With ‘Diamond Sharks’ on its slow way across the globe to Gordon Van Gelder’s desk, there are now an unprecedented total of three stories in various stages of submission around the world:

• ‘Queen of Diamonds’ has been lurking at the Intergalactic Medicine Show (Orson Scott Card’s online mag) for almost four months now; almost time to send a query mail.
• ‘Oenocide’ has been in the possession of Australian editor Stuart Barrow for a little over a week, a candidate for his speculative fiction cookbook (!) ‘Gastronomicon II’.
• And ‘Diamond Sharks’ has entered the bowels of the Dutch Postal Service already (thanks to the incredibly quick service of the USPS service, which managed to get my US stamps delivered in only five days!) and will arrive at the Fantasy & Science Fiction editorial offices sometime next week, I hope.

Which also means that my desk is finally clear for my new project: a very un-speculative novel-length thriller about an American expat in Amsterdam losing his visiting sister to that rarest of criminals, a Dutch serial killer. Outlining is underway. (High time too; I promised a publishing acquaintance a peek at the first five chapters by New Year’s…)