So, I’m eligible for the Campbell.

I’m in superexcellent company, which Mary Robinette Kowal points out, so I have no expectations. I’m frankly excited just to be eligible.

In early 2007, I was working at a job I hated. I hadn’t written anything in two years – the same two years I had been at my job, which didn’t occur to me until later. (I was a genius.) I had one short story to my name; I figured it would never go anywhere, and when a friend made me submit it somewhere, I thought, “This is pointless.”

The day 29 Union Leaders Can’t Be Wrong ran in Strange Horizons, I gave notice at my job.

Things have since improved.

When I realized I was eligible this year, I called my mom to tell her. I explained what the eligibility meant, so she didn’t confuse it with a nomination, and reminded her which story it was (she only knows this one by name; everything else I have ever written is named “That Weird One”).

She said, “That’s great! Under your real name?“