by Nancy Fulda
Villains are challenging to write. Make them too heartless, and no one will find them believable. Make them too empathetic, and the audience will end up rooting for the wrong team. It can be difficult to create an antagonist with enough human virtue to be interesting and enough human foibles to be, well, villainous.
The first issue of Ares Magazine is now in the hands of subscribers and available for purchase. The 84-page first issue features nine original science fiction and fantasy stories, an interview with game designer and author Bruce Cordell, and an article on singularity written by best-selling science fiction author William H. Keith (who also writes under the pseudonyms Ian Douglas and H.J. Ryker).
The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, will award its 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Ursula K. Le Guin at the 65th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner. The event will be held on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at Cipriani, 55 Wall Street, in New York. Neil Gaiman will present the award.
Friday is Sci-Fi Stories Night at 100 Year Starship 2014 Public Symposium featuring award-winning authors— Yoon Ha Lee, Les Johnson, Nisi Shawl, and Edward Lerner—book signings and a special screening of the original The Day the Earth Stood Still.
by Alethea Kontis
Luckily, there are many other outlets for writers to alternately channel their particular brand of creativity: Blogging, podcasting, memes, fan fiction…in this day and age, the possibilities are endless.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America will be participating at Dragon Con again! Our table will be located in the Hyatt, outside the Comics and Artists Alley.
News from the Endeavour Awards:
Four novels and a single-author collection of stories are finalists for the Endeavour Award. The 2014 Award will be the sixteenth year for the Endeavour, which comes with an honorarium of $1,000.00. The winner will be announced November 7, 2014, at OryCon, Oregon’s major science fiction convention.
by William Ledbetter
The email was short and straightforward. I identified myself as a science fiction writer who was curious about one aspect of their paper.
Entries for the Central Oregon Writers’ Guild’s 7th annual writing contest are closing on September 1st!
The Red Volume is a collection of stories largely written and revised during the Clarion Foundation’s fundraising write-a-thon, which runs concurrently with the workshop. The anthology will be available this September on a pay-what-you-can basis. Readers can snag a copy for free, or donate any amount from 99 cents up. All proceeds benefit the Clarion Foundation.
Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts is an extension of the anthology series. It’s a bi-annual, online publication featuring interstitial fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art.
Backstory is tricky to interweave into your story effectively. Sometimes, it is introduced too soon, or all at once in one large info-dump. At other times, its power is undercut by giving it away for free before the reader has been primed to hunger for it, or by failing to take advantage of the motivating power of shameful secrets.
