Jeff VanderMeer is kind enough to include me on this list of his favorite underappreciated (ETA: see Jeff’s comment to learn that I misread him, so much for words being my business…) short storytellers. I am certainly always open to more appreciation (grin). Be sure to check out the other writers on the list — Jeff’s got great taste, although I would say that, wouldn’t I? (now it’s a wicked grin…)
I am always delighted to get this kind of notice, not just because it’s nice for me, but because it’s nice for short stories to get some love. They are like dragonflies, these little packets of words — such beauty, such fierceness, such swooping dizzying aerobatics, and then phht, gone down to dust often before anyone has noticed. So thanks, Jeff, for noticing. Because if a novel is a long beautiful day, a fabulous short story is the moment when the moon breaks through the clouds and lights a path to somewhere mysterious and slightly shadowed and piercingly beautiful. The short story is a cliff from which we may be persuaded to willingly leap, if the view out there is enticing enough…
I like to leap.