Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

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Featured Author

Lawrence C. Connolly

Lawrence C. Connolly’s books include VEINS, VISIONS, and THIS WAY TO EGRESS.  More at <www.lawrencecconnolly.com>.

Featured Book

The third Major Ariane Kedros Novel from Roc.  This mission
will get under her skin…

Nebula Awards Weekend

The Forty-Seventh Nebula Awards Weekend will be held Thursday through Sunday, May 17 to May 20, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, near Reagan National Airport.

We honor Connie Willis as our Grand Master!

To register, click on “Registration” in the menu to the immediate left.  Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “Register” button.

Tours, workshops and panels are available for registered attendees (the number of people who can be accommodated on the tours and workshops is limited.)  Active and Associate SFWA members may nominate works, until February 15th, for the awards to be presented at the May 19th Nebula Awards Weekend Banquet. Hour long interviews and readings will be recorded by Jim Freund for his Hour of the Wolf radio show broadcast on WBAI (99.5FM) in New York City.

Jon Williams is our Toastmaster (he will also conduct a half-day Writers Workshop on Friday morning.)  Mike Fincke is our Keynote Speaker.

The Mass Autographing Session on Friday, May 18th will be followed by a reception to honor the nominees and other honorees.

You don’t have to be a nominee, a member of SFWA, or even a writer to participate in the weekend. Registration for the 2012 Nebula Awards Weekend is open now.  The cost for the Nebula Awards Banquet is $75.00 per person.  The cost to register is $50.00 for a SFWA Member and $60.00 for a non-SFWA Member until February 29, 2012. Rates for registration will be higher as the date of the event draws closer.

Results from the 2010 Nebula Awards (presented 2011).

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Archive for February, 2011

Quick Updates for 2011-02-09

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

  • SFWA member @KateMilford is pleased that her novel THE BONESHAKER made Locus's 2010 recommended YA reading list. #
  • SFWA member @leancoakley's YA short story "Mouse" will be published in an upcoming, as yet untitled, McGraw-Hill Ryerson anthology. #
  • @britmandelo You actually just need proof of the sale to join, if it is to a qualifying market. #
  • SFWA member @silviamg's story about a Mexican time-traveler is in AE The Canadian SF Review "The Death Collector" http://3.ly/6Crm #
  • SFWA member @MarcyRockwell handed in the final draft of the 1st D & D Online: Eberron Unlimited novel, The Shard Axe, due out 9/6/11. #
  • @britmandelo Nope. You can scan the contract and send that in. #
  • SFWA member @rosemaryjones: Junker's Fancy keeps flying http://t.co/TnNi7aJ New reviews keep coming out of the 2010 Pill Hill story. #

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Quick Updates for 2011-02-09

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Quick Updates -- istock

Member News

  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member, Gene Twaronite, with three sales to Highlights for Children.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Alyxandra Harvey, author of OUT FOR BLOOD.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Sarah Monette, author of CORAMBIS (ACE, 2009).
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member, Amy Treadwell. Read one of her qualifying stories at Flash Fiction Online.
  • SFWA member Vera Nazarian is now a member of the Austen Authors group blog. Her debut is here.
  • SFWA member Allan Cole presents NEW HOLLYWOOD MISADVENTURE: Tracking Carlos Lehder To His Lair here.
  • SFWA member Brad Beaulieu is offering an ARC Giveaway of his debut novel WINDS OF KHALAKOVO.
  • SFWA member Kate Milford is pleased that her novel THE BONESHAKER made Locus’s 2010 recommended YA reading list.
  • SFWA member Lena Coakley‘s YA short story “Mouse” will be published in an upcoming, as yet untitled, McGraw-Hill Ryerson anthology.
  • SFWA member Silvia Moreno-Garcia‘s story about a Mexican time-traveler is in AE The Canadian SF Review “The Death Collector.”
  • SFWA member Marcy Rockwell handed in the final draft of the 1st D & D Online: Eberron Unlimited novel, THE SHARD AXE, due out 9/6/11.
  • SFWA member Rosemary Jones: “Junker’s Fancy” keeps flying. New reviews keep coming for the 2010 Pill Hill story.
  • At Escape Pod: “Written on the Wind” by SFWA member David Levine, read by Mur Lafferty. Link.
  • Help a SFWA author research: John Cleaver needs some fake swear words for his new series: information here.

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Book Giveaway–The Arm of the Stone

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Writer BewarePosted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

One of the important negotiation points for life-of-copyright publishing contracts is including provisions in the termination clause that oblige the publisher to take the work out of print when sales or royalties drop below a minimum level.

Why is that important? Well, when your book has fallen so far into the backlist that your publisher no longer even includes it in its catalogs, and sales have dropped down to practically nothing, there's no reason for the publisher to continue to hold your rights. Much better for the book to go out of print, and for you to revert the rights and do something else with them--self-publish as an ebook, for instance, to take advantage of the exploding ebook market, or try to market them to other publishers.

(more...)

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Quick Updates for 2011-02-08

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

  • Help a SFWA author research: @johncleaver needs some fake swear words for his new series: http://is.gd/PIGUi4 #
  • Hey, SFWA members. It's Monday and I'm wondering what news you have that you'd like us to announce for you. #
  • Welcome to SFWA's newest Active member, Amy Treadwell. Read one of her qualifying stories online. http://is.gd/KWNg6F #
  • Welcome to SFWA's newest Active member Sarah Monette (@pennyvixen), author of Corambis (ACE, 2009). http://www.sarahmonette.com/bio.html #

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In Memoriam: Brian Jacques (1939-2011)

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

British author Brian Jacques (b.June 15, 1939) died on February 5, 2011 following emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm. Jacques published his juvenile novel Redwall, about a collection of anthropomorphic mice, badgers, voles, and other creatures, in 1986. Jacques followed Redwall with an additional twenty volumes in the series, including The Rogue Crew, which is scheduled to be released later this year. The series was adapted into a popular animated series as well as an opera. In addition to the Redwall series, Jacques also wrote three volumes in his Flying Dutchman series, beginning in 2001. Jacques also published two collections of short stories and a couple of picture books.

Jacques grew up near the Liverpool docks and dropped out of school when he was fifteen to became a merchant seaman. Other careers, as a policeman and dockworker followed. In the 1960s, he formed a band in Liverpool with his brothers. Jacques’s interest in writing started at a young age and when he was ten, he was caned by a teacher who couldn’t believe that he could write the story he had turned in. He hosted a radio show about authorial concerns for BBC Radio Merseyside for more than 20 years.

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Guest Post: Freeing the Statue from the Stone

Monday, February 7th, 2011

by Nancy Fulda

Nancy FuldaThe Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo once said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

He also said: “The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.”

In this, I think, sculpting is not so very different than writing. As authors, we stand like Michelangelo before the lump of our incompleted stories, stupefied not by lack of ideas, but by their plethora. An unfinished story is full of potential. It might become anything: an action-adventure saga, a conflicted character story, an incisive satire.

It is this potential that dazzles us. And it is this same potential which so often causes us to stumble.

A story is defined, not so much by what it is, but by what it is not. Faced with the rough surface of a draft that has not yet been freed from the stone, the writer might feel tempted to do it all: concentrate on character and plot and symbolism and prose style. He is afraid to cut away too much, and so his chisel strokes are awkward, and hesitant, and ultimately unsatisfactory. The angel within the stone remains buried beneath a jumble of beautiful clutter. (more…)

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Quick Updates for 2011-02-06

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

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Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 8 – character draws 5-8

Saturday, February 5th, 2011

by John D. Brown

JohnThe following is part of a continuing series. If you wish to start at the beginning, head to It’s All About The Reader.

In my last post, I raised the idea that readers will be far more invested in your characters, and therefore feel more suspense, if the characters not only face troubles and are deserving, but if they are also interesting in their own right. In this post, I’ll continue listing the types of things that make a character interesting.

Wish-fulfillment

We cannot help but be interested in characters who are, do, or have things we want. In fact, this is one of the main draws of fiction–experiencing something wonderful or cool, even if it’s vicariously. Phyllis Pianka states this so well in How to Write Romances:

“You cannot write an engrossing romance novel until you create a heroine the reader *wants to* identify with and a hero the reader can fall in love with . . . they are idealized; the heroine is someone women would like to emulate: nicer, prettier, thinner, more intelligent, though not necessarily all of those things. She will have a flaw but it will be a minor one . . . the hero is the ideal lover and husband and father . . . Above all, he must be the man with whom every woman would like to fall in love [bold font added for emphasis]” (30).

A lead you’d like to be like in some way. A hero you could fall in love with. Or at least feel attracted to. Remember, readers are hoping and fearing for the characters. How can readers hope for a woman to enter a committed relationship if the readers feel the man is completely unattractive, physically or emotionally? How can we males root for the man if we feel the same about the female character? It doesn’t mean they have to be perfect. Wish-fulfillment, like many things in writing, slides along a scale. But we’ll be more interested as readers the more we can participate in the same attraction and desire. (more…)

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Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center, SFWA Blog, The Craft of Writing, Writing Technique | 2 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-02-05

Saturday, February 5th, 2011

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BBC Announces International Playwriting Competition

Friday, February 4th, 2011

BBC World ServiceThe BBC World Service and the British Council have announced their 12th Annual Playwriting Competition. The competition is open to all writers on any subject. Two winners will each receive a prize of £2,500 and a trip to London to see their play recorded. Entry forms can be found at their website.

PRESS RELEASE:

London Autumn 2010: BBC World Service, in partnership with the British Council, launches the 12th Annual Radio Playwriting Competition, which invites writers from around the world to submit a one-hour radio play on any subject.

Two first prizes will be awarded: one for writers for whom English is a first language, and a second, for those with English as a second language. The winning entries will be broadcast on BBC World Service in autumn 2011. The competition is for writers outside the UK and the two winners will each receive a prize of £2,500 and a trip to London to see their play recorded. (more…)

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