For the salt tears of lovers and the whispers of friends

[sovay]

Today's mail brought my contributor's copy of Shimmer: The Best Of: Speculative Fiction for a Miscreant World (Shimmer Publications, 2020), edited by E. Catherine Tobler and introduced by Mary Robinette Kowal. It is a brick-thick paperback representing thirteen years of strange and shining fiction by Angela Slatter, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Amal El-Mohtar, Daniel A. Rabuzzi, Karin Tidbeck, K.M. Szpara, Carmen Maria Machado, Vajra Chandrasekera, Sunny Moraine, Arkady Martine, Naru Dames Sundar, Anya Johanna DeNiro, A. C. Wise, and many more, including my own non-binary, bog-body-loving "The Creeping Influences." The world is ever more virtual, but at the present moment I am especially glad to join this company in a form I can hold. Don't let that stop you from picking up an e-book, though.

In a pleasing access of literature, the mail also brought me copies of Jayaprakash Satyamurthy's Broken Cup (Clash Books, 2020) and Michael Cisco's Do You Mind If We Dance with Your Legs? (Nightscape Press, 2020). I am greatly looking forward to both.