I've sold a book! Well, half a book, anyway. A dark fantasy novella, to be precise.
According to my records, it was over four years ago that Derryl Murphy dropped me a note that said:
I've had this idea rattling around in the back of my head for few months now, but the starts have been all false, and a little voice has been telling me for a while now that I should contact you. You interested in doing a short story together? It involves photography and spirituality, sorta, which might make for a nice blend between us.
I had never collaborated, except for one quite short story almost a decade before, so I had some reservations but decided to give it a try anyway.
We hammered out a basic plot, based on Derryl's initial idea and some moody photographs of graveyard statuary, and then started tossing the manuscript back and forth—veeeerrrrry slowly, since we both had a lot of other big projects going. But earlier this year we finally had a final final draft, novella length, and it was time to send the damn thing out.
I told Ellen Datlow about the novella at a birthday bocce party for Craig Engler, and she asked to see it just for the hell of it. She was very enthusiastic about the story but had no current project it would work for. Still, this gave us hope. A couple of other markets didn't pan out, but then Derryl queried PS Publishing. Pete Crowther said to send the manuscript on over.
The response came pretty swiftly, and the upshot is that our little novella, Cast a Cold Eye, is scheduled to be published by PS as a self-contained book in Spring/Summer 2009. We are beside ourselves.
If you're not familiar with PS Publishing, you should be. These are the folks who put out Joe Hill's collection before Joe Hill's secret identity was widely known, and also the Robert Charles Wilson novella that is currently one of my competitors on the Hugo ballot. And their books, as objects, are just beautiful.
So, a Canadian-American collaboration to be published in England. Pretty darn cool, if I do say so. And I think Derryl would agree.