We are pleased to be publishing your work in Asimov’s. To do so, however, we will need updated information for the author’s blurb that will accompany it. Please send whatever biographical and bibliographical information that we can use along with the signed contracts in the enclosed envelope as soon as possible. Thank you.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Sheila Williams
Executive Editor

Dear Sheila:

I am pleased that you are publishing "The Dragon Line" in Asimov’s. My updated bio follows:

Along with H.G. Wells, Michael Swanwick is generally thought of as one of the two founding fathers of science fiction. Where Wells brought a high literary sensibility and seriousness of purpose to the field, however, Swanwick is better known for his wild extrapolative ingenuity and slapdash plots. Many inventions we now take for granted—the land submarine, the steam tricycle, and the nasal decongestant, to name but a few—appeared first within the pages of his "nouvelles romances electrique."

Swanwick’s works have been acclaimed by many of our finest drinkers. They include Around the World in a Bassoon, Voyage to the Bottom of the Ground, The Electric Chaise (part of the "Unspeakable Voyages" series), Dirigible Mania! and The Interurban Dreadnaught. He has also written a penetrating series of monographs exploring the fiction of Lionel Fanthorpe. In his spare time he likes to dress up as a bat and pummel wrongdoers.

There you go. Have a very merry Christmas, okay? Love to all.

February 5, 1992

Dear Sheila,

As requested, here is my updated bio:

Larger than a breadbox and wittier than all of Wilmington, Delaware, put together, Michael Swanwick is most widely famed and esteemed for the same baffling line of gaudy persiflage that once briefly resulted in his being incorrectly listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica as the twenty-second President of the United States, less (but still significantly) widely famed and esteemed for a scrupulously painstaking research style in consequence of which warrants are still outstanding in the several states featured in his justly acclaimed novelette, "The Plagues of August," and without question least widely famed and esteemed for a purported and all-but-obsessive tendency to fall into the sort of run-on sentence that might, though so far it has not, be compared to a single snowflake carved with astonishing but pointless skill into an endlessly recursive filigree. He denies everything.

That’s all. Take good care, hear? I’ll be writing you soon.

All best,

October 21, 1992

As per your recent request, here is my updated bio:

Germany’s most beloved cartoon mouse, Michael Swanwick, was created by Jewish slave animators in the notorious Peenemunde Kartoonwerks in 1934. Fleeing the consequences of history, he surfaced in postwar Argentina, where a combination of plastic surgery and intensive genetic reprogramming allowed him to move to California and cut a complex series of deals with right-wing arms manufacturers. The original acetates were all bought up and overdubbed in English and a false history back-created that quickly convinced over 98 percent of the American public he was an indigenous product. He has since branched out into amusement parks, live cinema, and the establishment and dictation of moral standards. He is currently at work on a national program of neighborhood ethical hygiene squads.

No, no, don’t say that! . . . Contracts enclosed. Take good care, yes?

All best,

July 28, 1993

Here, as requested-by-Xeroxed-form-letter, is updated bio material (I even saved you the trouble of writing it up in intro form) for "The Mask":

Ascended master Michael Swanwick, having transcended the gross material sphere, now exists in a bodiless state of spiritual perfection and perpetual bliss. He is currently a being of pure awareness who sheds the Buddha-light on the grateful denizens of literally thousands of worlds. However, he still expects to be paid promptly. You wouldn’t want to stiff an ascended master. He’s got the power to make you sorry you ever thought of it. You want to wake up one morning and find yourself in the body of a migrant laborer in the heart of Pennsylvania’s mushroom country? Or maybe an arthritic goat? He could do it. Don’t kid yourself. These Bodhisattvas-manqué are mean mothers. That’s why we wrote the check for this story and sent it out STAT!

Not that I would do that to you, Sheila. . . !

All best,

January 13, 1998

Dear Editor:

Your corrected galleys/proofs for my Asimov’s story/poem are enclosed. While I regret having to use a Xeroxed form letter—I don’t like them my- self !— the press of constant publication has forced me to this pass. However, in my experience galleys/proofs for stories/poems inevitably include one or more of the following items.

Stegosaurus has been changed to Triceratops on the rationale that they would actually use chronologically local blood. Triceratops being the common as well as the proper name, it does not need to be italicized.

According to The Complete Dinosaur (Farlow & Brett-Surman, eds., Indiana University Press), which despite the title is the closest thing there is to an authoritative text, dromaeosaur is the proper spelling, and I have so restored it.

Finally, allow me to thank you for buying a Michael Swanwick™ story. We here in the Production Department think of our purchasers not as gullible marks, but rather as members of our family of fine prose products. Remember, tripe is available at a slightly reduced rate.

All best,