The 31st anniversary issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction has a two-fer for Clarion, one story from our founder, Kate Wilhelm, and one story from a 2007 Clarion student, Nick Wolven.  Nick’s story was workshopped in the 2007 Clarion, so the 2007 students are particularly proud of it.  As described in the latest Internet Review of Science Fiction, Nick’s is a poignant story of love and loss:

Tim is being haunted by the ghost of his lover, but the ghost is a projection of his own mind. This is a world in which

we make our own reality. With programs, with patterns, with information. We make our own bodies, too, by controlling that information. Our reality is not a ground, it’s a screen. We can project whatever we like. But those projections are still very real.

It is not a solipsistic world; reality is shared consensually, with individuals modifying the simulations to suit themselves. But Dominic’s ghost is lost and confused in a world he can not control; he does not know he is dead because Tim has never quite accepted his death.

If you don’t want to ruin the ending, run to your nearest bookstore to grab the latest copy of Asimov’s.  Congrats, Nick — keep ‘em coming!  And you too, Kate!