My son just made me $150! My story "The River Boy," which is dedicated to him, and which I wrote during our hospital stay (and read to him and his mother aloud hours after it was written), just sold to Clarkesworld Magazine. I've been sending editor Sean Wallace stories since the magazine got started, but nothing ever really clicked with him, until this one.

December has been a good month for short stories. Sold this one, a collab to Chizine, an erotica reprint under my pseudonym, a reprint to a year's best, and some stuff to foreign markets.

In his year-end summary of Strange Horizons, reviewer Rich Horton singles out "Artifice and Intelligence" as his favorite story of the year from that magazine.

So, in summation, um, stories are great!

My new favorite Xmas song? "Merry Christmas from the Family" by Robert Earl Keen.