I’ve just been quoted extensively in an article by Carol Pinchefsky that went live today over at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Carol interviewed me at last year’s World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs for a piece which would eventually be titled “Is There Nepotism in Science Fiction?” Go read it, and not just because you know me. Because that, after all, might be considered nepotism.

Interesting quotes there from David Hartwell, Stanley Schmidt, Susan Allison, Jay Lake, and others. And me. But more important than anything I might have to say on the matter is what Damon Knight once said:

I was a little shocked once, in the early fifties, when Tony Boucher mentioned casually that in a recent issue of F&SF, there was only one story that he had bought solely because of the author’s name. I thought that was one too many. Famous names may help sell a magazine; they don’t always, but if they do, it’s because those writers have written good stories in the past. Every time you publish a poor story by a famous writer, you diminish the value of that name and defeat your purpose.

I’m not sure when Knight said that, but it certainly still remains true today.