Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Archive for June, 2011

Quick Updates for 2011-06-30

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Member News

• SFWA member David Levine‘s “Zauberschrift” (from the late Martin H. Greenberg’s antho Apprentice Fantastic) will be podcast at PodCastle.

Industry News

• Congratulations to SFWA’s newest qualifying short fiction market RedstoneSF.

Tags: David Levine, twitter
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | Comments Off

Redstone SF is SFWA’s newest qualifying short fiction market

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Today the board of directors of SFWA voted to add Redstone Science Fiction to the list of SFWA qualifying markets. Just celebrating its first year online, this market features science-fiction short stories and essays.  They have published SFWA authors such as Cory Doctorow, Vylar Kaftan, and Cat Rambo.

Because they have met the SFWA minimum requirements since they opened, any stories published are retroactively eligible for SFWA membership qualification.

Congratulations to the entire editorial staff at Redstone Science Fiction and their writers!

Tags: qualifying market, Redstone Science Fiction
Posted in News, SFWA Blog, Where to Submit Short Stories | 1 Comment »

Agencies Becoming Publishers–a Trend and a Problem

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Yesterday, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, a major US agency, announced that it will be facilitating self-publishing for some of its clients.

Over the past months and years we’ve come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area in which we can be of service to our clients as literary agents. From authors who want to have their work available once the physical edition has gone out of print and the rights have reverted, to those whose books we believe in and feel passionately about but couldn’t sell—oftentimes, after approaching 20 or more houses—we realized that part of our job as agents in this new publishing milieu is to facilitate these works being made available as e-books and through POD and other editions.

D&G is not alone. Laura Rennert at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency is also experimenting with self-publishing for agency clients. The agency's first release, P.J. Hoover's YA novel Solstice, came out in April.

(more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 1 Comment »

Nebula Awards 2010 Interview: N.K. Jemisin

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

by Marshall Payne

N. K. Jemisin lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY.  Her short fiction–published in CLARKESWORLD, BAEN’S UNIVERSE, and other markets–was nominated for a Nebula and a Hugo in 2010, so she’s thrilled that her first novel has gotten the same treatment in 2011.  THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS is the first book of the Inheritance Trilogy, of which the second book (THE BROKEN KINGDOMS) is also out, and the third (THE KINGDOM OF GODS) is forthcoming, all three from Orbit Books.  Her website is at nkjemisin.com

 

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first book in The Inheritance Trilogy. When did the idea for the series first come to you?

Originally I thought of the story about 14 or 15 years ago, while I was in graduate school.  It was probably some kind of reaction to thesis-writing stress; I remember having a vivid and disturbing dream of very strange people.  One was a man with stars in his hair.  If you tried to touch his hair your hand would just keep going and you’d fall in.  Another was a boy juggling these beautiful polished stone balls — which, when you looked closely, turned out to be planets.  I woke up in a fever to come up with a narrative to explain these characters.  These images sort of fused with all the mythology I’d absorbed over the years and turned into enslaved gods.

(more…)

Tags: interviews, Marshall Payne, n. k. jemisin
Posted in Nebula Awards, SFWA Blog | 2 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-06-28

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

• SFWA member @daviddlevine's "Zauberschrift" (from the late Martin H. Greenberg's antho Apprentice Fantastic) will be podcast at PodCastle. #

Tags: twitter
Posted in Excluded Categories | Comments Off

RIP: Martin H. Greenberg 1941-2011

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

Martin Harry Greenberg (b. March 1, 1941) died on the morning of June 25, 2011 after a long battle with cancer.  Greenberg packaged more than 1,000 short story anthologies in a wide variety of genres over his length career.  Greenberg began using his middle initial at the urging of Isaac Asimov to distinguish himself from another Martin Greenberg who was the publisher of Gnome Press. Asimov and Greenberg would go on to co-edit more than 120 anthologies together. Greenberg went on to work with nearly all of the major names in science fiction and fantasy, either as a co-editor or by buying their stories for various anthologies. Greenberg founded Tekno Books to help with the packaging of anthologies and novels, bringing on a staff to help him. Although most of Tekno’s projects were published by other companies, Tekno Books also had a publishing arm in Five Star Press. His anthology Horrors! 365 Scary Stories received a Stoker Award and Greenberg later received a Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received a special Prometheus Award for his anthologies Give Me Liberty and Visions of Liberty, co-edited with Mark Tier.  In 2009, Greenberg received one of the three inaugural Solstice Awards from the SFWA in recognition of the significant impact his work as an anthologist had on the speculative fiction field.

Greenberg received a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1969 and began teaching at the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay a few years later. His first anthology, Political Science Fiction, co-edited by Patricia Warrick, was the first of a series of anthologies meant to be used to help teach science fiction.  He eventually hooked up with Joseph Olander  to publish more mainstream science fiction anthologies which were marketed to the general trade rather than as educational tools.

Some of Greenberg’s frequent collaborators included Asimov, Frank D. McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh, Joseph Olander, Richard Gilliam, Esther Friesner, Andre Norton, John Helfers, Mike Resnick, Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg, and many more.

Posted in In Memoriam, SFWA Blog | 3 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-06-25

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

• The Locus Awards will have live coverage tomorrow at: http://is.gd/XpNbDV #
• @rachelvolivier Their site says 2pm PDT. #

Tags: twitter
Posted in Excluded Categories | Comments Off

Getting Out of Your Book Contract (Maybe)

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Writer Beware often hears from authors who've signed up with bad or inexperienced or dishonest publishers, and are desperate to get free. They write to us wanting to know how they can break their contracts and regain their rights. Unfortunately, there's usually no easy answer to this question, even where the publisher has clearly breached its contractual obligations. Too often, I have to tell people that they are probably stuck.

That said, here are some general suggestions, which may or may not be applicable to your situation, and may or may not work for you (obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so what follows should not be construed as legal advice).

1. First and most obvious, check your contract for a termination clause. If there is one, invoke it per the instructions. Beware, though, of termination fees, which some publishers use as a way to make a quick buck off the back end.

2. If there's no termination clause, try approaching the publisher and simply asking to be released. A publisher may refuse or ignore such a request--but sometimes it will recognize that an unhappy author isn't an asset, and may be willing to let him or her go.

(more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | Comments Off

Video Pick of the Week:
Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

 

Welcome to a new feature on the SFWA Blog: the Video Pick of the Week.

Today, we feature a kinetic typography video where Stephen Fry discusses anglophones, pedants, and language.  Enjoy a delectable dance of diction.

Direct link: Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language

Video created by Matt Rogers.

Tags: video pick of the week
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Nebula Awards 2010 Interview: Christopher Kastensmidt

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

by Marshall Payne

Christopher Kastensmidt was born in Texas but has lived in Porto Alegre, Brazil for the last decade. He ran video game developer Southlogic Studios for ten years and later served as Creative Director of Ubisoft Brazil, participating in the production of thirty video games in the process.

Christopher has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University and is nearing the end of a master’s degree in Social Communication at PUCRS.  He currently works as a professor, lecturing at three different universities, and as an independent consultant. He specializes in digital narratives, intellectual property creation, and video game production. His fiction has appeared in eight countries.

To learn more about The Elephant and Macaw Banner series, please visit the website www.eamb.org, where Christopher posts news, artwork, and in-depth explanations of historical and cultural references used in the stories.

 

“The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara” introduces the two titular characters, one a Dutch adventurer, one an African slave brought to Brazil. Where did this idea come from?

I can’t take credit for any exceptional revelation there; those characters are based on Brazilian history.  Sixteenth-century Brazil witnessed a massive culture shock.  Europeans, Africans, and Native Brazilians converged on the coast where they met, mixed, and eventually came to form the Brazilian people and culture we know today.

So Gerard van Oost and Oludara represent that convergence.  At the same time, I chose to begin the story upon their arrival and have them discover that unusual place a little bit at a time, and in doing so give the same experience to the reader unfamiliar with Brazilian culture.

Brazil was a remarkable place at the time, unimaginable to Europeans.  Even today, people who aren’t familiar with Brazilian history challenge me on historical points I deal with in the stories–like cannibalism and nakedness among the tribes–but that was the reality of the time.  The Brazilian colonial period shouldn’t be confused with that of the rest of the Americas; it is unique in many ways.

This novelette could be called sword and sorcery, a retake on epic fantasy, a cultural adventure story set in the New World. How do you perceive this?

It’s not a surprise, since I’m a lifelong fan of all those genres.  In this first story, I think the sword and sorcery influence is the most obvious.  Fritz Leiber had no small part inspiring this adventuring duo.  But the influences don’t stop there: Robin Hood, Dumas, and countless other adventure stories played a part.  Historical fiction has been a huge influence.  Mythology and folklore also play a part in my writing, but I think those other influences will become more obvious as other stories are published. (more…)

Tags: Christopher Kastensmidt, interviews, Marshall Payne, Nebula Awards
Posted in Nebula Awards, SFWA Blog | 4 Comments »

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