The February issue of Clarkesworld is online, and this issue I’d like to start by talking about the art. Every year people moan that the Best Professional Artist category in the Hugos has the same names each year, and there are never any women. Well, Julie Dillon won the cover art section of the Clarkesworld reader’s poll with “Honeycomb”, and she’s on the cover again this month with “Nautili”. Julie has also contributed a great article about the creation of this issue’s cover. And, you know, Nautili! Tentacles! So when it comes to Hugo nomination time, please remember to consider Julie.

This month’s lead fiction is “Diving After the Moon” by one of the hottest new talents around, Rachel Swirsky. As usual the story is also available in audio, read by Kate Baker.

Our second story is “Three Oranges” by D. Elizabeth Wasden. That’s a new name to me, but she’s a Clarion graduate and Neil does a great job of picking talented new writers.

In the non-fiction, Jeremy’s interview is with David Weber. The piece I bought is all about how languages evolve and (sometimes) die out. My thanks to Kerry Tynan Fraser for his take on a fascinating subject. And we have the results of the 2010 Reader’s Poll (no surprises there – Peter Watts for a Hugo!).

All of the top three stories in our poll, and a few more besides, feature in the Locus Recommended Reading List, which was released today in the February edition of Locus. If you want to see that list, just go buy a digital copy here. Congratulations to all Clarkesworld contributors who made it onto the list.

And finally, on the subject of buying things, Clarkesworld #53 and Lightspeed #9 are both available in the Wizard’s Tower Bookstore.