In no particular order:

psamphire has himself an agent! Patrick Samphire is not only an awesome writer, but he's also the awesome father of mrdarcysblog and the awesome husband of stephanieburgis. I met Patrick and Steph a few years ago in Glasgow, and have been watching them both gear up for great things since...

gregvaneekhout sold a kid's book called Kid vs. Squid. Greg's user name is pretty much his real name (Greg van Eekhout) and I met him (and Sarah Prineas) at a Strange Horizons tea party at some con or other years ago (I want to say WisCon. But it could have been WorldCon). You may know him from this journal for having written only my most favorite short story ever, In the Late December.

And nisi_la (Nisi Shawl) is nominated for the World Fantasy Award for both a story and for her collection Filter House, which I got to hear her read from back when she did a reading in Ann Arbor--not only is she a great writer, but she's also a Michigan woman. And a Michigan woman, as in, University of... She preceded me in my same college, in my same dorm, and don't think I don't love that coincidence. There are few enough spec fic folk in the world, you have to treasure your connections where you can. And by you, I mean me.

Also, I'm not above a little reflected glory via the alma mater that way.

Also, she helped found the writing group that I am in an offshoot of.

And there's other good news for people I've not yet met, like Aliette de Bodard's trilogy sale (w00t!) And sartorias's book launch day for Treason's Shore, the final Inda book. We love Sherwood far too much not to mention that!

Gosh, is that it? Seems like there was yet more good news to be had. Hm.

ETA: Aha! Yes. marrael, aka Janet Chui, has also been nom'd for World Fantasy, in this case for the art in A Field Guide to Surreal Botany... mwahahaha, I own World Fantasy Nominated art! (For reals. I bought the Library Plum art.) Yaaaay, Janet!

I met Leah Bobet (cristalia at Worldcon back in 2004, right? With me so far? And I was overwhelmed by her awesome then, and I've been frequently overwhelmed by her awesome since.

Today, she got herself a book agent*, and that's just freaking awesome, too.

I think it's weird when people tell other people to go congratulate someone they've never heard of, so don't do that, but I am telling you that if you haven't heard of her--and here, I'm probably not talking to my writer-friends (since most of them have known her better and longer than they've known me, for sure), but my other friends, the ones who like to read, and more specifically, the ones who like to read what I like to read, because her short fiction is good, and you should be as ready for her book as I am so we can talk about it some day, and perhaps give it to each other as a Christmas gift.

( * )

No, I'm not selling friends, but stephanieburgis, fellow Michigan native who now lives in Yorkshire (*jealous*) has sold her YA trilogy!

She SO ROCKS. Which we already knew, but now EVERYONE will know!

Congratulations, Steph!