As of about five minutes ago, Best of the Web 2010 is officially finished and sent to the printer to be readied for release in the middle of June. Unbelievably, I've already been working on the series for over a year now (I did promotional work for last year's, even though I wasn't the series editor for that volume), and I've been reading and editing and organizing parts of this year's book since last July or so. It's been a fantastic experience, and I've got a few people I'd like to thank for making it so:

• Kathy Fish, who did an amazing job guest-editing the volume. Not only is she a fantastic reader with a great eye for quality, but her tireless advance through the list of editor-nominated works help push me to keep up. Throughout the process, she made great contributions, and one of my favorite days was at the very end of the judging, when she fought hard for a few pieces that she believed absolutely had to be in the book. Her passion was infectious, and I'm so glad to have gotten to edit my first anthology alongside her.
• Dzanc intern Liana Imam, who had the big task of organizing all of our own nominations and the ones coming in from magazine editors into a giant spreadsheet during the nomination process. With almost a thousand entries coming from hundreds of different editors, it was a big job, and Liana did it briliantly. Liana has since become one of the blog editors at The Collagist, and I'm very lucky to have her talented efforts onboard.
• Steven Gillis and Dan Wickett, for giving me the opportunity to serve as editor of Best of the Web, and for all of their advice and support throughout the process. Thanks also to Steven Seighman for his design work inside and outside this book. Putting together a hundred different files to make one book is a complex and challenging task, and Steven did a fine job of it. 
• Thanks to all of our contributors for their eagerness to be a part of the book, and for helping us with all the various requests we make of them throughout the process. This has been a fantastic group of people to work with, and they've made the task of getting ninety-some people organized both easy and enjoyable. I'm looking forward to putting them together in front of audiences during the coming months as we set up some events this summer to promote the book.
• I'd also be remiss if I didn't thank the many editors who nominated works for the anthology, and who helped spread the word throughout the process. I truly believe this anthology is something that benefits the entire online literary community, and I appreciate their support and assistance. (If you'd like to help by posting a banner on your own website, click here.)

Perhaps the most exciting part of the process is the reading itself, and I certainly did a lot of it. Around 1000 stories, poems, and essays were officially nominated by the judges and by magazine editors, and I read many more on my own as I put together my personal nominations. There's so much great work being done by online magazines, and despite the 500 pages or so of our anthology, we've only managed to highlight a tiny fragment of that greatness. I really like how Kathy explained in her introduction the way she selected the work, so I'll let her words speak for both of us:

There’s an astonishing amount of great writing on the web right now. How to even begin choosing the best? For me, I can say that the deciding factor was always the following: Did this writing open my eyes? Will I remember it months from now? Was it beautiful or strange or completely fresh and new? Did this writing unravel me? My own votes were always for those stories, poems, and essays that very clearly mattered to the writer.

Best of the Web 2010 is now available for pre-order from Dzanc Books, and will be released June 15, 2010. More information on summer readings, online events, and other promotions are coming soon!