. A quarter-century ago, I carried a light portable tape recorder to a convention that my wife, Marianne Porter, could not attend. My intention was to record a few ephemeral moments of the con to amuse her later. In the bar, I struck up a conversation with John Crowley. Crowley was then universally acknowledged to be one of the best and brightest writers working in genre He was also midway through…
. Funerals are like tears. They rarely happen one at a time. Marianne and I were in Amherst for a memorial service when we got a phone call from Gene Olmsted to let us know that his wife, Sara Paul , had died. We drove home Monday and attended her funeral Tuesday. Sara was one of those people who keep the world running. She worked for over thirty years for the Philadelphia School District as a…
. A memorial was held for Jane Yolen in Amherst at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Which was appropriate, given that she wrote over 450 books, most of them for children. Marianne and I were there, along with roughly 200 other of her friends, family which, and colleagues. The event was streamed live online, so thousands more witnessed it along with us. I noticed several people from the…
, Less than two hours before the day melts into the past, I've learned that this is Paul Linebarger's birthday. Linebarger was a military expert on psychological warfare. During World War Two, he was sent to China to coordinate military intelligence operations there and became a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek . A CIA official called him "perhaps the leading practitioner of 'black' and 'gray'…
. Last Sunday, Marianne and Sean and I went to see Big Boy , which has been receiving enormous attention and tremendous crowds at every stop of its coast-to-coast trip. It would take great verbal labor to do justice to this gorgeous machine. So let's just say big and beautiful. The locomotive was on display at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and I have to say: Kudos to everyone involved in handling…
. This is wild. My story, "The Very Pulse of the Machine," (or at least the Love, Death, & Robots adaptation of it) was a triggering influence on the latest album by Glassmouth, a Singapore mathcore and chaotic hardcore group. Their music has been described as "unhinged polyrhythmic noise," ranging from “unhinged abrasiveness akin to a freight train plowing through a forest” and “the serenity of a…
. My latest Tachyon Publications collection of short fiction, The Universe Box , has been included in Locus Magazine's New and Notable listing for its June 2026 issue. To which, I can only respond, "Cool beans!" You can read what they have to say about my and several other books here . Reviews of the book have been uniformly positive--as they should , in my humble opinion, be. But I won't quote…
. Shown above are two of my notebooks--the Scribbledehobbledehoydenii I call them because I was once young and who wouldn't want to conjure up a word like that? The spiral-bound one is the Wedding Scribbledeobbledehoyden , and the black one is titled Dark Flame, or: Plum Pudding. There are reasons. I'm just finishing up filling up the one and chanced across the other and was struck by how…
. w I've just finished reading Somerset Maugham's novel, The Razor's Edge . What a cunning writer Maugham could be! Here's how the book begins: I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. If I call it a novel it is only because I don't know what else to call it. I have little story to tell and I end neither with a death nor a marriage. The narrator is Somerset Maugham himself, and he promises…
. I dreamed that an artist had solicited unmatched socks from women around the world. She then attached precise weights at top or bottom of each and placed them in the Arctic Ocean, near the surface. Then she donned scuba gear and filmed a voyage through the forest of lost socks. A most dreamlike dream. I do not know if all the materials were biodegradable, or if they were gathered up afterward,…
. I was talking with Jane Yolen once, in her house in St. Andrews, Scotland. I told her how much I admired her prolific output of books--something like 400 then, though it's grown since. She tried to duck the compliment by saying, "Well, yours are so much longer than mine." "I've read Owl Moon ," I said. (For those who don't know, it's an illustrated story sold as a 'children's book' but actually…
. Dragonstairs Press (whose creator, editor, and sole proprietor, I feel obliged to occasionally mention is Marianne Porter ) is releasing a new chapbook this Saturday at noon, Philadelphia time (EDT). It's a lovely creation--handstitched, numbered, and signed, in an edition of 80. The wrapper is Thai mulberry paper with incursions of flower petals. The story, written by yours truly, is a gentle…
. Friends of Dragonstairs Press should set their alarms early. Marianne has crafted a beautiful chapbook for a short medieval fantasy by her in-house content provider (me). The fiction chapbooks always sell faster than the non-fiction ones, so I expect this will sell out very quickly. It goes on sale next Saturday at noon, East Coast time. Here's the letter that Marianne just sent out to her…
. Tachyon Publications, publisher of my brilliant and wildly entertaining short story collection, The Universe Box , has a sale this weekend. Twenty percent off of anything and everything when you use the magic code above. And here I'm supposed to tell you how wonderful I am, blah blah blah. But I won't. Instead, I'll suggest you go to their home page here and browse their catalog. Because Tachyon…
. Look what came in the mail! A beautifully designed and made (my photo does not do it justice) copy of Loong's Tales , edited by Lynn Sun , from the Eastern Wood publishing house in Singapore. This is the English translation of an original anthology of dragon-themed science fiction stories recently published in Chinese. There are many different dragons in Chinese mythology, the greatest and most…
. Friday, I attended a memorial service for Albert Hodkinson. Albert lived next door and was for over 45 years the best neighbor anybody could hope for. We used to have evening chats over the backyard fence about matters both simple and profound. Here's one thing I learned from him: Navigating your Halifax home from a bombing raid over Berlin, you flew west until you came to the white cliffs of…
. A half century later, the man is still dead. And we're still doing our best to forget him. Phil Ochs was, to put an easy label on it, a protest singer. His song, “I Ain't a-Marching Anymore,” about a soldier refusing to march off to yet another war, became, ironically, the theme song to a thousand anti-war protest marches in the sixties. His “Draft Dodger Rag” (Ohhhh, I'm just sixteen I got a…
. Look what I found! I've been reorganizing (and, in many cases discarding) my papers and I came across a box containing the "A User's Guide to the Postmoderns" papers. This requires a brief explanation. Way back in 1986, I was feeling annoyed that the writers I felt were writing the absolute best SF at that time were--with the exception of William Gibson , who was a phenomenon - -not getting a…
. I met Sergei Nikitich Krushchev once--sort of. I shook his hand and got his autograph on one of his books anyway. This was at a lecture Nikita Krushchev's son gave at Rowan University on the 51st anniversary of the Glassboro Summit. (You can look it up, using Google.) When he was done speaking, he asked for questions and there was the usual awkward silence. So I raised my hand and asked about…
. The other day, I shared an essay I wrote to explain the New Wave to a Chinese audience. It was never published, but that was okay. I wrote it primarily as a gesture of friendship to an editor and a magazine and a community who had showed me the utmost friendship. Science Fiction World is not only a magazine but a book publishing company. I once visited their offices on shipping day and since the…
. Several-to-many years ago, an editor at Science Fiction World in Chengdu, China, asked me to write an essay explaining the New Wave to the magazine's audience. Since I loved the New Wave and had a rudimentary understanding of the Chinese publishing industry's view of what could and could not be published there, I was happy to oblige. The essay I wrote was never published . There are many reasons…
. I am pleased to announce that I have a guest essay on Fantasy Cafe . Furthermore, they're offering a book giveaway of my new collection, The Universe Box. The essay is titled "A Thumbnail History of Twentieth-Century Fantasy" and at 1,200 words it's not only the briefest but also the most accurate summary of the topic you'll ever encounter. Here's how it begins: Every history of fantasy I’ve…
. James Patrick Kelly , who is easily one of the best short fiction writers we have and has been so for decades, has a new story in the January 2026 issue of Clarkesworld and it is... But plot synopsis first. Judgement later. In "Je Ne Regrette Rien," Professor Reed Cheng, a distinguished expert in robotics, has accepted an invitation to China to learn about a new kind of robot, "ni ren." The term…
. That was quick. Last night, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe interviewed me for their Coode Street Podcast. This morning, it was up. You have to admire the industry of that. Here's what they had to say about it: Today, Jonathan and Bary are joined by Nebula, World Fantasy, and five-time Hugo Award winner Michael Swanwick to discuss the origins of some of his stories, the life and craft of the…
. The astonishingly well-read Rich Horton reviewed The Universe Box on Strange at Ecbatan on Substack. And he was most gratifyingly positive. Here's how he began: Michael Swanwick’s latest collection is The Universe Box , from Tachyon Books. Swanwick is a first-rate novelist, but his real forté seems to me to be short fiction -- he’s done remarkable work at all lengths -- he’s probably published…