Rich Horton - The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2012

“I will come,” she said. “For a bit.”

Suddenly he felt a deep and powerful emotion in his chest, overwhelmed by everything that had happened or would happen in their lives: the changes to Nearside and Farside, the ferry’s ending, Valo’s death, the fact that she would leave him eventually, or that he would leave her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m not,” she said, and leaned across to kiss him, her mouth warm with sunlight and life. “It is worth it, all of it.”

All those losses, but this one at least he could prevent.

“When the time comes,” he said: “When you sail. I will come with you.”

A fo ben, bid bont.

To be a leader, be a bridge.

Yoon Ha Lee’s fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Lightspeed. She lives in Louisiana with her family, and her attempts at origami have never been known to commit atrocities except against aesthetics.

Genevieve Valentine’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Apex, and in the anthologies The Living Dead 2, Running with the Pack, Teeth, and more. Her nonfiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Tor.com, and Fantasy Magazine, and she is the co-author of Geek Wisdom. Her first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, has won the 2012 Crawford Award. Her appetite for bad movies is insatiable, a tragedy she tracks on her blog, www.genevievevalentine.com.

Bradley Dentonstudied speculative fiction and writing under Professor James Gunn at the University of Kansas, and his first professional story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1984. Since then, his work has won the World Fantasy Award (for the two-volume story collection A Conflagration Artist and The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians ), the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for the novel Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede ), and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award (for the novella “Sergeant Chip”). His other novels include Blackburn, Lunatics, and Laughin’ Boy, and more of his short fiction can be found in the collection One Day Closer to Death. He now lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Barbara, their four dogs, and probably too many guitars.

Vylar Kaftanhas published about three dozen stories in places such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her 2010 Lightspeed story, “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno,” was nominated for a Nebula. She founded FOGcon, a new literary sf/f convention in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she blogs at www.vylarkaftan.net.

Catherynne M. Valenteis the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton Award, the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award. She has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, and Spectrum Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award in 2007 and 2009. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs, and an enormous cat.

Alan DeNirois the author of a story collection , Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead (Small Beer Press), and a novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less (Ballantine/Spectra). His website is www.alandeniro.comand he tweets with the username of @adeniro. He lives outside of St. Paul with his wife and twin son and daughter.

Suzy McKee Charnasis the author of over a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her novels include The Vampire Tapestry, the Holdfast series, and the Sorcery Hall series of books for young adults. A selection of her short fiction was collected in Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms. She has been awarded a Hugo, a Nebula, and has won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award twice. Charnas took a joint major at Barnard College—Economic History—because she “wanted tools to build convincing societies to set fantastic stories in.” She lives with her lawyer-husband in New Mexico. Her website is www.suzymckeecharnas.com.

Paul McAuleyis the author of more than twenty books, including science-fiction, thriller, and crime novels, three collections of short stories, a Doctor Who novella, and an anthology of stories about popular music, which he co-edited with Kim Newman. His fiction has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell award, the Sidewise Award, and the British Fantasy Award for best short story. Having worked for twenty years as a research biologist and university lecturer, he is now a full-time writer. He lives in North London.

Jonathan Carrollis the author of sixteen novels and one story collection. His latest is The Ghost in Love, published by Farrar Straus and Giroux. He lives in Vienna, Austria.

John Barnesis the author of more than thirty science fiction novels, including Orbital Resonance, A Million Open Doors, Finity, and Directive 51. With astronaut Buzz Aldrin, he wrote the novels Encounter with Tiber and The Return. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Theodora Gosswas born in Hungary and spent her childhood in various European countries before her family moved to the United States. Her publications include the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting; Interfictions, a short story anthology co-edited with Delia Sherman; Voices from Fairyland, a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems; and, most recently, The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story. She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List, and has won the World Fantasy and Rhysling Awards.

Alexandra Duncanis a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her first novel, Salvage, is scheduled to be published by HarperCollins’s Greenwillow Books in 2013. She lives with her husband and two monstrous, furry cats in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where she works as a librarian. You can visit her online at alexandraduncanlit.blogspot.comand twitter.com/DuncanAlexandra.

Neil Gaimanis the New York Times bestselling author of novels Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, and (with Terry Pratchett) Good Omens ; the Sandman series of graphic novels; and the story collections Smoke and Mirrors, Fragile Things, and M Is for Magic. He has won numerous literary accolades including the Hugo, the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and the Stoker Awards, as well as the Newbery Medal.

Gavin J. Grantis the publisher of Small Beer Press. He co-edits the zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet with his wife, Kelly Link. His stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, SciFiction, Salon Fantastique, Best New Fantasy, among others. He lives with his family in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Karen Joy Fowleris the author of five novels, including The Jane Austen Book Club, a New York Times bestseller, and three short story collections, including What I Didn’t See, which recently won the World Fantasy Award. Other honors include the Nebula and the Shirley Jackson awards. She lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband and her daughter’s dog.