Great news. My wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch won the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award for best novella for her story “Room of Lost Souls.” Congrats, Kris!
For those of you who don’t know, “Room of Lost Souls” is part of the book “Diving into the Wreck” which as a novella also won the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award for best novella. And both are part of her upcoming novel Diving in the Wreck which you can order now.
I’ve read the entire book and it’s stunning. And I’ve read the first part of the next book and it also is stunning. She’s creating one of the niftiest science fiction worlds, blending in history and family and lots of conflicts and mystery. Trust me, folks, from a very lucky first reader, this is a book and a series you want to follow.
Below is a picture of the cover of the novel coming out of Pyr Books.
Cheers, Dean
Well, of course she won. It’s almost ho-hum. You happen to be married to one of the best writers out there.
Well, I agree with you about her being one of the best writers working today. But I don’t agree with it being ho-hum at all. Having the fans vote for your story among all the great stories published in Asimov’s is never ho-hum for any writer. Kris is thrilled as am I.
She takes any kind of fan response to her work very seriously and is always stunned when she wins something like this, or any award. That is also one of the things I love about her. She’s won a ton of awards over the years and they always surprise her and thrill her, like it is her first award ever, or the first time anyone has noticed her work.
And she really, really treasures reader’s choice awards, more than any because of who does the voting.
Cheers
Dean
I can’t wait! I’ve only read the first short story and when she shared the proposal for the novel at the last workshop, I couldn’t read the whole thing! I didn’t want to know the ending!!! I mean, I did, but…
Dean,
I think what you said about your wife might make a good blog entry all by itself. The fact that she still feels a thrill when she wins something, that she still takes her writing and her fans seriously, even after all the awards and the many years of writing, says something important about her, but also about the writing life in general.
This strikes me as important because it’s why good writers keep striving to produce better and better work, keep putting in the hours, in what can be a tough and unforgiving business.
Once you gain some fame and money, it can be very easy to let up, to slack off, to “phone it in.”
But with the attitude you describe, that will never happen to her. Or, I imagine, to you.
Anyway, big congratulations to her, and to you for having the good sense to marry her.
Actually, James, I was thinking of doing a series of blog posts on “Practice for Writers” and how writers do and don’t practice and how they should. So stay tuned for that.
Kris and I both believe that we are still practicing, still working every day to get better at our craft and our writing. That’s the one thing about writing that I love. You can never be perfect at it and never can reach the top. There is always something new to learn every day.
So I agree with you that the attitude is important. We never get jaded about anything, actually. Every sale is something cool to be happy about, every award nomination is something very special. It’s just the way we are. And we get even more excited when our friends do something nifty as well like sell a book or story or get a nomination because we know how important it is. And how hard it is.
And yup, I got very lucky. A lot of people just shook their heads in disbelief when Kris decided to go with me, and are still shaking their heads after 23 years. I just count my lucky stars and try to get to the next day.
Cheers
Dean