I’m pleased to announce that I’ve sold “Citizen-Astronaut,” the story that won Second Prize in the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest, to Analog! I’m so happy this story will see print. It’s a classic “guy in space who has to solve a problem” puzzle story and is very much based on my experiences on “Mars.” But I feel I need to point out that, even though I named my hero Gary Shu (yes, Gary Shu), the interpersonal, political, and physical problems I threw at him are far worse than anything I faced in Utah.

This marks my third sale to Analog, which is significant because along with your third publication you get a Biolog (short biographical article) published in the same issue. I’ve already done the interview, with writer Rick Lovett, and seen a draft of the article. And, although there’s no official definition of what makes a writer a member of the Analog MAFIA (the gang of writers who appear frequently in that magazine, the name being a tortured acronym for Making A Frequent appearance In Analog), I figure three sales is a pretty good lower bound so I asked Jerry Oltion to send me an Analog MAFIA button, which I will wear with pride at my next convention.

This sale also means that I sold to Realms of Fantasy and Analog within a month of each other. Pretty chuffed about that too.

I’m also pleased to announce that my story “Written on the Wind” (from the sff.net anthology Beyond the Last Star) will be podcast on Escape Pod!

Most of my writing time this month has been spent on a short story for a theme anthology, which is due Real Soon. I hope to put it in the mail today. I think I may take a good chunk of this week off from writing, just to rest and recharge, before diving back into the Mars YA novel.