A week after I learned that my story “The Devil Under the Maison Blue” had been selected for inclusion in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2016, the story got more big love: Year’s Best Weird Fiction will also reprint it in their forthcoming third volume. “The Devil Under the Maison Blue” originally appeared in The Dark #10.

To have one story be considered worthy of two best-of-the-year anthologies is a humbling, surreal thing. But perhaps even more special to me is the inclusion in Year’s Best Weird of a Robert Aickman story. Last year saw the publication of Aickman’s The Strangers and Other Writings, a collection of previously unprinted material from the master of literary weird, who passed away in 1981. Thus my story will be featured in a book with Aickman’s “The Strangers.” That it’s an until recently unread Aickman story is a wonderful bonus on top of what was already a bucket list sort of moment for me.

Here’s the table of contents, and it’s an honor to be included with these other wonderful talents as well. Special thanks to guest editor Simon Strantzas and series editor Mike Kelly of Undertow Publications.