Sue Burke (www.sue.burke.name) lives in Madrid, Spain. She attended Clarion East in 1996, moved to Austin and the Turkey City Workshop, and then to Spain in 1999. Her short-story publications (ISFDB lists six) were with small presses, including a special issue of a magazine guest-edited by Karen Joy Fowler. This is her first notable commercial sale. She’s also published poetry. She is translating the medieval novel of chivalry and fantasy, Amadis of Gaul, a chapter a week, at www.amadisofgaul.blogspot.com. This is the work that spawned at least 117 sequels and helped drive Don Quixote mad.
“Spiders” was published in Asimov’s. It’s a story about a divorced father, a hunter and nature-lover, and his five-year-old son, on a newly colonized planet. Daddy is showing his son all the neat alien creatures that can be found in the forest there and trying to do this without offending the sensibilities of his ex-wife. We chose it to end this book because we think it has a great punchline.