Nice bit of a Kirkus review of Best American Short Stories that mentions my piece:

"Genre-bending also appears throughout, at its best in the Calvino-esque series of parables in J. Robert Lennon's 'Eight Pieces for the Left Hand,' and the good humor of Tim Pratt's Wild West fantasy 'Hart and Boot.' Indeed, humor -- from black-gallows to gentle chuckles -- leavens the entire collection. Even when repetitive (two stories about neurotical, sensitive piano-playing young boys?), the offerings are consistently interesting and often wonderfully weird."

That's nice to read. Especially since the only other mention of "Hart and Boot" in BASS I've seen was a blog entry by someone who got an advance copy, which called my story a clunker and a dud. (A couple of other stories were lumped into that category too, so at least I wasn't exceptionally objectionable.)

The PW review namechecks me too, but just as one of several stories that "skirt genre," which is fair enough. I'm happy just to be standing, metaphorically speaking, in such a venerable room.

The story has now been published and is about to be reprinted as "Hart and Boot", but for the collection I think I'm changing it to "Hart & Boot", with the ampersand. Why? Because a bibliographer killed my family, and I want to take my revenge by annoying all bibliographers everywhere! Ha ha ha!

(Actually I just like how Hart & Boot & Other Stories looks typographically. We'll see what the editor thinks of it.)