The July issue of Asimov's is out now, and it features two of my friends.

"Natural Order" by Michael Jasper is one of the short stories inside, a cool piece by a buddy of mine in North Carolina. He's been professionally published several times already (contrary to the intro text above his story), but I think this is his first sale to a big print publication.

And there is a departmental report about the 2002 Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Writing, won by Lena Detar, who is currently also studying here at Clarion. (In the picture, she's the good-looking redhead on the left.)

So buy the issue. I'm sure there's some other good stuff in there too. There usually is.

On a different note, I did okay at Terry Bisson's reading at The Archive tonight, despite (in my excitement) forgetting to take my allergy medicine before I went. Maybe I'm getting used to this weather. I've also noticed that I'm not sweating quite so much and I'm not getting tired as easily. I haven't noticed any visible weight loss yet, but I can tell I'm getting healthier with all this walking I'm doing. I'm going to try and get over to the gym (since, ashamedly, I haven't yet) and get some more regular exercise. I hear that Week Four is when people tend to get sick and lonely, and tempers tend to fly. I'd like to be in a little better shape before that happens.

A bunch of us just dropped what we were doing and ran down the hall to the lounge to see a fantastic fireworks show. It lasted about twenty minutes and was obviously professionally done. I'm not sure what the occasion was; the Summer Solstice is tomorrow, and Independence Day is two weeks away still. There's a big 4H conference thing going on, but somehow I doubt they're the culprits. Whatever the reason, it was nice to stop for a moment and look at some pretty lights.