The 21st volume of Gardner Dozois' annual The Year's Best Science Fiction is in bookstores now. Gardner cited three of my stories for the honorable mention section ("Lavender In Love," "Halloweentown," and "Transitory"). Always the bridesmaid and never the bride.

I guess Gardner likes my work. Sorta. He's given me honorable mentions in the last handful of volumes of his book. It's no secret that Analog is not his favorite magazine, so maybe I ought to be happy that he's even familiar with my stories. But in all the years I've been sending him work, he never liked one enough to buy for Asimov's, including many he's later given the honorable mention to. And now, I can't send him any more for Asimov's because he stepped down as the editor.

Only once was a story of mine selected for a best-of-the-year anthology a few years ago, but that book never made it to market. It coulda been a contenda, a new annual best-of series to be edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Martin H Greenberg, but something happened along the way and the project was scrapped. Close, but no cigar, Plante.

I'll keep trying.