The people over at Last Short Story have posted a list of their favorite Aussie stories for 2008.  Two stories from Paper Cities have made their list.  Cat Sparks’ “Sammarynda Deep” and Ben Peek’s “The Funeral, Ruined” made their honorable mention list.  Congratulations to both authors!

And what better gift for the Holidays than a nice, shiny copy of Paper Cities, eh?

Sybil’s Garage is officially closed to submissions for issue 6.  Thank you to all submitters!  You should receive a response to your submission within 30 days, hopefully sooner!

Due to a surge in submissions these past few days (and the Thanksgiving holiday) our response times for Sybil’s Garage submissions have slowed.  When you submit a story, you should receive a confirmation email with a URL.  If you click on that link and the story is listed as “in progress,” then you can be assured that we will eventually read the story.  Also, we are closing to submissions on November 30th, but that does not mean we will have made all decisions by that date.  Stories sent on November 30th may not receive a response until December 30th (30 days), though we do expect to respond to all authors long before then.

With regard to poems, my oldest poem that I have not responded too is from October 30th, so if you sent your poem before then it might not have been received.  In that case, feel free to query.  Otherwise, chances are that it’s in my queue and I haven’t gotten to it yet.

The Fix has some nice things to say about Mercurio D. Rivera’s “The Fifth Zhi,” his story in the current Interzone.  Among other praises, they say:

“This theme is familiar, from Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and countless others. “The Fifth Zhi”’s use of clones is an excellent, highly appropriate riff on the theme.”

You can read the full review here.

Congratulations on the nice review, Mercurio!

Don’t forget that Sybil’s Garage is closing to submissions on November 30th.  Please send us your stories soon!