I just heard that my SF story The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill will be appearing very soon — in Clarkesworld‘s February issue.
I’m thrilled to death, of course. Three Resurrections is my most recently completed story, and strangely, it will be my first published piece of fiction. Thus is the magic of the Internet!
And something else exciting has happened recently. I haven’t yet made much of it publicly (though I crowed on Facebook* because I just couldn’t help myself). So here it goes:
I just sold a story to Asimov’s Science Fiction.
And when I found out I cried my little eyes out. Bawled like a baby in my cubicle at work. Silently, I hope.
Why did I cry? Well, Asimov’s changed my life. Specifically, the January 1984 issue changed my life.
I bought it on a long road trip from Kelowna to Hinton. I’d been reading SF, of course, all my life, but this issue of Asimov’s introduced me to the cutting edge of contemporary SF at my tenderest of teenage years.
I have vivid memories of sitting in the front seat of our 1977 Suburban, reading Connie Willis’ Blued Moon and feeling my mind expand as I laughed and laughed. Connie’s story is about linguistics and happenstance and romance and coincidence, and the sponge of my little teenage brain just sopped it up. I’d never experienced anything like it.
From then on I went to the local drugstore about three times a week to check for the next issue of Asimov’s. I bought Analog and F&SF too, of course, and enjoyed them, but Asimov’s was special. Asimov’s introduced me to the writers who would form my adult mind — to Octavia Butler, James Tiptree, Michael Bishop, Nancy Kress, Maureen McHugh, John Kessel, Jack Womack, Pat Cadigan, of course Connie Willis, and so many others.
Asimov’s made me who I am. And in July my story Two-Year Man will appear in its pages.
*And on the SFWA forums, too. Because now I’m a SFWA member! Which is another thing to cry tears of joy over.