First off, I've updated the short story submissions guidelines page once again. Please read it, and the submissions guidelines for long fiction, flash, poetry, and whatnot. When you submit stories to paying publishers, failing to read and follow their guidelines can result in your submission being ignored. A good rule of thumb is to expect every different publisher to have guidelines individual to themselves. Following their unique guidelines shows that you've graduated to a higher level of professionalism. Ignoring their guidelines does not do you or your submission any favors.

Secondly, it's Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere! Flowers are blooming, the weather is slowly getting better, and life is generally more fun... At least it is for a lot of us. That isn't to say that there is no such thing as tornado Season. Just this past week the Southern US has been wracked by some horrible storms. Homes and businesses have been destroyed, and lives have been lost. Not anyone's idea of fun. My condolences to anyone who has suffered from the recent storms. By no means will the possibility of further storms in the future be trivialized. Nature is seldom a kind mistress. Everywhere on the planet has its own endemic hazards. To everything there is a season. If by chance you find yourself weathering the storms with less damage than your fellows suffer, remember always to be kind. Kindness costs nothing. No one long escapes the notice of karma. Mutual co-operation always yields the highest dividends. Look out for one another. Help others as you are best able. No one is an island; complete and to themselves.

I now have just slightly more than nine months before I finally retire from the factory after 46 years of gainful employment. I will be 66 years old. Aphelion will have been published for over a third of my lifetime. Yet, my work has barely begun! So many stories left to write. So much music left to create. So many paintings left to craft. So much to do and no place to hide!

But that's life. Each of us has our allotted span of years to spend in the pursuit of happiness. If we're very lucky, most of that span gets to be spent in said pursuit. None of us know how long our personal allotment will be, however. It behooves each of us to invest as much of our lifetimes in that eternal quest for fulfillment as we can manage to wrest form the universe. My advice, unsolicited as it may be, is to not just seize the day, but squeeze every drop of joy we can out of each moment of our lives. The story of our lives has not yet been finished. You owe it to yourselves to make the most out of every instant of the ultimately unknowable span of time which is yours. Make your story one worth retelling, time and time again.

There is a path, as individual as each one of us, which we all travel, to our benefit or detriment. Only we each can say, at the end of our days, if it was time well spent. Choose your path wisely. Gather friends along the way. Take not one instant for granted. Our future is as yet unwritten. Only we have the pen with which to record our journey. Eat the good food. Love without shame. Live as if each moment were your last. We are born, we live, and in the end we die. That bit in the middle is what we have to invest. Make the most of it. All of it. However long it turns out that you had. Make it worth having been here...

With all that said, it's high time I shut up and let you get to reading. 

Enjoy yourselves,

Dan