I discovered SF through TV first -- watching The Outer Limits when I was a toddler and then falling thoroughly in love with Star Trek when it debuted in '66 (I was just short of 8 years old). When Trek went off the air I missed it so much that I started writing my own adventures and enjoyed a shared fantasy life with a couple of close friends. I started writing my first non-Trek science fiction stories before I left grade school, and I started submitting them in high school.

I got my first rejection slip from Galaxy Magazine and was thrilled, if only because I'd made "first contact" with an editor -- even if that editor was a "slushpile reader." Rejections didn't discourage me but only pushed me on.

I began reading SF when I was in the fourth grade, because my grade school library had an SF section (bottom shelf, in the back). The first two books I read (I forget in what order) were Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Leinster's Time Tunnel. But I truly fell in love with the literature in 1970, through anthologies, the first being Alpha One, edited by Robert Silverberg. I went to my first convention in 1972 (the first Star Trek convention held in New York City, a subway ride away) and came home with dozens of used paperbacks that I'd bought for a dime or a quarter apiece.

I've just gotten back from Denvention 3/Worldcon, and am thoroughly recharged from it! My con report is at
deviationstrilogy.blogspot.com/20...tml

I've already signed up for Anticipation in Montreal next year.

To make things even sweeter, I learned the week before heading to Denver that Asimov's has accepted my novelette "Flotsam." I don't know when the story will appear, but I'll give a holler when it does! That makes the following stories and poems forthcoming so far:

Novel
Deviations: Appetite, from Aisling Press (the second volume in my series), scheduled for release next month.

Short Fiction:
"Flotsam," in Asimov's, TBD.
"Prometheus Rebound," in Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, TBD.
"Memento Mori," in Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, scheduled for late 2008.
"Cog," originally published in Tales of the Unanticipated in 1988, to be reprinted in a "best of" anthology from TOTU's first 10 years, TBD.

Poetry:
"Derivative Work," in Asimov's, TBD.

Info on stories and poems already published this year and more are on my website:
home.earthlink.net/~emalcohn/index.html

While at Denvention I heard the following (I forget whose "rule" this is, and I'm paraphrasing as best I can remember):

90% of people who want to write, don't. Of the 10% who do...
90% don't submit anything. Of the 10% who do...
90% stop submitting after their first rejection. Of the 10% who persevere...
90% eventually get published.

Ergo: Keep on keepin' on!