I was going to post about the fantastic success of my Clarion 2010 classmates—the stacks of brilliant new stories, the furious take-no-prisoners Rejection contest, and most particularly the recent sales from Tamsyn Muir, Kali Wallace, Karin Tidbeck, John Chu, Tom Underberg, Adam Israel, and Leah Thomas—but Dustin Monk has already done so with style.  And that’s just since Clarion: add in pre-Clarion sales and fully half of the class has been published; I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll be seeing stories from the rest of the group in the coming years.

Why am I so certain?  Read on:

Because at least fifteen of us submitted stories post-Clarion, racking up an astonishing one-hundred and twenty rejections in six months, along with a baker’s dozen of acceptances.  The fact that the bulk of those rejections were personal messages from (usually too busy to bother) senior editors is just icing on the cake.  The point is that every rejection means a story completed and sent out; I’d argue there is no better measure for success as a writer.

While I am listing Clarion 2010 successes, I should point out that our instructors have been busy as well:

Delia Sherman has a new novel coming out, The Freedom Maze from the excellent Small Beer Press, as well as new stories in at least three anthologies: Steampunk!, The Beastly Bride, and Naked City.

Stealth instructor Ellen Kushner’s story “The Man with the Knives” is a followup to her novel “Swordpoint”, and is available in a beautiful illustrated chapbook.  Her audio drama “The Witches of Lublin” will be coming to public radio in April.  And she co-edited the new Borderlands anthology, which is reason enough for rejoicing in the streets.

Dale Bailey’s beautiful new story “Eating at the End of the World Café” appeared in the September/October issue of F&SF.

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are too productive to possibly track.  Ann has continued to roll out her vision for Weird Tales magazine, including a beautiful new website.  Jeff has a new book of essays, Monstrous Creatures; I’ve read an advance copy and it is, of course, funny, strange, and full of warped wisdom.  His most recent short story collection, The Third Bear, came out in 2010, as did his book on writing, Booklife.  Jeff lists some of the upcoming projects the VanderMeers are working on here.

And George RR Martin continues to distract himself from finishing A Dance with Dragons with work on some TV series.

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