Growing up, I loved short story anthologies. Any fantasy, sci-fi, or horror collection I could find at the Forrest Public Library, order through interlibrary loan, or scrape together the money to buy at Waldenbooks or B. Dalton, Bookseller at the nearest mall (45 minutes away, for the record), I devoured: Whispers, Weird Tales, Vampires!, Demons!, Wizards! (actually, quite a few collections with supernatural nouns followed by emphatic punctuation), Dark Forces (probably the greatest fantasy/horror anthology of all time), and many more. So I’m super-excited that I am now myself anthologized: “Special Collections” (a short fantasy/comedy story set in the same world as the YA fantasy I’m currently wrapping up work on) and “The Oracle at Delphi Street” (a contemporary fantasy story that also just appeared in The London Journal of Fiction) are now in print in Bards & Sages Publishing’s new anthology The Great Tome of Forgotten Relics and Artifacts. I just want to thank the editors for making one of my childhood dreams come true, and I hope that maybe at some point some kid will pick up The Great Tome at her local library, bookstore, or bargain bin somewhere and the stories therein (preferably mine) will make a few sparks fly in her young imagination that may stick with her as she grows just as all those great stories I read in my youth have stuck with me.
Jon Etter 