I don't know why I update on Friday nights. Conventional wisdom is that no one reads blogs on weekends, and if I write another entry later this weekend, this one is apt to be unread forever.

Ah, well. I read blogs on Saturdays, so maybe some other poor soul out there does, too, and is eager for new content in the morning....

So, in case you don't read comments: My identity wasn't stolen! The bank screwed up in a way that is too basically uninteresting to describe (again). But, yay, no sensitive material was compromised yadda yadda. I'm a happy boy, with my identity intact!

Had three glasses of wine after work today, sitting on the deck with my boss and Liza. Also ate cheese, fried shrimp, summer sausage, and olives. It was a rather long and somewhat frantic day, but somehow the liberal application of chilled white wine soothes the stress away.

I have a simple plan for this weekend: I am going to read. Lots of things. I have more books to read than I can possibly finish in a week (let alone a weekend), but I aim to make a dent in the pile. I'm incredibly excited. I love me some books. Starting with Quin's Shanghai Circus by Edward Whittemore. I'll give y'all a report on my reading at weekend's end...

Heather and I are also going to a birthday party/feast, and we'll probably get out of the house one or two other times, too. But compared to last weekend, this will be a festival of lethargy.

Oh, so The Best of Strange Horizons: Year Two is available now, with many things by me in -- "Little Gods" (story), "Of Explorers and Button Eyes: Neil Gaiman's Coraline" (review), "A Bestiary: Engulfer" (poem), and "Muse Trap" (poem). It's a pretty book, too. Go buy a copy.

And buy a copy of Polyphony 4, too, which includes my story "Hart & Boot," in addition to great stories by Jeff VanderMeer, Theodora Goss, Jenn Reese, Greg van Eekhout, and others.

At Worldcon I was talking to fellow Campbell-award-loser David Levine about Fictionwise.com. It's done well by him, apparently. So on Wednesday I contacted them about reprinting some of my short fiction, and they sent me a contract. At some point in the foreseeable future, you'll be able to read a bunch of my stories via Fictionwise. That's right -- access to my fiction, at the incomprehensible speed of the internet. Tremble in your excitement. Details will follow sometime.