by Deborah J. Ross I love to take conventional wisdom and turn it on its head, following the tradition of rules are made to be broken but first you have to learn them. Beginning writers make mistakes. At least, I did, and I don’t know anyone who’s gone on to a successful writing career who didn’t. At […]
Anyone who grew up yearning to become a writer knows it’s hard to do it alone. The Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers provides an environment for young writers ages 14-19 to build a community of likeminded wordsmiths. Each year, 20 students spend 10 days on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh’s Greensburg campus, crafting a short story and participating in peer critique groups.
Goodreads is the largest reader community site in the world, with over thirteen million members. Users can track their reading, find or make book recommendations, and discuss what they’re reading.
by Caren Gussoff Note: Part One appears here: Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 101. Part Two appears here: Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 102: Is It Literary? ••• Now, you’ve decided to submit to a literary market for a particular story. You’re hip to the fundamental differences between lit mags and SFF mags […]
by Caren Gussoff Note: Part One appears here: Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 101 This may seem totally obvious, but is actually worth a deeper dive: if you want to market your speculative fiction to literary markets, it has to be significantly literary. Literary markets, though they may protest that they do not like/accept/read […]
by Caren Gussoff I’ve sat in a lot of panels — and eavesdropped on a bunch of conversations — lately, in which genre writers have asked, debated, and/or mused about crossing over from SFF magazines and journals into straight-up literary fiction ones. Seems to many, and I agree, that the notorious snobbery and befuddlement of […]
This manual is intended to focus on the special needs of the science fiction workshop. Having an accurate and descriptive critical term for a common SF problem makes it easier to recognize and discuss. This guide is intended to save workshop participants from having to “reinvent the wheel” (see section 3) at every session.
A long-standing practice in book promotion is giveaways, particularly since book giveaways may help drum up reviews as well. You can conduct such giveaways in a simple fashion, asking people to leave a comment on a blog post or social network page in order to be entered.
LibraryThing, which was the first social book site, allowed users to enter their own books in order to catalog their library. People signed up immediately.
If your writing features a richly detailed universe, full of names, places, and historical events, you may want to explore using a wiki to chronicle it. A wiki’s structure allows intricate details to be recorded in a way that both preserves it in an easy to locate fashion but also allows devoted fans to browse the longtime story of your work.
Four sorcerers—a former courtesan, a duelist, a metalsmith, and an illiterate youth—hire out their extraordinary talents to Cantagna’s Shadow Lord for missions of intrigue that ungifted spies would find impossible. They call themselves the Chimera.
Michael J. Martinez is the author of the DAEDALUS trilogy, as well as other assorted bits of science fiction and fantasy. He’s still slightly stunned that he’s being paid to write this stuff, but will keep going until someone says otherwise.
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