I got asked to write the foreword for an upcoming anthology yesterday, which I immediately said “Yes” to without reservation or any hesitation. Why, you ask? Because the person asking me was John Manning’s widow, DeAnna Manning.

John was my favorite editor to work with and I was extremely saddened when he died of cancer earlier this year. I would have liked to hear from him when the John W. Campbell Award finalists list came out. He would have been thrilled to hear that one of “his” authors made the list. He was also the first editor who was interested in my Tobias Fox stories and bought the first novel (which I need to write still) of that universe.

So yeah, I’m going to write the hell out of that foreword. Dark Corners is the last book that John truly edited and put together before his illness made it too much for him to work. I wanted to write a short story for it but I couldn’t really find the right theme or voice for it, so I declined the invitation.

But now I get a second chance at being in the book (albeit in a position I’m not too familiar with but hey, I get to talk about John!). Gotta knock it out of the park.