Honorable Mention in YBF&H

One of the events we lowly writers look forward to with a mix of eagerness and trepidation is the release of the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, a tome covering what worked, what didn't, in both the fantasy and horror genres. One place where these two areas are intermingled, one of the few actually (normally fantasy and science fiction are paired up). Edited this year by Ellen Datlow, who's edited the horror side of the book since forever, and Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant taking up the reigns as fantasy editors. Filled with stories which they deem the best in the two genres from the past year, it's the front and back sections which we writers go immediately to, not necessarily in that order.

The back contains "honorable mentions," a list of authors and their stories published the prior year which Ellen & co consider good stories, but which did not make the cut into the book itself. We all want to see our name in this section, and I have gotten a few in the past. This time around, Ellen offered a gracious nod to "Ray Gun," published last Fall in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest. The story had garnered some nice reviews this past year (and a couple of angry ones), so this Honorable Mention is a nice way to seal the pie - to mix metaphors. In her lengthy, very detailed reap of the horror market for the past year, Ellen also had this to say about Apex, which made me smile:

Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest, edited by Jason Sizemore, is a quarterly with consistently readable fiction and regular interviews. The three issues published in 2007 had notable horror by Ian Creasey, Patrice Sarath, Cherie Priest, Stefani Nellen, Daniel G. Keohane and Nancy Fulda.

Gosh, shucks. Congrats to everyone who made the list, and those who got their stories into the issue, especially Jack Haringa (he who was killed many times in the past year by us scribes). Sure would be nice if I had some stories published in 2008, but doesn't look promising since Cemetery Dance is way behind on their magazine publishing schedule, and I'm not sure if the issue of Shroud I'm slated for will be out before 2009. I doubt she's reading Relief 2.2. Maybe I'll send her a copy. :-)