"In the Wardrobe" makes "Best Horror of the Year" reading list

This is a first for me, though it's probably no big deal to a lot of other writers...

Ellen Datlow is one of the biggest, most-respected editors in any of the genre fiction fields. She published the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology from 1988 to 2008, and then immediately started up the next version, entitled The Best Horror of the Year.

"In the Wardrobe," my short story in the A Darke Phantastique anthology was not included in this year's The Best Horror... anthology, I am sorry to say. Nor was any other story from A Darke Phantastique.

However!

Datlow also publishes a recommended reading list each year -- stories that a worthy of notice, but not quite Best.

You got it. "In the Wardrobe" made the recommended reading list, even though it didn't make it into the book.

I'll take it!

One of the things that I am proudest of, however, is the fact that, even though A Darke Phantastique wasn't represented in The Best Horror of the Year, it was represented several times on the reading list. I am delighted to be one of several...

Mike Allen -- "Tardigrade"
Dennis Etchison -- "Breakfast in Tasmania"
Andrew S. Fuller -- "Immigrant"
Lois H. Gresh -- "Old Enough to Drink"
D. T. Kastn -- "Real Live Lobsters"
Erinn L. Kemper -- "The Claim"
Joe R. Lansdale -- "The Case of the Four-Acre Haunt"
Jason Maurer -- "In Your Dark..."
Lucy A. Snyder -- "Kudzu"

Ten of us!

I came up with a term for this that fits how I feel... stupid-proud. That's me... stupid-proud!