Part of the e-mail has been about a new thing -- a weekend writing workshop I'm thinking of organizing. It's all a bit up in the air still, which is why I'm not giving out details yet. But I'll need to figure it out soon, since I'm thinking it'll be in late summer or early fall, which means I need to request manuscripts pretty close to immediately, so I can let people know whether they're in or not in reasonable time for them to make plans. Hmm...time frame would be something like: request ten pages of fiction to be sent in by May 31st, read and make decisions in the first week of June, let people know by mid-June. That gives them at least two months warning; I think that's probably enough. It's possible there will actually be two workshops -- one in New Jersey and one in Oregon. It all depends on what spaces are available, and when. But presuming the spaces are available, I think I'll probably do this -- with my fellowship, I have the time and flexibility. If it happens, there will be about nine spaces available in New Jersey, and/or nine to eighteen spaces in Oregon. They'll probably be general intermediate-level fiction workshops (really not suitable for beginning writers), with possibly some additional discussion of sf and/or erotica concerns. I might be able to coax Jed and/or Susan G. to attend one or the other. And, since this whole idea came out of thinking about how to help develop the SH authors further, I'll probably give some sort of hazy priority to SH fiction authors first, then other SH authors, then the general public. Depending on how much demand there is, of course. It's all very interesting to think about, at any rate. :-)
I suppose if you're interested, you might start working on a manuscript to submit. I'd like to have everyone in the workshop at a similar level of writing skill -- I think that makes for a better workshop experience for everyone. Somewhere around the level of what we publish at SH is a good indicator, I think.
More details as I figure them out. :-)