Archive for the ‘The Craft of Writing’ Category

Guest Post: Does Online Writers Workshopping Slow a Writer’s Growth?

When I first decided to take up writ­ing as a seri­ous pur­suit, I fig­ured the best way to get started was to ask a writer for advice. My lucky break was that Connie Willis hap­pened to be in town to give a read­ing, and she gave me a won­der­ful tuto­r­ial in the basics; just Connie, her hus­band, and my wife, talk­ing for a cou­ple of hours in a Laramie book­store. I owe a lot to Connie’s early advice.

Guest Post: Procrastination

I’ve been meaning to complete this piece for months but, well, you know how it goes: first there was that story that needed something I just couldn’t put my finger on, so I put it aside for a moment and began to do some editing on another piece that was almost ready to go in the hopes diverting my attention momentarily would break something loose…

Guest Post: Advice on Writing Mentors

One of the things that sometimes comes up when talking to new writers is the question, “How do I acquire mentor?” There’s a glazed and desperate look in the eyes of each querier, and sometimes a bit of professional jealousy, because occasionally we see people in positions where we’re not convinced they really should be…

Guest Post: Writers and Families

My family has a strange attitude toward my writing, which I think is almost always the case unless the writer comes from a family of professional creators. (By professional, I mean people who actually make a portion of their incomes from a creative endeavor — writing, art, dance, etc.) When I met my cousins in Debrecen, they told me they’d heard I’d become a famous writer, of fantasy like J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course, I’m not at all a famous writer, and what I write is nothing like Tolkien.

Confession of a Museum Bunny

by Deborah Walker Ideas for my stories come to me in museums, in galleries, in libraries. Find me upstairs (and it’s always quieter upstairs) in the British Museum trawling the past looking for future inspiration. Old books, paintings, objects are part of our material heritage. Survivors of the ravages of times, sometimes cherished throughout the […]

Baltimore Science Fiction Society Hosts Writing Workshops

The Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) is proud to announce the beginning of a series of day long writing workshops run by active and acclaimed professional writers in the genre of science fiction and fantasy. The first will be on Saturday, August 25th at 10 AM at BSFS headquarters at 3310 East Baltimore Street in Baltimore, Maryland, and will be taught by Brenda Clough.