The Year in Review

Hello my little forest friends. Anyone who reads this journal knows that I’ve been posting infrequently. The truth is, I’ve been missing out on the interactive part of the LJ experience; I haven’t taken much time to read my friends’ journals, much less comment on them. Mostly I’ve been using the journal for writing news (also infrequent), which strikes me as the digital equivalent of those horrible Christmas form letters.

You know the ones I mean: they’re usually from families with young kids who don’t have the time to write individual letters to all their friends, so they mail out a press release (folded awkwardly into a Christmas card) about their doings, their kids’ doings, and their pets’ doings. The letters often come off as boastful and condescending: not only do I have a fabulous life, home, boat, child, dog, but I have far too many friends to write to them individually.

I hate those letters. Or I used to.

I have far more sympathy for the letter writers than I used to—even the ones who own boats—because whatever else those letters say, they’re also saying, “I’ve neglected my friends and I feel guilty about it.” Mea Culpa.

This past year all my friends, on LJ and off, have probably been saying, “What the hell is up with Bob? He doesn’t call, he doesn’t write, and all my letters are returned, marked Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”

Well, I didn’t buy a boat. Part of the reason I’ve been incommunicado, as many of you know, is that I’ve been working long hours at an absorbing, demanding and very satisfying job. I’m also in a serious relationship for the first time in a while, with the spheniscidaephile (pictured here presiding over her Christmas dinnertable). To say that I’ve been struggling to find the balance among work and life and relationships is a vast, drafty understatement. Even when I’ve had the time, a rare commodity these past nine months, I haven’t had the energy to keep up with my friends. For that I’m sorry.

I’m not one for resolutions, New Year’s or otherwise, but I’m going to try and make 2007 the year my friends say “What the hell is up with Bob? He’s at the door again. Doesn’t he have a life?!”

So you’ll be hearing from me. Consider yourself warned.

So this is pretty gratifying: my novelette, “Do Neanderthals Know?” published in the December 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, made the preliminary ballot for the Nebula Award. What this means is that ten of my fellow science fiction and fantasy writers found the story compelling enough to recommend it for the award. I’ve read half of the other works on the ballot in that category, and they are good, so it’s pretty flattering to be included in their company.

Also in December, my short story, “Life Sentences,” was reprinted in issue nine of Aeon Speculative Fiction, edited by the fabulous Marti McKenna and Bridget McKenna.

All in all a pretty good way to close out the year.

Hot Air

Best Day for Radio Since the LZ-129 Docked at Lakehurst: on Saturday, October 14, I will be appearing on Hour of the Wolf, hosted by Jim Freund, on WBAI 99.5 FM, from 5 to 7 a.m.

Hour of the Wolf’s format will be music, conversation with Jim about speculative fiction, and a reading by the show’s guest (that would be me).

If you’re not in WBAI’s broadcast range (the New York metropolitan area), you can listen to the show on the web.

Writing News – “From Wayfield, From Malagasy”

My novelette, “From Wayfield, From Malagasy,” appears in the October 2006 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, at your local newsstand now. Directly following my story is a Biolog about me by Richard A. Lovett (a terrific fiction writer himself, who has stories in the September and October Analogs), who makes me seem much more interesting than I actually am.

Other Writing News

A few friends are also having a pretty good writing week: William Shunn’s () novella, “Inclination,” and Richard Bowes’ novel, From the Files of the Time Rangers, have both made it onto the preliminary Nebula Awards ballot. Congratulations!

David Barr Kirtley’s () story, “Blood of Virgins,” appears in the October 2006 Realms of Fantasy.