"Love, Dad"

"Love, Dad" is the title of my first published story. It came out in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine in March of 1992. Though I wrote it years before I was married and had children, I find now upon reading it (16 years of marriage and 3 kids later) that I nailed the emotions, at least for me. Since I wrote the story so long ago, I didn't even have an electronic version of it I could use, so I had to retype it from a hard copy. That's was tough--I had tears in my eyes most of the time. The story was voted "Best Short Story for 1992" by the readers of Analog.

I wrote "Love, Dad" around a year after my father died. My dad's death came smack in the middle of a 16 month period in my life, during which the person I was became the person I was meant to be. I don't think there's anything coincidental about it.

Someone else who found my story moving is Michael A. Burstein. He told me so when we first met too many years ago. He and I both lost our fathers around the same time, and my little story touched him. So much so that when he was asked to guest edit the April edition of the online SF magazine Apex, he asked me if he could reprint "Love, Dad" therein. I couldn't type "yes" fast enough in my e-mail reply to him.

The April issue of Apex is supposed to post today, and the contents of the magazine are available for free online. So if you wish to read the story that "started it all" for me, hop over to http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/ and enjoy!

UPDATE: The April Apex has been posted. Also, my latest Alternate View column for Analog is now available at http://www.analogsf.com/0906/altview_06.shtml.