JPK on CB

Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer James Patrick Kelly was an important mentor for Chris Barzak when the young Mr. B. was just beginning to figure out what it meant to be a writer. I asked Jim to join us in celebrating his protege's success, and here is what he had to say:
I first met and worked with Chris Barzak when he was knee high to an adverb at the Imagination Writers Workshop in Cleveland, Ohio back in the summer of 1997, and I remember sitting out on a sunny patio and telling him that he needed to apply to Clarion and then go on to have a career as a writer. I also have a vague memory of him staring back at me like I was perhaps addled by the heat. The next year we did let him into Clarion and I worked with him again and informed him he was already a writer, just one who hadn't published yet. I'm pretty sure he was starting to believe by then. Over the years I have watched with pride as he has proved me so very right. I have recently derived a formula that calculates my contribution to the careers of the talented writers I have had the privilege of helping along and I believe I am 1/679th responsible for Chris's success thus far. Go Chris! And the rest of you: stop reading blogs and pick up One for Sorrow.

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