Just had news from Des Lewis that he's moved up the release date of Null Immortalis. The antho should be out in a week or so, and the good news is my story is up first, alongside work by the likes of Joel Lane, Mark Valentine, Steve Rasnic Tem and Reggie Oliver.

Des' email got me thinking about anthologies again. I've been in a few over the years, and have several other appearances forthcoming, in Phoenix Imprint's "Watch" and Mythos Books' "Cthulhu 2012". I also have submissions out at half a dozen more.

For many years I didn't even bother submitting to them. For some reason they didn't appear on my radar in the early days, and then I was focussed on novels for most of the 2000's. It's only in the past few years I've come to realise that I really enjoy seeing my name in books alongside people I have read and admired.

I can pick one of these books off the bookshelf at home, and see my name beside the likes of Alan Dean Foster, Ken McLeod, John Shirley, Mark Morris, Charlie Stross, Stephen Volk, Hal Duncan et al and it gives me a validation that I don't get too often -- a sense that I am a -real- writer as opposed to someone just bullshitting his way through.

It's a feeling I don't get often and, for tonight at least, it's enough to send me back to that blank page one more time.

So if there are any editors out there looking for writers for new anthologies -- I'm open to invitations.

_________________

"One of the premier storytellers of our time" - FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND
William Meikle