A few Thursday notes:

• Warren Ellis is talking science fiction art and science fiction magazine design. He makes the reasonable point (I summarise) that the sf magazines don’t exactly look cutting edge these days. It’s a fair point. The last great new design I saw was the Analog bedsheet from the ’60s. It’d be nice to have a good looking, well designed SF magazine.
• Speaking of covers: saw the cover Ellis’s Fell: Volume 1 Feral City on his site. It’s by Perth artist Ben Templesmith. By weird it’s-a-small-world-itis, I work with Ben’s wife. Who knew?
• The Dreamhoster forum thingy is up. Come say hi.
• I’m reading Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois’ anthology Wizards right now. I’m five stories in maybe, having read stories stories by Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Mary Rosenblum, Kage Baker, and Eoin Colfer. Interesting and good stuff. I think the Gaiman story “The Witch’s Headstone” is part of his The Graveyard Book, but I don’t know for sure. It has made me think more about YA, though. The stories are good, but I’m not sure that at least one doesn’t talk down a little to its audience, and fall into the pitfalls of writing the kind of story they think kids might like rather than just writing a story.