Today brought some nice, unexpected news -- the Exquisite Corpuscle is very much alive, and will be published next year by the excellent Fairwood Press.

This anthology came about thanks to artist Frank Wu, a great guy and excellent artist who I first met at the Writers of the Future workshop in 2000 (he'd go on to win the big prize for illustrators). Essentially, it's a multi-media book, consisting of poems, artwork, fiction, and even a play or two. Each work was created via a handoff -- I was given a poem by Christina Sng, and I created my short story "A Game of Contact" from her poem, using some of the images and ideas from her. Then I passed my story on to the next person in line, Maia Sanders, who created an illustration, and then on to the next person in line, and so forth.

Frank has a good description of the process here and here.

I'm really pleased that my story made it into the antho, and having read it again this summer, it holds up pretty well, even if it was written over 4 years ago now! It's hybrid SF/mainstream story, spanning about 70 years or so, and it has Dungeons and Dragons, Instant Messaging, a drive through war-torn Baghdad, the future of online gaming, and more. Huge thanks to Frank for organizing and sticking with this project. I can't wait to see it in its final version, with all the art and stories and poetry and more by my very talented ToC-mates.

I thought it was a really good sign, too, getting this news today, now that I've got a grand total of three stories out to potential publishers. Hey, that's three more than I had just a few weeks ago!

And hey, if you have an hour or two to kill, go to Frank's web site and check his incredible artwork, each annotated with a history of each piece, and don't forget to check out the Director's Cut of "Guidolon the Giant Space Chicken." Later!