I think that as a child I must have been infected by Theodore Sturgeon, and I’ve never been the same since. I once read that he considered all of his stories to be on the same subject—that of love—and for some reason that seemed like a good idea to me at the time. I agreed that love—or the lack thereof—was a central motivator of human interaction, which anyone who has read my stories will probably figure out without me having to tell them.
So once Science Fiction Age was behind me and I sat down to write my own stories again rather than focus on editing those written by others, it was natural that I would choose as my subject “The Only Thing That Mattered,” which found a home in the Summer/Fall 2002 issue of Absolute Magnitude.
As a former fiction editor, I know how hard it is to sell a story 20,000 words long, and yet, that is the story that inspiration handed me. I’m thankful that editor/publisher Warren Lapine was willing to give over 16 pages to it, or just over a quarter of the issue.
I enjoyed seeing my name on the cover, but even more than that, I got a kick out of seeing Jack Williamson’s name there with mine.
“The Only Thing That Mattered” was reprinted in my SF collection What We Still Talk About.