Starlight 3, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tor Books

I’ve been trying to break into Starlight for, oh, six or seven years. For my money, it’s the best original sf anthology I’ve ever read, and I’m unspeakably pumped to finally sell Patrick a story.

No less spectacular are the circumstances under which Patrick accepted the story: it was at the reception before the Hugo Awards, and I was in a state of barely contained panic. Patrick said, “Hey, I keep forgetting to tell you — I want to buy your story for Starlight” — an hour later, I won the Campbell Award, and that was possibly the only thing that could’ve eclipsed my ecstasy over selling this piece.

I wrote this story while stuck in a hotel room in Montreal, working for an ad agency.
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