"Letters from Gardner" now available

My author's copies of "Letters from Gardner - A Writer's Odyssey" - my collection that features my short stories plus correspondence from Gardner Dozois when I was trying to break into science fiction - have arrived. Published by John Teehan and The Merry Blacksmith Press, it is 238 pages long and reprints 16 stories.

It's an interesting hybrid of a book - partly history because the way it looks back at that time near the turn of the century in the world of science fiction magazines; and partly writer's manual, as I explain what I was doing, what I was learning, and what Gardner wrote.

I also explain how I applied what Gardner wrote; all except one of the 15 stories I sent him during the period were ultimately published.

The book is also a short story collection, as I reprint those stories. In most cases, I have dredged up the original versions (I had to buy an external floppy disk drive because my backup files from that time are on floppies) and then explain the revisions that were made. In many cases, I published new endings or beginnings.

One of the reasons I did this this is that I'm the last author Gardner bought a story from before he retired from Asimov's. I was the last person who ever went through this process, and after so many years it's something I think needs to be set down in history.

Perhaps this will be a contender for the "Best Related Work" Hugo award next year in Spokane.