stories on the shortlist tells me that A) I’m in excellent company, and B) the anthology itself is going to kick fantastic ass.

Also good news: my short story “The Fish Girl” is appearing soon in Fantasy magazine. Tangent Online has already reviewed the issue. Further bulletins as events warrant!