Planetside Full Archives

I joined SFWA for the same reason I have joined other professional organizations over the course of my career—it’s important to be part of the industry at a group level to be in the know, get to meet other professionals,…

Right about now, many of you are wishing that you never had to deal with about half of SFWA ever again, but let’s step back momentarily from the fury and heartaching, and look at the discussion for what it really…

  I first heard about SFWA in my senior year of college, through the Columbia University Science Fiction Society (CUSFS). We had invited Paul Levinson, then president of SFWA, to talk to our group about his work, and in turn…

In April 1995, I was a barely wet-behind-the-ears writer of science fiction. My first story was scheduled to appear in the July/August 1995 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and so had not even appeared yet. The Nebula Banquet…

Perhaps because of my Midwestern upbringing, perhaps because of circumstances of education, one of my core values has always been volunteerism. It’s one of the things that keeps the human race muddling along and generally pointed in an upward direction,…

There was a time—less than a year ago, in fact—when I dreamed of joining the SFWA. Among writers of speculative fiction, the organization represents the gold standard, the elite story crafters whose work I’d long read and admired. For someone…

When I was a very young teen writer, I read articles on the SFWA website as a reward for meeting my writing goals. SFWA was a source I trusted and admired; they were some magical conglomerate of that elusive creature,…

A few years ago I attended Viable Paradise, which is a one-week writer’s workshop taught by some of the most talented authors currently writing SF/F. The year I went Steven Gould (our current SFWA president) critiqued my story, in fact,…

I don’t remember exactly how long ago I joined SFWA. I do know that it was shortly after my stories were published in the early issues of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, so that puts it somewhere around 1990, so this…

I’m  a proud member of Science Fiction Writers of America.  It costs me in the neighborhood of  $100 a year in dues or so.  And it’s more than worth it. When I was starting out, membership in SFWA was a…

When I was a teenager back in the 1990s, I regularly prowled through my mall B. Dalton. Back then, monthly publishing bulletins were set out on the store counter. The purple-banded bulletin for science fiction and fantasy is where I…

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website has been selected by Writer’s Digest Magazine as one of the “101 Best Website for Writers.” A reminder: The SFWA Blog pays 6 cents/word for original material related to writing and/or science…

I set out to write science fiction and fantasy quite a number of years after having received one of the best gifts of my life. In fact, so many years had elapsed that I no longer thought much about this…

In my mind SFWA has always been associated with Robert Silverberg. Bob was of course the second president of the organisation, and he introduced my young mind to the very conception of SFWA through his editing of the first of…

The aging writer hunches over her pen and paper in a cramped and cluttered room. The hour has grown late, daylight long since fled. The wicks of candles gutter as a cold draft of wind blows through the crevices of…

As a young geek, I excelled at school and struggled in only one thing, really:  making friends.  Oh, I had one or two, and the occasional furtive acquaintance who was a little embarrassed to be seen with me. It’s a…