Where did 2011 go?  A few blinks of the eye and *poof*!

●   I’ll never forget 2011 because it was the year I was nominated for my first major award, the World Fantasy Award, for my Black Static story “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us.” I traveled to San Diego for the award ceremonies, did a reading, and got to lose to the amazing Joyce Carol Oates.  (It still makes me laugh that I was mentioned in the same breath as a multiple Pulitzer Prize nominee.)  Best of all, I got to share this experience with my fellow Fluidians N.K. Jemisin and Matthew Kressel who were also nominated.

●   In March, I co-taught a science fiction writing seminar, the Holodeck Writers Workshop (organized and hosted by the inimitable Tony Smith of StarshipSofa) with an esteemed staff consisting of Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams and writers extraordinaire Michael Swanwick, James Patrick Kelly and Gregory Frost.  I spoke about a topic near to my heart: the benefits and pitfalls of writing groups.

●   Two of my stories appeared in back-to-back issues of Interzone, both set in my Wergen Universe.  “For Love’s Delirium Haunts the Fractured Mind” came out in Interzone #235 (July-Aug 2011) (many thanks to Matt Kressel and Paul Berger for helping me come up with that audacious title, btw).  Rich Horton recently called it one of the best stories published by Interzone in 2011.  My novelette, “Tethered,” appeared in the following issue (Interzone #236) (Sept./Oct. 2011).  Both of these stories were accompanied by haunting illustrations of the Wergens by Ben Baldwin, which I loved.  They are my sixth and seventh stories, respectively, to appear in the acclaimed British mag.

●   I was honored to learn that David Hartwell & Katherine Cramer recently selected “Tethered” for their annual Year’s Best Science Fiction 17 anthology, published by Harper Collins, scheduled to hit bookstores in May 2012.  I’ve been a huge fan of this “year’s best” series ever since it debuted seventeen years ago (edited solely by David Hartwell at the time) so this was especially exciting news.

●   “Tethered” has also been long-listed for the British Science Fiction Award, which means that at least one member liked it enough to add it to the pool of about thirty contending stories from 2011.

●   My short story “All Smiles” appeared in Murky Depths #16 in March.

●   In November, StarShipSofa (No. 211) podcast my story “In the Harsh Glow of its Incandescent Beauty.”  It was narrated by J.J. Campanella, who gave a terrific performance.  Take a look at the ice-field and towering glaciers of Triton, illustrated below by Brian Mutschler!  That same story also appeared in the Starship Sofa Vol. 3 anthology with some amazing artwork by Timothy Booth.

Art by Brian Mutschler

●   I made my first sale to Poland, with “Tu Sufrimiento…” being translated and reprinted in the annual anthology “Steps into the Unknown.” I was particularly pleased that the story appears in the table of contents right next to fellow Fluidian Paul Berger’s highly acclaimed “Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Her Glory.”

●   Two stories from 2010, “In the Harsh Glow…” and “Dance of the Kawkawroons” received Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best SF.

●   These same two stories appeared at #6 and #7 respectively in Interzone’s annual Readers’ Poll.

●   “Tu Sufrimiento…” received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year anthology.

●   Speaking of Ellen Datlow, I co-hosted the KGB Reading twice with Matt Kressel when Ellen was traveling and had the pleasure of introducing Kit Reed and N.K. Jemisin.

●   Czech Republic magazine X-B1 translated and reprinted “In the Harsh Glow…” in its January 2011 issue and informed me recently that it will be republishing “Dance of the Kawkawroons” in an upcoming issue in 2012.

In sum, not a bad year.  My 2012 resolution: to improve my story output and get closer to finishing my collection of interrelated Wergen stories.