Yeah, you'd believe that the occupant of this space moved out from how long it'd been since he updated, huh?

Busy, busy, busy.

First off, Samantha Henderson and I are almost finished picking the final stories for "From the Trenches." I'll say this: it's been a tough process. We received so many excellent stories and I could have easily filled two books and felt great about both of them. We're almost there, though. If you've got a story on hold with us, you should know our final decision within the next week. So far we've purchased stories from Pati Nagle, Pam McNew, Mikal Trimm, Josh Roundtree, Steve Vernon, Kameron Hurley, Rafael Cariaga, Terry Hayman, L. M. Arceneaux, and Anil Menon. There are a few more which we know we're taking and when the notifications are sent out I'll report it here.

I'm working on a story that Interzone almost bought in order to get it ready to submit to Polyphony 6. It's an odd little tale, to be sure, and the reactions to it so far have been equally split between love and hate. When that happens, I know I'm on to something good. We'll have to see what Jay thinks about it though. With all the excellent writers they've published it's going to be a tough nut to crack.

We're getting the house ready for the in-laws visit over Christmas. They'll be here Thursday and unlike most of you, I happen to get as much joy out of their visits as does my wife. We'll probably end up playing way too much Hold 'em while they're here.

Who the hell am I kidding? There's no such thing as too much Hold 'em.

In other words, I really had nothing new to say today, but it'd been too long since I said anything so you get serious mundania.

I need to go stir up some trouble so I can have something to report.

Yeah, that sounds like fun.


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