Just got the good word. Lenox Ave. is buying "Blind Date", the collaboration I did with Nick Mamatas. It's a post-apocalyptic Adam and Eve story. Nope, I'm not kidding. Passing this story back and forth is one of the most fun things I've ever done, and I'm glad it's being published.

But with joy, also sadness. I got a rejection from Ellen Datlow at Sci Fiction saying my story was "the closest you've come to something I'd buy. It just misses me (I'm not sure why)." Very much a bummer. I think the story in question is one of the most ambitious and cool things I've ever written. She says she she's sure I'll have no trouble selling it elsewhere, and that may be true, but I really wanted to sell it to her! C'est la vie. Off it goes elsewhere.

Speaking of blind things... Heather's been having eye trouble, and she went to the hospital yesterday. I left work early so I could meet her and get her home, so she wouldn't have to take a bus home in the rain, in the dark, with dilated eyes and no glasses. Because I'm a loving fiancé. It's nothing serious, just a non-contagious irritation, but she's stuck wearing her glasses for a while. While I was in the waiting room at the hospital, I read Greg's YA novel, which is categorically awesome, and has both pirates and carnivorous plants, which makes it even more awesome than that.

Sometimes my job is cool. Yesterday I spoke for a while with Sean Stewart about "I Love Bees", the alternate-reality game he created that's been running for the past few months as a run-up to the release of Halo 2. (Sean was, of course, one of the principal masterminds behind The Beast, the immersive game created to promote the film A.I..) It was a pretty fascinating conversation -- he's basically creating a new art form from scratch. Part of "I Love Bees" is a five-plus-hour SF radio play, written by Sean, Maureen McHugh, Wil McCarthy, and Alex Irvine. You can download the whole radio play here. I've listened to the first chunk of it, and the writing is wonderful and sharp and funny, honest-to-god radio drama.