Planetside Full Archives

Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
Seven Lessons for My Past Self on Running a Small Press
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Writer Beware® (Part 2: Challenges and Advocacy)
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Writer Beware® (Part 1: History and Mission)
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Our Showcase Series
Ink Stains on Fingers and the Smell of Coffee: A Guide to Writing Elsewhere
Translating Speculative Fiction into a Language with Many Dialects
Poetry in Print: Shaping Your Own Chapbook
Using Pop Culture as Poetic Inspiration
by Gwynne Garfinkle Pop culture such as movies, TV shows, music, and graphic novels can be a great source for poetic inspiration. A poet can critique, explore, and riff on a pop-culture work they love (or hate!) or even use…
How Many Poems Does It Take to Make You a Poet?
by Brenda Gates Spielman When my first book was published in 1979, I had no difficulty describing myself as an author. I even won an argument with a friend about whether it took more than one book for such a…
Moral Rights: What Writers Need to Know
by Victoria Strauss of WRITER BEWARE® What Are Moral Rights? In addition to various economic rights, such as the ability to license and profit from the use of their original work, the Berne Convention (the international source for copyright law)…
Introducing Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
by Roxana Arama, Lead Editor For nearly 30 years, The SFWA Blog has been an essential resource for speculative fiction creators. Our editorial team is excited to begin a new chapter on July 1, 2025, reintroducing our publication with a…
Awards in Speculative Poetry: Ways (and Reasons) to Celebrate Excellent Writing
by Brian U. Garrison A poem doesn’t need an award to have impact. But the process of celebrating builds community, excitement, and audience. With the Hugo and Nebula Awards preparing space in their victory gardens for poetry, new gateways are…
What Should I Pitch to Planetside?
by the Planetside Crew In recent years, Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA has undergone many changes and refinements to serve its community better. Where we once had a single editor, we’re now a team that reviews pitches collectively and looks…
The SFWA Blog
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Our NetGalley Partnership Program
by the SFWA Publications Crew and Adria Bailton Editor’s note: This article is part of the SFWA Presents: Get to Know… series, which includes informational pieces about SFWA programs, committees, and initiatives, and also interviews with the SFWA volunteers who…
Why Crowdfund?
by Madeleine Holly-Rosing Though crowdfunding may seem intimidating to the first-timer, it is a viable alternative to direct sales, increasing your fanbase and sharing something unique to the world: your story. In this article, I will highlight some key elements…
Book Marketing: Comics vs. Novels
by Russell Nohelty I’ve been working in both book publishing and comic publishing for close to 15 years at this point through my work as publisher of Wannabe Press and editor of the Cthulhu is Hard to Spell comics anthology…
Planets and Plastic: A History of the SFWA Trophies and Awards
by Michael Armstrong Starting in 1965, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association trophies have evolved from the original Nebula Award of spheres and spiral galaxies encased in Lucite to newer awards such as the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award of…
A Brief History of SFWA: The First Nebula Awards
by Michael Capobianco Less than a year after SFWA founder and President Damon Knight created the Nebula Award, the first Nebula Awards Ceremonies were held on March 11, 1966. Why “Nebula?” The name was first introduced without explanation in the…
How to Pitch to a Comic Book Publisher
by Kristen Simon Every comic book publisher has different preferences for receiving pitches. Some may not accept pitches at all, as they want to avoid the risk of copyright issues if a submission resembles a storyline they plan to publish. …
Breaking Down a Sequential Page: A Close Reading for Comics Writers
by A. A. Rubin Comic books and graphic novels are unique among storytelling mediums. While it shares characteristics with both prose and screenwriting, how the words and art interact on the page gives comics their own set of techniques. It…
Connecting with an Artist Is a Big Part of the Storytelling in Comics
by Jessica Maison If only there was an app for creator hook-ups, writers would all find the perfect artists and live happily ever after creating amazing comics. That’s how these apps are designed to work. Realistically, a writer would get…
How to Write a Comic Script
by Tim Susman The first time I tried to write a comic book script, I had no guidance about what a script looked like, but I’d read comic books and graphic novels. So I wrote up my idea for a…
Watch Those Contract Clauses! Clarification for MustRead, Inc. on Unusual Rights Inclusions
Editor’s Note: See also, “Moral Rights: What Writers Need to Know”, from our new series, “Writer Beware® Presents: Creators and Their Contracts”. Notice from the SFWA Board of Directors: Recently, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) was contacted…
Conjuring Images when Writing for Comics, Prose, and the Screen
by Jessica Maison A writer conjures images for their readers, whether writing prose, film, or comics. Comics writing has a set of best practices that share similarities and differences with screenwriting and prose writing. Most successful stories told in any…
Taking Humor Writing Seriously
by Ira Nayman A few years ago, I was on a panel on Humorous SF at a convention (an occupational hazard, given what I write). I opened with well-rehearsed remarks about how there seemed to be a resistance to my…
Butt in the Chair: How Disability Changed My Writing Habits
by Catherine Tavares Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series titled Writing by Other Means, where authors share personal experiences and industry intel around different production contexts and writing tools. It’s spring 2023. My desk is clean, my…
How to Navigate the Publishing Industry with Social Anxiety
by Marie Croke Publishing attracts story-lovers—readers, writers, gamers, dreamers—many of whom want to do more than just write their stories. They want to be out there, have a presence readers can find, yet they simultaneously struggle with anxieties that send…
Successfully Talking to the Press About Your Art: Plot It, Don’t Pants It!
by Gideon P. Smith Thirty years ago, I was first interviewed about my research. Five minutes after it ended, I had no idea what I had said. When I read the resulting article, my heart sank. The science and implications…
Jerry Pournelle: SFWA Historian
by Michael Capobianco I first encountered Jerry Pournelle in the early 80s on the pages of the computer professional magazine Byte, where he had a column called “Chaos Manor.” I had just purchased an expensive Texas Instruments 99/4 home computer…
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Our In Memoriam Feature
by the SFWA Publications Crew and Emily Bell Editor’s note: This article is part of the SFWA Presents: Get to Know… series, which includes informational pieces about SFWA programs, committees, and initiatives, and also interviews with the SFWA volunteers who work to support…
Legacy of the Iron Curtain: Writing Ukrainian Fiction in a Post-Soviet World
by A.D. Sui Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose. In early 2024, I was going through…
Romantasy: An Old Genre with a New Name
by Rosemary Jones The explosion of the “romantasy” tag on TikTok, book websites, and bookstores’ shelf-talkers sparked news stories on CNN and PBS News Hour in 2024. While the label is new, the idea of mixing romance and fantasy took…
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Our New Comics and Poetry Nebula Awards
by the SFWA Publications Crew in conversation with Jessica Maison, Holly Lyn Walrath, and Wendy Van Camp Editor’s note: This article is part of the SFWA Presents: Get to Know… series, which includes informational pieces about SFWA programs, committees, and…
SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Our Career Mentorship Program
by the SFWA Publications Crew Editor’s note: This article is part of the SFWA Presents: Get to Know… series, which includes informational pieces about SFWA programs, committees, and initiatives, and also interviews with the SFWA volunteers who work to support…
Volunteers, Watch Out for Those Invisible Expectations!
by Marie Croke Editor’s note: This piece is part of the series Volunteer Networks: The Heart of SFF, where writers discuss the rewards and challenges of speculative fiction volunteer work. Read twenty-five stories a month. Copy-edit four stories an issue….
Decolonizing History in Brazilian SFF
by Lívian Bonato Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose. Despite many recent additions to global science…
Preservation Guidance for Authors Planning to Donate Their Personal Papers to Archives
by Monica Louzon Writers have a unique power: With our words, we transport our readers to new worlds. It doesn’t matter whether we write stories or poems, or whether we write long or short works—the end result remains the same….