Wow. I just realized that the next month is the Perfect Storm for me, story-wise. At World Fantasy alone I have three stories debuting: "The Tyrant in Love" in Fantasy Magazine; "The Third-Quarter King" in Eidolon; and "Gillian Underground" (a collab with edgemeister Greg and ol' Mike Jasper) in Polyphony 5. These are some of my best stories ever!

And while those stories are debuting in Madison, I'll be on my honeymoon! (Though we won't actually be in Hawai'i anymore. We get back here on November 3, just as WFC begins, so I'll be back in Oakland, basking in home life with vacation days, as the eager public falls upon my stories.)

And there's more! "Hart & Boot" is in BASS, which came out this month (no contributor copies for me yet, but I assume they're winding their way toward me). My story "Jubilee" should be in the winter issue of the Journal of Mythic Arts in December. Then there's, ya know, that whole novel thing. Should be a great autumn.

"Cup and Table", one of my best stories evar, with some of my very most favorite characters, will be in Twenty Epics in 2006.

Just this afternoon I signed contracts for Hart & Boot & Other Stories, so the collection with Night Shade Books looks to be a go! Which means next year won't be utterly bereft of publication. (I hope, of course, that my publications will be fruitful and multiplicitous next year, but I don't count on such things.) Now I just need to write my story notes, which will be fun.

My poetry collection oughta be coming out sometime in the nearish future, too.

In case you hadn't guessed: No Flytrap 5 at World Fantasy. What with the wedding and all, a hiatus seemed in order. So it'll premiere at WisCon, May 2006. (And the contents are almost final...) We're hoping to have some other Tropism Pressrific treats next May, too. Details will follow as things solidify.

I'm looking forward to the very-soon-now (October 15, supposedly) premiere of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. (And I don't even have a story coming up there!) Scott has good taste, and I've enjoyed the anthologies he's edited, so I've got high hopes for his 'zine.

Likewise looking forward to reading Lisa Silverthorne's debut collection, The Sound of Angels.

Lately I've been reading a book about strippers, that can't decide if it's memoir, sociology, or might-as-well-be-fiction (as when the first-person narrator devotes whole chapters to the lives of acquaintances, writing from their point-of-view, except for brief and jarring authorial digressions). It's still interesting enough to keep me reading, though. Soon I have to decide what to read next. I just got the Alan Coren Omnibus, but I think I'll save it for airplane reading on the honeymoon. I've been listening to the audiobook of Anansi Boys, because it's a fun book and the voice actor, Lenny Henry, is fabulous. Speaking of audio recordings of fiction, Jenn Reese's funny Hollywood SF story "The Dream Factory" is up now at Escape Pod, my favorite podcast magazine.

I am a man of many favorites. This is a rich season.