by Juliette Wade
I love to use non-English languages in a story. To me, a foreign language behaves like a form of music–it creates mood and atmosphere for the readers who don’t understand it, and it further creates a layer of meaning for those readers who do understand it.
Cascade Writers Workshop (July 17-20, 2014) is a 4-day event in Kent, WA, just south of Seattle, specializing in science fiction and fantasy writing. Guest speakers include editor Beth Meacham, agents Bree Ogden and Lisa Rodgers, publisher Patrick Swenson, authors Tina Connolly and Mark Teppo, Alma Alexander, K.c. Ball, David Levine, Mark Henry, Camille Alexa, Randy Henderson, Spencer Ellsworth, and more.
I absolutely adore the Internet, but there’s no doubt it has made us more distracted than ever.I can see this in myself, and in watching everyone else around me: constant use of laptops, switching between browser tabs, checking things on iPhones, typing in a message here and there … we all do it.
by Theodora Goss
When I teach writing, I teach craft. Art goes beyond craft, and has to do with what a writer, as an individual, brings to writing. Art is in the way Virginia Woolf explores consciousness. In the way George Orwell writes about politics.
by Helena Bell
The application season for Clarion West and other Clarion (UCSD) has begun. I’ve already seen posts on twitter from past alums encouraging people to apply and telling the world what wonderful, glorious experiences they had.
I’m not going to do that. I’m going to tell you not to apply. To not go. And here are my reasons:
Dragons in your pickle jar. Devils at the diner. Sentient space ships named for epic poetry. All these and more inhabit the pages of the annual Alphanthology, an illustrated collection of flash fiction by alumni of the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers. Alpha is a nonprofit, ten-day residential workshop for teen writers of genre fiction, held every summer in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
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.
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 […]
AFTER THE FALL
I was created by beings who couldn’t touch this world, only watch it crumble.
I was told, “Do not interfere.”
I wasn’t meant to change history, only guide it.
But I broke Directive Three.
Can humans survive a second collapse?
Jean Marie Ward writes about all things weird, wonderful and downright peculiar in her hometown of Washington, DC. Sometimes she writes fiction. It makes a lot more sense than the facts. Her web site is JeanMarieWard.com.
