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When I first came online in 2006 and fell in with the SFF... H writing community, a name that kept on coming up was Ellen Datlow's. I became aware that she was an editor and that she published best-of anthologies. I used to whisper her name to myself with strong emphasis on the first syllable of her surname. Ellen DATlow, Ellen DATlow...
Nothing of mine ever ended up in a best-of anthology, but it's okay--other good things came my way.
Then this afternoon, Vanessa Fogg (a writer I love; her novella The Lilies of Dawn was published by the same small press that published my Tales of the Polity) mentioned that a poem of mine was on Ellen Datlow's long-list of recommendations for Best Horror No. 14. I thought, Vanessa must be wrong. I haven't written a poem in a thousand years, and I don't write horror.
But my friends, she wasn't wrong! It was a poem I had written in December 2020 (so, indeed: a thousand years ago) that was published in Not One of Us in 2021. I had to go back and find the poem and read it--then it all came back to me.
I've been feeling pretty resigned about my writing's lack of reach (not depressed, just, well, that's how things are<--that sort of feeling), so this was a welcome surprise. 2006 me would be dancing around, saying Ellen DATlow! Ellen DATlow in a spirit of affirmation!
...I guess I write horror after all!
Nothing of mine ever ended up in a best-of anthology, but it's okay--other good things came my way.
Then this afternoon, Vanessa Fogg (a writer I love; her novella The Lilies of Dawn was published by the same small press that published my Tales of the Polity) mentioned that a poem of mine was on Ellen Datlow's long-list of recommendations for Best Horror No. 14. I thought, Vanessa must be wrong. I haven't written a poem in a thousand years, and I don't write horror.
But my friends, she wasn't wrong! It was a poem I had written in December 2020 (so, indeed: a thousand years ago) that was published in Not One of Us in 2021. I had to go back and find the poem and read it--then it all came back to me.
I've been feeling pretty resigned about my writing's lack of reach (not depressed, just, well, that's how things are<--that sort of feeling), so this was a welcome surprise. 2006 me would be dancing around, saying Ellen DATlow! Ellen DATlow in a spirit of affirmation!
...I guess I write horror after all!
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