You know how the other day I was talking about the great stuff at Clockwork Storybook? I swear I didn’t know that they were about to ask me to join their illustrious (literally — some of them are illustrators) group.

The CWSB people–Chris Roberson, Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges, Bill Williams, and Mark Finn — mostly write comics and prose, and that prose is mostly SF and fantasy. They critique each other’s work, support each other, and blog about the writing craft on their website.

I met Chris at the 2008 WorldCon in Denver, and then at last year’s World Fantasy Convention in Calgary he introduced me to his friend Bill Willingham. Cue fanboy moment: I had read Bill’s comic series The Elementals back in college and loved it. He was the first writer I read who put heroes and villains in the real world and showed how complicated that could be. Years later, you can see that influence in my first novel, Pandemonium.

Now, cue second fanboy moment: at the very same table in that bar in Calgary, Chris introduces me to Paul Cornell. He wrote several episodes of the new Dr. Who (including the amazing “Father’s Day” episode ) and also does comics. He just finished a run on Captain Britain and is next working on Dark X-Men. He’s also a gifted prose writer and funny as hell.

Also also, Paul is joining Clockwork Storybook too, along with comic writer and novelist Marjorie Liu, and comics/screenplay/novel writer Mark Andreyko. Call us the class of ’09. And hey, now there are nine of us.

As I just told Matt Sturges, I have a lot more to learn from them than I’ll be able to contribute in return — but that won’t tempt me to turn down their offer. This’ll be fun.