Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Archive for July, 2011

Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

 

Funded by the National Science Foundation, Launch Pad, a week-long workshop in astronomy, is underway in Laramie, Wyoming.

Its mission is simple: educate writers and editors from a variety of disciplines about modern science, specifically astronomy, so that they in turn can reach a wider audience.

Dr. Mike Brotherton,  professional astronomer and sf writer, is assisted by Dr. Jim D. Verley. Guest instructors include Jerry Oltion, Dr. H.G. Stratmann, and Dr. Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

Lectures, labs, and field trips cover the fundamentals of astronomy at the college level.  Specific topics include spectroscopy, stars, galaxies, black holes, quasars, orbital mechanics, biological hazards and medical care in space, worldbuilding in science fiction, and much, much more. A visit to WIRO, a working observatory, supplements hands-on time with telescopes.

Five students, James Cambias, Greg R. Fishbone, Pembroke Sinclair, Deborah J. Ross, and Jennifer Willis  are blogging about the workshop.

Applications for Launch Pad 2012 will open next March.

 

Tags: Jerry Oltion, Mike Brotherton, Stanley Schmidt
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | 1 Comment »

Video Pick of the Week: Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

The inimitable Kurt Vonnegut offers up a chalkboard lecture: “There’s no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers.”

Want to achieve some off-scale happiness? Take a look.

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut, video pick of the week
Posted in SFWA Blog | Comments Off

Campbell and Sturgeon Awards Announced

Saturday, July 9th, 2011

Ian McDonald’s The Dervish House has won the Campbell Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year, and Geoffrey A. Landis’s “The Sultan of the Clouds” has won the Sturgeon Award for the best short science fiction of the year.

In a ceremony Friday at the University of Kansas, the Campbell Award was presented to McDonald by Campbell Award juror Elizabeth Anne Hull.

The Sturgeon Award was presented to Landis by Noël Sturgeon, Theodore Sturgeon’s daughter, trustee of his literary estate, and a member of the Sturgeon Award jury.
(more…)

Tags: Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Sturgeon Award
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | 1 Comment »

09-07-11(4:42:12)

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Title of Work: Midwife Crisis

Author of Work: Dave Creek

URL: http://www.amazon.com/Midwife-Crisis-Carrie-Christian-ebook/dp/B0056WR604/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310186507&sr=1-15

Posted in Available for Purchase, Free Online Fiction, Member Fiction Online | Comments Off

Finalists for the 10th Annual Sunburst Award Announced

Friday, July 8th, 2011

The jury for the tenth annual Sunburst Awards has announced the short-lists for 2011.

The short-listed works in the adult category:

Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven: (Penguin Group Canada, ISBN – 0670068098)

Robert J. Sawyer, Watch: (Penguin Group Canada, ISBN – 0670067423)

Douglas Smith, Chimerascope: (ChiZine Publications, ISBN – 0981297854)

S.M. Stirling, A Taint in the Blood: (New American Library, ISBN – 0451463412)

Hayden Trenholm, Stealing Home: (Bundoran Press, ISBN – 0978205251)

The short-listed works in the young adult category:

Holly Bennett, Shapeshifter: (Orca Book Publishers, ISBN – 1554691583)

Erin Bow, Plain Kate: (Scholastic, ISBN – 0545166640)

Charles De Lint, The Painted Boy: (Penguin Young Reader Group, ISBN – 0670011916)

Paul Glennon, Bookweirder: (Doubleday Canada, ISBN – 0385665482)

Robert Paul Weston, Dust City: (Penguin Group Canada, ISBN – 0670063967)
(more…)

Tags: sunburst award
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | Comments Off

Publishing Beyond the Grave

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Fellow authors, do you have a loved one who was a writer too, but sadly passed over into the Great Beyond with their poems or prose unpublished? Does the cosmic injustice of that weigh heavy on your soul? Do you lie awake nights, grieving that your loved one never had the chance to see his or her words enshrined in print?

(more...)

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

Quick Updates for 2011-07-07

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Member News

• Happy release to SFWA member Diana Rowland and her novel MY LIFE AS A WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE.
• Happy Release to SFWA member Jim C. Hines and his novel SNOW QUEEN.
• SFWA member David Levine will appear at the “EphSpec” event: 5pm July 17, 5441 SE Belmont, Portland, Oregon.

Tags: David Levine, diana rowland, Jim C. Hines, twitter
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | Comments Off

The Endeavour Award Finalists and Judges

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Portland – Four novels and a collection of short stories are finalists for the 2011 Endeavour Award. The 2011 will be the thirteenth year for the Award, which comes with an honorarium of $1,000.00. The winner will be announced November 11, 2011, at OryCon, Oregon’s major science fiction convention.

The finalists are:
“A Cup of Normal” by Salem, Ore., writer Devon Monk, published by Fairwood Press;
“The Bards of Bone Plain” by North Bend, Ore., writer Patricia McKillip, published by Ace Books;
“Black Prism” by Sherwood , Ore., writer Brent Weeks, published by Orbit US;
“Dreadnought” by Seattle, Wash., writer Cherie Priest, published by Tor Books; and
“Silver Borne” by Benton City, Wash., writer Patricia Briggs, published by Ace Books.

The Endeavour Award honors a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book, either a novel or a single-author collection, created by a writer living in the Pacific Northwest. All entries are read and scored by seven readers randomly selected from a panel of preliminary readers. The five highest scoring books then go to three judges, who are all professional writers or editors.

The judges for the 2011 Award are editor John Joseph Adams and writers Bud Sparhawk and Jo Walton.

John Joseph Adams is a bestselling editor of many anthologies and a 2011 Hugo Award-nominee for Best Editor (Short Form). His books have been nominated for the World Fantasy Award. He is also the editor of “Fantasy Magazine” and “Lightspeed Magazine.” John is the co-host of “The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy” podcast.

Bud Sparhawk is a hard science fiction short story writer who started writing in 1975 with three sales to ANALOG. He has published two short story collections and one novel, “Vixen.” and has been a finalist for the Nebula Award three times. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland and is Treasurer of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and Senior Vice President of Macfadden.

Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian writer of fantasy and science fiction. She has won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, the World Fantasy Award, the Mythopoeic Award and the Prometheus Award. She had published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently “Among Others.”

AWARD ELIGIBILITY FOR 2012
To be eligible for 2012Endeavour Award, a book — either a novel or a single-author collection — must have been published for the first time in English during 2011. The majority of the book must have been written, and the book accepted for publication, while the author was living in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, or the Yukon.) Deadline to enter books published during 2011 is February 15, 2012. Full information on entering the Award is available on the Endeavour Web site: www.osfci.org/endeavour.

The Endeavour Award is sponsored by Oregon Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (OSFCI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

Posted in Press Book | Comments Off

Quick Updates for 2011-07-06

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

• Happy release day to SFWA member @dianarowland and her novel My Life as a White Trash Zombie. #
• Happy Release day to SFWA member @jimchines and his novel SNOW QUEEN. #
• @nkjemisin Not satire, but it is a guest post by Terry Bisson, so reflects how he approaches writing short fiction. #

Tags: twitter
Posted in Excluded Categories | Comments Off

Guest Post: 60 Rules for Short SF (and Fantasy)

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

by Terry Bisson

A “mainstream” short story can be about anything: a mood, a character, a setting, even a flashy writing style. A genre (SF or fantasy) short story is about an idea. The fictional elements (character, plot, setting, etc) are only there to dramatize the idea.

Here are the rules for the SF (or Fantasy) short story:

1. Keep it short . It can and should be read in one sitting. That’s the first rule.

2. The novel’s timeline is folded into the reader’s real time. The short story is itself a real-time event. That gives the form a certain “Hey, you!” authority, like a fire or an arrest. Use that authority.

3. The SF reader is a gamer who brings a problem-solving intelligence to the story. This is the SF writer’s one great advantage. Use it.

4. The more extraordinary the idea, the more ordinary the language. Experimental writing is for quotidian events. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf understood this.

5. Keep your timeline simple. Flashbacks are out of place in a short story.

6. Never write in present tense. It makes events less, not more, immediate. Past tense IS present tense.

7. No dialect. Jargon is OK but only if doesn’t have to be explained.

8. One world only. Dreams are out of place in a short story.

9. Fantasies are out of place in Fantasy.

10. The stranger the idea, the realer the world must seem to be.
(more…)

Tags: Terry Bisson
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center, SFWA Blog, The Craft of Writing, Tips for Beginners, Writing Technique | 15 Comments »

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