I knew them when

Rachel Swirsky, one of my Clarion West 2005 students, writes of the upcoming Fantasy: The Best of the Year:

One of my CW submission stories is also being published in the anthology. I dunno if you'd remember it -- "Heartstrung" which is about a woman sewing her daughter's heart to her sleeve.

I'm pleased to share a TOC!

This is excellent news, and I well remember reading that amazing story in manuscript. This may be the first time I've ever shared a table of contents with one of my former students. "Heartstrung" first saw print this year in Interzone. Rachel has others coming up in Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales and anthologies from Night Shade Books and Subterranean Press. Here's her blog.

Another story I well remember reading in manuscript is John Schoffstall's marvelous "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery," first published in Strange Horizons in 2006. John was one of my Clarion 2004 students. The first print publication of "Fourteen Experiments" is in the new Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: 20th Annual Collection, as a Kelly Link-Gavin J. Grant selection. John's fine story "Bullet Dance" was in the July 2007 issue of Asimov's and is online at the Asimov's site.

And when I opened David G. Hartwell's Year's Best SF 12, I was tickled to see "Just Do It," a Fantasy & Science Fiction story by one of Rachel's CW95 classmates, Heather Lindsley. Cory Doctorow calls "Just Do It" a "doozy," and he's right. I also commend to your attention Heather's laugh-out-loud "Atalanta Loses at the Interpantheonic Trivia Bee," in the September 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the impressive collage of famous Janes at Heather's blog, Random Jane. Heather's Jane-quilt reminds me of Karen Joy Fowler's "The Elizabeth Complex."

A number of my former Clarion and Clarion West students, not just these three, are on their way to becoming very well known in the field. I claim no credit for the success of any of these people. I'm just privileged that I got to hang out with these folks for a week one summer. They inspired me then, and they inspire me now.