by Gargi Mehra
Writing when you’re in full flow is like living a dream. Who doesn’t love that feeling when the words spill out faster than you can type them? If you’re old school, the scratch of the pen as it flies over the pages struggles to keep pace with your thoughts.
The reverse scenario keeps writers awake at night.
by John Walters
I am a hybrid author, which means that I self-publish books and also publish short stories in traditional venues. Last night I was engaged in what I call marketing. Several of my stories had come back unsold from magazines and anthologies, and rather than having them sit around, I wanted to send them back out to other possible markets.
By Michael Michel
Regardless of where you end up on the journey known as being a writer, my guess is you want to enjoy the experience. Here’s my recommendation: focus more on the crafter than the craft. As the crafter, you are the instrument through which creativity flows and stories are shared with the world. If you want to be successful, start writing the story you’d love for yourself, first.
by Sandra M. Odell
I love intricate, detailed worldbuilding; it’s the backbone of science fiction and fantasy stories, even those set in the modern era. Sadly, few things make me stop reading faster than the realization that a writer gave more thought to the description of a meal than they did to the how or why an accommodation for a character with disabilities came to be in a story. Inclusion and representation matter, and so do the supports that allow an individual with disabilities to interact with a writer’s world.
by Paul Jessup
It seems to happen every single time I work on something larger than a novella. The minute I finish it, it seems like all of my creativity for fiction dries up.
by Paul Jessup
It will probably happen to you. Almost every career for a professional writer hits a snag at some point. Usually after a huge burst of activity and a feeling of momentum, of going somewhere. It comes out of nowhere, out of left field.
by Jeffe Kennedy
It’s apropos that “Lonen’s War,” book one in my Fantasy Romance series, “Sorcerous Moons,” is featured in the first SFWA Fantasy StoryBundle. That’s because the fantastically smart and helpful folks in SFWA helped me out with a worldbuilding challenge.
by Tim Susman
Since it’s fall and ghosts are in the air, I thought it might be a good time to talk about my research into vodou/voodoo, the religion and spiritual practices that coalesced on Haiti among the African slaves there and spread to America, most commonly and famously in New Orleans (for the purposes of this article, I use “vodou” to refer to the Haitian religion and “voodoo” to refer to the New Orleans practices).
by Mary Rosenblum
How can I advertise my book with photos?
I hear that all the time when I suggest Instagram to author clients, followed by the sound of the exit door slamming on the author’s heels…
But Instagram is a huge and well established social media platform, and if you’re writing for teens through mid-twenties readers, this is the social media you want to master. Even Forbes Magazine has taken note of Instagram’s role with an article Can Instagram Keep People Reading Books?
by Stewart C Baker
Fiction writing is often presented as an intensely solitary pursuit, but look at the end of a published novel some time and you’ll see the author thank at least a dozen people for their help. And then there’s co-authoring…
The European Astrobiology Institute presents 54 original SF Stories and Science Essays on “alien” life on Earth and beyond. Each SF story is followed by a professional essay illuminating the scientific underpinnings of the story.
Andrew Gillsmith is a science fiction writer living in St. Louis, Missouri.
Gillsmith grew up in the Golden Age of Cyberpunk. Fittingly, his first job out of school was delivering mail for Jeff Bezos when he was still selling books via Listserv.
