This Glitteratti Life

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It always happens.  Not to you, maybe, because you're better organized than I am.  But always to me.  Two minutes after I hit St. Mark's Square in Venice, my camera died.  Standing in front of the Tsar's Bell in the Kremlin, my camera ran out of juice.  And so on, in Sweden... Finland... Croatia...  If if would be a really good idea to have a snapshot, my camera's not available.

Which is why there isn't a photo on today's post.  

Yesterday, I got up, ran a few errands, and then drove a hundred miles north to New York City for the Avram Davidson Society luncheon.  This august organization exists to promote the memory and reputation of one of the great American short fiction writers of the Twentieth Century.  It's entirely a coincidence that two of my editors were there.  Henry Wessells, founder of the Society, of course published What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage?  James Branch Cabell in the Twentieth Century, famed for its 17-copy limited hardcover edition signed by myself, Barry Humphries (you may know him as Dame Edna), and JBC himself, and has plans to do something else by me, though not this year.  And David Hartwell is my editor at Tor -- insert mandatory plug for The Dragons of Babel here -- as well as being a friend of long standing.  David and I discussed, among many other things, the logistics of our trip with James and Kathy Morrow to Congres Boreal next week.

Then a quick hundred-mile jaunt home to feed the cat, pick up Marianne, and drive downtown for dinner with Gardner Dozois, Susan Casper, and Ricky Kagan.

I mention all this not to dazzle you with my fabulous social life (though if you cared to be dazzled, I wouldn't object) but to explain why I haven't whomped up something more substantive for today's post.  

I was having a life.

So may we all.

Et un amuse bouche pour vous . . .

You probably want to hear a bit of the gossip.  Hmm... well...  Gardner (who edits, remember, The Year's Best Science Fiction for St. Martin's Press) tells me that Jonathan Strahan's new anthology, The Starry Rift, is an early front-runner for best science fiction anthology of the year -- despite the fact that it's aimed specifically at the YA market.

What's that?  Oh, yes,  We really do gossip about business and art, and a lot of the gossip is simple praise.  I know how unlikely that sounds.

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