Fifteen minutes long, because we’re in too much of a hurry to report all the facts to you…

We here at Writing Excuses endeavor to give good advice, but we’re not good at telling long, complete stories. In our recent “getting published” episode we accidentally (I SWEAR) misrepresented our good friend Mary Robinette Kowal, and it was an egregious enough error that she decided, quite correctly, to post the actual facts in the comments. It’s comment #27 out of #31 (as of this writing.)

Properly apologizing in these circumstances is a multi-step process. Observe…

Step one: We fall on our swords. Mary, we’re sorry. That was totally our fault, and you’re absolutely right to correct us. We will try to do better in the future, but when we make mistakes like this we pray that others will be as gracious in their settings-straight as you have been.

Step two: We link to the correct information. Scroll down to Mary’s comment.

Step three: We state, for posterity and the record, that Mary Robinette Kowal won the 2008 Campbell award because she was, without question, the best new writer to emerge in publication during the qualifying years. Blogging and other web-centric things may have spread awareness of her work and helped garner the initial nomination, but Mary’s excellence was what ultimately carried the day.

Step four: We announce that our friend Mary has a novel out. Dan has reviewed it. You should buy it.

Step five: Maybe, if we’re careful, we can slide these swords back out of ourselves and stumble off to the hospital for medical attention.