Not as big as Dozois leaving Asimov's or Pringle leaving Interzone, perhaps, but I am now officially no longer editor of Star*Line. Future submissions should be sent to the new editor, Marge Simon, at 1412 NE 35th St., Ocala FL 34479. (I think she's going to have an address for electronic submissions, too; watch www.sfpoetry.com for details in the nearish future.) Any submissions sent to me will just be forwarded to Marge anyway, so you may as well cut out the middleman...

Just about five minutes ago I put the finishing touches on the contents of Star*Line 27.3 and sent it off to Mike Allen, who so ably handles our layout. Once that's proofread and any problems are dealt with, I will have gracefully bowed out of the editorship. I liked doing Star*Line -- I had fun putting this last issue together, too -- but I'm glad to have one less project on my plate. Now I can put all my editing energies into Flytrap!

Farewell, fair Star*Line. I'll always remember you fondly.

Yesterday I got my check for the reprint of "Fable from a Cage" in Year's Best Fantasy 4. This is good. This will pay three-fourths of the contributors to Flytrap 2.

So, with Star*Line done, I only have a couple of big projects to get through this weekend. I want to finish the draft of the Koontz essay by Monday, so that I can get it polished next week, and send it off by or before my deadline. I need to finish reading The Fourth Circle (I'm nearly done) and write a review. So I still have plenty to keep me occupied...

Next week I can finally start to concentrate on fiction again. I have two stories to revise, the ones I wrote last month and early this month, "Komodo" and "Life in Stone." A couple of nights ago I was going through old notebooks, looking for notes on an old novel idea, and I found handwritten first drafts of two complete short stories from about two years ago, "Events in Circle Seven" and "Post, Ergo, Propter." I was surprised to discover that they were pretty good -- first-drafty, but well-worth revising. I vaguely remember writing them, but have no recollection of why I left them unrevised. So I'm going to get those into shape and send them out, too. (I found the draft of a third story from about the same time, but it's pretty clear why I abandoned that one.) I'm also going to take yet another stab at finishing my "Rangergirl" novelette, and I have an idea for a kick-ass novelette that I'm eager to write. By the end of May, I hope to have at least six new stories in circulation. I haven't worked on fiction in a couple of weeks, and it's starting to get to me. It will be good to return to the forest of narrative.