For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I've been accepted and invited to attend the Oregon Coast Professional Fiction Writer's Workshop's Masters Class this September 27 to October 11.

I'll be spending two weeks with Kristine Katherine Rusch, a Hugo award winner for both her writing and her editing, Micheal Swanwick, Hugo-winner and multiple Nebula nominee, Dean Wesley Smith, a man who has only sold over a hundred short stories and seventy novels, Loren Coleman, a full-time writer in the gaming world with a dozen novels in print, and Laura Ann Gilman, editor with Roc books, who will be there to look over our novel proposals.

As I said once before, I'd rather be a gleefull failure than a morbid success.

For the record, I'm currently doing the Snoopy happy-dance.

Now, as a side-note, I'm not going to be readily available over the next few months while I prepare for this workshop. I'm going to have to work a lot of extra hours to make up for the money I'm going to lose by attending--I only have one weeks vacation this year--and the rest of the time I'll be hard at work honing my writing chops. I want to be in peak condition when I get there. Rest assured, I will always have time for my friends, but not as much as I have until I get back.

I still intend to keep up this . . .hell, call a spade a spade, Joe . . .Column as frequently as possible.

Thank you everyone out there who wished me luck on getting in to this workshop. It's going to be a milestone in my progression to my ultimate goal to be a full-time, working, self-supporting writer.

Until next time,

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of The Abyss.