by Henry Lien (This article originally appeared in The SFWA Bulletin #215.) Something I’ve noticed repeatedly in my author appearances, conference panels, and lectures is that discussions about representation and diversity in the arts today focus on the importance of diverse characters and creators. As crucial as that is, diversity can and should also include […]
by Hannah Abigail Clarke In the opening credits of Zach Snyder’s Watchmen, the phrase LESBIAN WHORES is briefly scrawled in blood on a wall. The lesbian couple from whom said blood was extracted lie adjacent, lifeless in lingerie. The lesbians here exist to display death. Death binds the lesbians to this opening credit spot, allowing […]
by Tim Waggoner The horror genre is undergoing a renaissance these days, with audiences devouring popular and critically acclaimed books, movies, and television series. If you’re a science fiction or fantasy writer who’d like to add more horror to your authorial toolbox, but you’re not quite sure how to go about it, you’re in […]
By L. D. Lewis (This article originally appeared in The SFWA Bulletin #214.) In much the way too many crows is a murder, I have what is effectively an embarrassment of a TBR pile. It sits in various stacks atop my dining room table and beside the box containing the tall bookcase I have yet […]
Writing ‘POC’ is not enough. It doesn’t merit applause, or points for diversity. What does merit applause and accolades is acknowledging and depicting unreduced minorities—especially marginalized voices—in writing. We are not a monolith. Our stories are as complicated and intersectional as anyone else’s.
by Leanna Renee Hieber
I’m often asked if my professional theatre and playwrighting background helps me as a fiction writer. It does in countless ways. Theatrical form, training and structure are holistically integrated into how I see the world and operate as a storyteller.
by Martin Jenkins
One of the pleasures of genre is that it lets us identify a type of writing that we know we like. We’d feel short-changed if a crime novel didn’t feature a crime, after all, or if a romance didn’t put the travails of a relationship front and center. What we don’t want to see, however, is a mere repetition of genre tropes and clichés – it’s what is fresh and different in a work of fiction that keeps us turning the page while still being identifiably a genre work.
by Ken Pelham
Occasionally, you come across a work of fiction told in the form of documents. Letters, court reports, diaries, news articles, and such. We call this epistolary narration (from the root word, epistle, meaning “letter”). Some call epistolary a gimmick. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m a sucker for it.
by Amelia Wiens
One of the best parts of science fiction and fantasy is the worldbuilding. A key part of creating interesting worlds is creating diverse cultures that vary in some way from our own norms. That being said, it can be so hard to get out of our own culture’s point of view and redefine elements that we unconsciously take for granted.
by Nathan Nance,
So you’re writing SFF, and you’ve got spaceships to design. Engine systems to map. A haunted forest to populate. A talking badger to draw. If you’re not a rocket scientist writing hard sci-fi, how are you supposed to make your version of James S.A. Corey’s Rocinante, you know, fly?
A teen without a home. A dangerous residence. Can she survive one terrifying night to secure her future? Forced out on her eighteenth birthday, Charlene needs to stay overnight at a haunted Victorian mansion. Will she outsmart her supernatural foes?
Catherine writes the Major Bhaajan Mysteries, Skolian saga and other works. She received a PhD in chemical physics and often appears as a speaker or guest of honor in the US and abroad. She started imagining sf stories at the venerable age of three.
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