The camera card is now full – we’re not sure why; I was fairly sure I’d erased images after the last upload but they’re all still there, plus photos from tonight’s rowing presentations – but I managed just one image of Boy almost in the frame. Almost! It doesn’t matter whether he’s in it or not, really, because we can’t presently find a way to upload images directly from the camera. This is a hangover from the computer problems of earlier this year; there are still occasions where things don’t work and can’t be made to without much inconvenience to everyone.

On the whole, we’d prefer to avoid the inconvenience to others element, so I won’t be pressing for too much action on the photo front just yet awhile. It’s a pity I can’t party with everyone else but that’s the way things turn out. Pillow fights? I think I’ll sob into mine. I have a few comments to make about sewing the PJ bottoms, mostly relating to frustrations with elastic, but perhaps I’ll leave those until I’m able to post a photo. The crotch seam turned out very well, I’m pleased to report. I think I should at least mention that. And that I’m presently rereading Legends of Australian Fantasy edited by Jack Dann and Jonathan Strahan.

Still in sewing mode: I couldn’t go to our final rowing presentation dinner without appropriately coloured attire. I didn’t have a dress or skirt that would have been comfy and warm so I grabbed trousers, a slinky little sleeveless t-shirt top and a jacket. They were all right as far as colour was concerned, but they were all the same colour and we do have the choice of black and white and grey, or just black and white if we can’t do much else. I decided that a scarf would be a good way to add a bit of colour. I didn’t have one, so I made one. In my stash I had a large piece of fabric I’d probably intended to use for a top. Some might argue that its background colour is not really white but rather cream. The flowers and stripes are black. In the dim light of the function centre, it was black-and-white enough to be obvious that I was aiming in the right direction.

I folded my fabric so that it was on the diagonal then cut across, eyeballing everything, so that I ended up with a truncated triangle. Yeah, really scientific and accurate. Not. (And probably quite wasteful of fabric, though I’ll make lavender bags out of the leftovers.) Actually, it was surprisingly reasonable in terms of size. Sure, one end is a little wider than the other, but it’s not so much larger that it looks ridiculous; and that might be related to sewing inaccuracy as much as cutting inaccuracy because I didn’t pin anything, just sat the machine and stitched. The fabric slid somewhat, so although I tried to keep the seam the same width, it probably isn’t; and although I held the cut edges, I’m sure that in one or two spots the cut edges don’t align precisely.

I sewed across one angled end, along the shorter side, turned another corner and sewed across the other angled end, leaving a gap to turn the scarf through. It turned through a treat, so I then top stitched the side and ends and left the unsewn side, well, unsewn. The longer side is about 82 inches, the shorter about 70 inches and the width around 5.5 inches. You know what? The lads think it’s very nice. You know what else? It is.

If you ever get a chance to hear him talk, then listen carefully. Hey, what do you know? He will be at WorldCon in Melbourne next week …

1. I first knew I was a writer when …
… in 1971 I wrote the regrettable sentence “A fused mass of beryllium fled from Deneb”, which was, probably just as regrettably, published in Worlds of If.

2. The line or story I most regret writing is …
… aha, see above; but, alas, there are so many lines: one, which Joe Haldeman (he should grow a pimple on his nose!) pointed out to me at a Guilford Writers Conference (again in the 1970′s). I had written a certain infelicitous sentence in a story called “I’m with You in Rockland”, which described a sex scene in which an unfortunate woman’s breasts fell on her lover’s chest.  Ah well, removable breasts. What can I say, except I’ve learned to proofread my stories.

3. The book I most enjoyed writing is…
… always and forever it seems: the book I’m currently working on.

4. The anthology is alive and well: discuss:
Well, it’s been alive since I’ve been in the business, never particularly well, except perhaps during a period when Roger Elwood was selling enormous quantities of anthologies to every publisher extant it seemed. However, most of the anthologies weren’t really very good (except when he collaborated with other writers), and they glutted the market, didn’t sell particularly well, and for a while no publisher would go near anthologies. But writers made a few bucks for a while.

Writers don’t usually make much money writing short fiction, unless a story gets optioned for film or television; but writers–myself included–love the short forms, and =stories= have always been alive and well. I should also say that anthologists don’t usually make a lot of money editing anthologies-it’s a labor of love.

I think the best time for anthologies was during the experimental “New Wave” period of the 1970′s when Damon Knight, Bob Silverberg, and Terry Carr were editing anthology series such as Orbit, New Dimensions, and Universe.

I edit anthologies because I love putting together stories and working with other writers. I think the market is still kicking hard with our own Jonathan Strahan becoming the foremost anthologist of his generation. He has also been editing a continuing anthology and getting great stories. So, yes, I think anthologies are alive and well in paper form…and on the internet.

5. Donuts or danishes? 
You’re really going to ask the guy who edited =Wandering Stars=, the first Jewish science fiction and fantasy anthology, such a question? I may be a non-believer (see my essay “Antinomies” in Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk’s excellent collection =Voices of Disbelief=), but I’m a “cultural Jew”. As Isaac Asimov wrote in the introduction to that book: “I’m Jewish enough.”  So as far as =I’m= concerned: donuts are fine, and danishes divine, but bagels are numero uno! Yes, I’ll cop to stealing from the great master Tennessee Williams, who wrote: “Women are fine, and sheep are divine, but the iguana is numero Uno.” Ah, well…

He doth blog here.