If you’ve spent anytime reading science fiction, you’ve probably heard of Gardner Dozois.  He edited Asimov’s Science Fiction for many years (before giving way to current editor Sheila Williams), writes reviews for Locus, and puts out a little book every year known as The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which is probably the best known of the annual “year’s best” anthologies that come out.  He’s a highly respected editor, anthologist, and writer.

Every writer would like to make it into the The Year’s Best, but of course, there are only a few slots available.  In addition to selecting two dozen or so stories, Mr. Dozois also assembles an Honorable Mention list of maybe 400-500 titles that are a sort of short list that were considered for inclusion, but didn’t make the final cut.  Getting onto the short list is considering a worthy achievement, and I’m proud to announce that one of my stories “The Schrödinger War” made the Honorable Mention list for 2013 (I’m right there on page 700, just above Eugene Mirabelli).  Ya for me!

While this doesn’t mean much in the grand picture, it is an accomplishment to be proud of—and I am proud of it.  So far, this has been a hit-and-miss year for writing, so this news is a nice kick in the rear to keep me going.  Not that I need validation, but it is gratifying when a “big name” in the field recognizes my work.  Who knows, maybe one of these years I’ll wind up with a story selected to actually appear in one of Mr. Dozois’ anthologies.