I’ll be there, for like the whole time, so if you’d like to meet up, cross paths, grab a drink, do something, drop me a line and let’s get something set up because I don’t get to the US often and would love to see everyone.

From the Denvention website: Hugo voting closes on July 7.  If you’re a member of the convention, or otherwise eligible to vote, please head over to the website and get your vote in, or drop it in the post.  The Hugos are one of the ways that our community rewards work that it considers noteworthy or excellent, and are worth your support.  I acknowledge I have a conflict of interest here: I’m nominated in one category, and I’d love to win.  However, I’d be happier if you voted and voted for who you want to win.  Don’t feel like you have to have read everything or know everyone. Vote for what you think deserves to win.  It’s a good thing.

Well, many thanks to Aaron and Charlie for their advice and recommendations.  In the closing moments of the old tax year, I shot off an order and soon will be the proud owner of a Sony Reader.  I won’t see it till I get to Oakland, but hopefully it’ll be the solution to my problems.

She’s home.  The doctors let her come home last night, but she’s still registered as a patient, so back today to see one more doctor (a supervising neurologist) who wasn’t available last night.  We know a bit about what’s not wrong with her: she’s been given all-clears by cardiologists, neurologists, physiotherapists, psychologists, and so on.  So what is wrong? We still don’t know.  It seems it is either a mild virus, a vanishingly rare condition, or it’s all in her mind. She’s up and walking, running, and even skipping. But, sometimes, she’ll say she’s feeling unsteady and be very tenative. Then she’ll get distracted – see a toy or a friend or something – and go running off like there’s nothing wrong.  So, she seems okay, we still don’t know exactly what’s up, there are more doctors to see, but we’re cautiously optimistic.  Thanks to everyone for their kind emails and thoughts. They are appreciated.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about or planning blog posts: they tend to be pretty spontaneous. Yesterday morning, though, I was sitting around thinking about blogging about short fiction generally, and the recent short fiction of Peter Beagle specifically. Beagle is a wonderful writer, but wasn’t really known for his short fiction until recently. Since early 2004 he’s written some amazing short stories, including a couple for me that I love a great deal. I was also aware that he had close to a dozen new stories coming this year, so it seemed timely.

Because I can’t help myself, I emailed his business manager to get a current bibliography. I couldn’t find one, and I thought I’d list all of his new fiction in my post. It also occurred to me that it’d be cool to have someone publish a treasury of his best short fiction, a 200,000 word collection covering the close to fifty years of his fiction writing career. So, I shot off an email to Bill at Subterranean Press, who I’ve worked with on a couple projects recently. I then pretty much forgot about it (family grabbed my attention).

Before I knew it, though, I’d heard back from Bill, he was in touch with Peter and his agent, details were discussed and so on. Less than 24 hours after pondering a blog post, I have now agreed to edit Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle. It will be published in October 2009 to coincide with the San Jose World Fantasy Convention, which I’ll be attending. I’m a bit breathless really. It’s exciting, and shows how some projects take a loooong time, and some just materialise out of thin air.