Lately I’ve started to feel as though I’m channeling some sort of inner George R.R. Martin. That might have once been a good thing. Now, though? Just the opposite.

Sometimes there are years that we’re grimly happy to see drop off the calendar and land in the mud as we slog on, trample them under, and leave them behind.

Everything we most enjoy doing is done a finite number of times, and, whether or not we realize it in the moment, one of them will be the last.

The good news: An omnibus print edition combining both books will be going to press in September.

To look back in embarrassment at what felt at the time like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and now seeing it as Monkey Jesus, is to recognize how far you’ve come.

It’s in some stellar company, too. C’mon, who doesn’t get a flush of delight from rubbing bookshelf-shoulders with Shakespeare?

Me, I couldn’t think of anything more monstrous than what can happen to people under the malign influences of social media.

Back in the mists of early-ish COVID-19 history, I contracted with Cemetery Dance Publications for my sixth collection of short fiction: Black Hole Sundown.

Easy. Instead, the pitiless old rule once again proved true: However long you think a major project is going to take, multiply your estimate by a factor of 1.5.