So, I was woken at about 2.30am this morning and didn’t get back to sleep.   Not good for the first day back at work.  Went to the office for the first time in five weeks, and everyone was lovely, but this is a new job really and I was feeling tired and out of my depth.  I’m sure all will be good, but it just left me on edge. I then got home to find that the 20kg box I mailed on Saturday to Victoria containing the dead CD player was sent to me rather than the right place. So, rather than crashing for a while I took MJ and Jess to gym and went and fronted the Post Office about it. It’s now on its way to where it needs to go.  I got home and felt tired and irritable.  As a result, I’ve closed down my Facebook account for a while.  This isn’t a big deal and isn’t a thing against anyone or anything – I just didn’t want to think about status updates and friend requests and vampire pigeon wrestling matches.  Another day, yeah?

As I write details are yet to be finalised for a fourth volume in my Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year anthology series, but Jeremy at Night Shade has said they want the book and so I believe it will happen.

With that in mind, along with the crew at Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth, today I’m starting reading 2009 short fiction.  I have Ellen Datlow’s Poe anthology and Sharyn November’s Firebirds Soaring as the first things on my to read list, and will be actively hunting new short fiction out. If all goes to plan, I’ll be reading new short fiction till 1 November 2009, at which point I start working on the manuscript for volume five in time for a 1 December delivery date.  It’ll be tight, but doable.

Now, although it’s not been announced the LSSOE gang are mixing up what they’re doing and I’m planning on doing the same.  First, there should be more blogging about what I like and don’t.  I’m not sure where yet, but it’ll happen. Second, there’ll be more outreach. If you see, hear, or publish short fiction please let me know. I want to see everything I can.  Please don’t be shy about getting in touch. I read anything under novel length and anything that could be considered science fiction or fantasy (I do read on the peripheries of horror, but the book I’m doing is only peripherally horror).  Thirdly, I hope to have a year’s best announcement here soon that I’m pretty excited about.  The minute it’s confirmed, I’ll let you know.

Well, that’s it for the moment.  More soon!

The good folks over at Night Shade have posted the table of contents for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3.  You can check it out over there.  It’ll be out in March and I’m pretty happy with it.  I hope you all like it too.

Two weeks late, but I’ve delivered The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3 to Night Shade!  I’m pretty sure we’re on for next year, but next up is copyedits. I’m just delighted to get it in.

A thought: over the past year I’ve come to realise how little I understand the art of editing anthologies, how much I’ve learned about doing it, and how much there is still to learn.  The whole management of the editing process is a delicate thing, and I continue to puzzle over it.  There’s editing stories, sequencing books and so on.  My current obsession has become truth in advertising. I’ve frankly made mistakes — honestly, but still mistakes — when it comes to the presentation of books: matching titles to covers to contents to themes to introductions and so on.  I’ve been forming some very strong views on how ‘truth in advertising’ impacts on these things, on how you should deal fairly with readers, and so on.  It’s an interesting process.