Image of a coffee cup, piping hot!
Featured Author
Kevin Hosey has had short stories published by Simon and Schuster. His first novel is currently going through the editorial gauntlet at a major publisher.
Featured Book
Hezbollah has obtained an atomic bomb and a would-be martyr eager to deliver it — and that’s the good news.
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).
Search Site
Archive for December, 2011
Quick Updates for 2011-12-27
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
- SFWA member @alcole123 presents A HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS: Santa's Back In The Hood – http://t.co/W2JpcLcQ #
Tags: twitter
Posted in Excluded Categories | No Comments »
Happy Holidays From Writer Beware
Saturday, December 24th, 2011
Because even watchdogs have to rest sometimes, the Writer Beware blog
will be taking a break over the holiday season. Unless there's a really
juicy publishing story, we'll be on hiatus until the new year.
(We'll still be answering email, so if you want to reach us, drop us a
line at beware [at] sfwa.org).Wishing all our wonderful readers and subscribers a happy, healthy, and peaceful holiday season--whatever kind of holidays you celebrate. See you in 2012!
- A. C. Crispin
- Victoria Strauss
- Richard White
Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | No Comments »
Quick Updates for 2011-12-22
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
- SFWA member @MFJ72 is interviewed today as part of Amber Sistla's "Writer Wednesday" series: http://t.co/D8xrqslj #
Tags: twitter
Posted in Excluded Categories | No Comments »
Nebula Awards Interview: Jack McDevitt
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
by John Ottinger III
Jack McDevitt is a Philadelphia native. He has been, among other things, a naval officer, an English teacher, a customs officer, a taxi driver, and a management trainer for the US Customs Service.
He started writing novels when Terry Carr invited him to participate in the celebrated Ace Specials series. His contribution was The Hercules Text, which won the Philip K. Dick Special Award. McDevitt has produced sixteen additional novels since then. Ten of them have qualified for the final Nebula ballot. Seeker won the award in 2007. In 2004, Omega received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel.
His most recent books are Echo and Time Travelers Never Die, both from Ace.
McDevitt won the first international UPC competition for “Ships in the Night.” The Phoenix and SESFA awards have lifetime body-of-work citations, and are given to writers with a Southern connection. McDevitt is believed to be the only Philadelphia taxi driver to have won both.
His interests include, especially, chess, classical history, and the sciences. A diehard Phillies fan since the days of the Whiz Kids, he has high hopes for 2011.
He is married to the former Maureen McAdams, and resides in Brunswick, Georgia, where he keeps a weather eye on hurricanes.
You have been writing SF since before the Space Race formally began. You’ve seen a lot of changes in mankind’s love affair with the stars. What are your feelings about the end of the shuttle program and the new directions the US is taking in regard to space science?
Actually, the space race began back in 1957, more or less, when I was still playing sandlot baseball in South Philadelphia. Still, I can remember watching that first Soviet satellite tracking across the night sky.
I’ve never been a big fan of the shuttle. We went to the Moon for political reasons, and then dropped the program. The shuttle, for all of the advantages that have accrued from it, nevertheless became the symbol of that failure. Finally, we’ve discovered that wars tend to crowd out everything else we want to do. I suspect we’ll look back eventually and realize there was a window if we were serious about manned space travel. I’m not sure that window hasn’t closed.
(more…)
Tags: interviews, jack mcdevitt, john ottinger III, Nebula Awards
Posted in Nebula Awards, SFWA Blog | 3 Comments »
Guest Post: RamboCon – Proposed Sessions for an Imaginary Spec-Fic Convention
Monday, December 19th, 2011
by Cat Rambo
Some panel ideas, which any convention organizer is welcome to grab.
Making the Transition from Short Story to Novel
What are the pitfalls and what should the writer know before starting? Is it easier to do it in reverse and go from novel to short story? What’s similar and what’s different? Does it help to think of chapters as mini-stories?
(This seems to me to be harder than anyone acknowledges it to be, and I know there’s several basics I wish I’d known before I’d begun blindly floundering in the much deeper waters of a novel. I’m also pretty sure this is not a new idea for a panel, but I haven’t seen it at recent cons I’ve been at.)
The Architecture of the Country of the Blind
Reading blind, so you see just the story and not the name of the author with its info about gender, is something many editors and publishers agree is a good idea. What are the practical aspects of setting up such a system? What do you do if editors or slush readers recognize the story? Is it true you can tell gender by how someone writes? What about the fact that such a system removes the “name recognition” that some widely published authors hold?
(Let’s just start with the assumption it’s a good idea for once. For the love of Pete. Thx.)
(more…)
Tags: cat rambo
Posted in SFWA Blog | No Comments »
Publisher Alert: Arvo Basim Yayin of Turkey
Monday, December 19th, 2011
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
Arvo signed up at least ten writers as a result of these approaches, some with multiple books (those are only the writers whose names I know; according to my sources, there are probably many more). Both royalty-only and licensing-fee-plus-royalties contracts were offered; the licensing fees ranged from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the number of books involved. Publication was supposed to begin in September.
Some of the books have indeed been published. But others have missed multiple publication dates--and it appears that no one, including the authors whose books were published, has been paid.
Authors who've attempted to contact Ms. Dayan about the problems say they've gotten a raft of excuses--financial difficulties, personal and family ill health, religious holidays, trips out of town--along with repeated promises that schedules would be straightened out and monies owed would be forthcoming. As of this writing, none of those promises have been fulfilled. Authors tell me that Ms. Dayan has largely stopped responding to questions and concerns; some haven't heard from her since October.
(more...)
Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 1 Comment »
D Publishing: Dymocks’ New Self-Pub Service
Friday, December 16th, 2011
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
Like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Dymocks is a major book vendor. Unlike Amazon and Barnes and Noble, it doesn't have its own ereading device--so D Publishing does not resemble the free, direct-to-device self-pub services offered by Amazon and B&N. Instead, it's more like the middleman self-pub services provided by AuthorHouse and its ilk. For a fee of $499 to $699, you can publish a print book, an ebook, or both (all prices are in Australian dollars). Additional charges for cover creation and setup bring the price as high as $997.
(more...)
Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 1 Comment »
Quick Updates for 2011-12-16
Friday, December 16th, 2011
Member News
- SFWA member Ian Creasey has published his debut collection “Maps of the Edge.” full details at his website.
- SFWA Members Paul Cook, Ed Greenwood, Robert Lowell Russell, and Eric James Stone have stories appearing in Digital SF’s “Heir Apparent”.
- SFWA members including David D. Levine are included in The Drabblecast podcast’s 10-episode “highlight reel.”
- SFWA member Eugie Foster‘s short story “Black Swan, White Swan” was published by PodCastle.
- SFWA member Ferrett Steinmetz sold his story “In The Unlikely Event,” his preboarding spaceflight monologue, to Daily Science Fiction.
- THE FLAME PRIEST, the second book of The Silk & Steel Saga by SFWA member Karen Azinger is now published on Amazon and Barnes&Noble!
- “Beyond Binary: Genderqueer & Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction” edited by SFWA member Brit Mandelo. TOC announced here.
- DAW anthology HUMAN FOR A DAY is out w/ stories by SFWAns Eugie Foster, Jay Lake, Jim C. Hines, David D. Levine, Jody Lynn Nye, Laura Resnick, among others.
- Human for a Day, edited by SFWA member Jennifer Brozek, is on The Big Idea.
- The Assassin’s Tear, a collection of short stories from SFWA member Karen Azinger, is now published on Amazon.
- SFWA Member Nancy Fulda is donating all income from December 2011 sales of “Movement” to the National Foundation for Autism Research.
Tags: Brit Mandelo, David D. Levine, Ed Greenwood, Eric James Stone, Eugie Foster, Ferrett Steinmetz, Ian Creasey, Jay Lake, Jennifer Brozek, Jim C. Hines, Jody Lynn Nye, Karen Azinger, Laura Resnick, Nancy Fulda, Paul Cook, Robert Lowell Russell, twitter
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | No Comments »
Quick Updates for 2011-12-15
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
- The Assassin's Tear, a collection of short stories from SFWA member Karen Azinger, is now published on Amazon. #
Tags: twitter
Posted in Excluded Categories | No Comments »
Guest Post: How I Went From Writing
2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
by Rachel Aaron
When I started writing The Spirit War (Eli novel #4), I had a bit of a problem. I had a brand new baby and my life (like every new mother’s life) was constantly on the verge of shambles. I paid for a sitter four times a week so I could get some writing time, and I guarded these hours like a mama bear guards her cubs – with ferocity and hiker-mauling violence. To keep my schedule and make my deadlines, I needed to write 4000 words during each of these carefully arranged sessions. I thought this would be simple. After all, before I quit my job to write full time I’d been writing 2k a day in the three hours before work. Surely with 6 hours of baby free writing time, 4k a day would be nothing….
But (of course), things didn’t work out like that. Every day I’d sit down to add 4000 words to my new manuscript. I was determined, I was experienced, I knew my world. There was no reason I couldn’t get 4k down. But every night when I hauled myself away, my word count had only increased by 2k, the same number of words I’d been getting before I quit my day job.
Needless to say, I felt like a failure. Here I was, a professional writer with three books about to come out, and I couldn’t even beat the writing I’d done before I went pro. At first I made excuses, this novel was the most complicated of all the Eli books I’d written, I was tired because my son thinks 4am is an awesome time to play, etc. etc. But the truth was there was no excuse. I had to find a way to boost my word count, and with months of 2k a day dragging me down, I had to do it fast. So I got scientific. I gathered data and tried experiments, and ultimately ended up boosting my word count to heights far beyond what I’d thought was possible, and I did it while making my writing better than ever before.
(more…)
Tags: Rachel Aaron
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Building a Career, Information Center, SFWA Blog, The Business of Writing, The Craft of Writing, Tips for Beginners, Writing Technique | 25 Comments »