There’s the ner­vous­ness of sub­mit­ting fic­tion in the hopes an edi­tor might accept it, and then there’s the joy and dis­be­lief when it’s accepted, and then there’s the roller coaster of excite­ment and panic when it is pub­lished, because that’s when you really notice all the mis­takes you should have fixed in the first place. And how pre­ten­tious your bio sounds. And how embar­rass­ing it is to see all the really good sto­ries along­side your fic­tion, like your story showed up at a party think­ing it was going to be a casual BBQ sort of thing so nobody would notice the cof­fee stain on its jeans and that it is sorta over­due for a hair­cut, and then when it walks in it turns out to be  an ele­gant cock­tail party full of really good-looking, witty peo­ple dressed like they just stepped out of a fash­ion spread.

Everybody feels that way, right?

Anyway! Fireside Fiction #19 was pub­lished yes­ter­day, and my mod­est con­tri­bu­tion aside, it is, as is its wont, laden with good stuff. I’m look­ing for­ward to set­ting aside time to read “Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer” in par­tic­u­lar.