Planetside Full Archives
Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
No post found!
The SFWA Blog
Guest Post: Craft and Art
by Theodora Goss
When I teach writing, I teach craft. Art goes beyond craft, and has to do with what a writer, as an individual, brings to writing. Art is in the way Virginia Woolf explores consciousness. In the way George…
Guest Post: Why You Don’t Want to Apply to Clarion West/Clarion UCSD.
by Helena Bell
The application season for Clarion West and other Clarion (UCSD) has begun. I’ve already seen posts on twitter from past alums encouraging people to apply and telling the world what wonderful, glorious experiences they had.
I’m not going…
Guest Post: Alpha Workshop: Anthologies and Opportunities
Dragons in your pickle jar. Devils at the diner. Sentient space ships named for epic poetry. All these and more inhabit the pages of the annual Alphanthology, an illustrated collection of flash fiction by alumni of the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop…
Tools for Writers: Stellarium
Ever wonder what the sky looked like in 1006 CE, when a supernova could be seen during the day? What dates did full moons illuminate the fog of Whitechapel as Jack the Ripper prowled the streets? When a character swims…
Tools for Writers: Shelfari
Shelfari is, like GoodReads and LibraryThing, another social book cataloging website. Online book retailer AbeBooks owns a large percentage of the company. Users catalog the books they own or have read and can rate, review, and tag those books as…
Story Surgeon: An App For Copyright Infringement
Here at Writer Beware, we love the weird stuff–the nutty, fring-y, even, dare I say, totally freaking insane things that are always cropping up at the boundaries of the publishing world, often spawned by people who haven’t really taken the…
Opening a Vein: Agent Artery
Last week a literary agent contacted me on Twitter. “Ever heard of these folks?” she asked. “They’ve been spamming us all day.”
The link she gave me led to a service called Agent Artery.
In Memoriam: Neal Barrett, Jr.
Neal Barrett, Jr. (b.1929) died on January 12. Barrett was named SFWA Author Emeritus at the 2010 Nebula Award Weekend in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Geoffrey A. Landis to Receive 2014 Robert A. Heinlein Award
Geoffrey A. Landis, science fiction author and scientist working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is the 2014 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award. The award is bestowed for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical…
2013 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced
The judges of the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia SF Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce seven nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:
Scribd’s New Ebook Subscription Service: Partnering with Publishers, Profiting from Piracy
I was contemplating what to write for my first Writer Beware blog post, when a subject popped up out of the blue, packed with all kinds of fascinating questions.
Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers accepting applications
Anyone who grew up yearning to become a writer knows it’s hard to do it alone. The Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers provides an environment for young writers ages 14-19 to build a community of likeminded wordsmiths. Each year,…
Year in Review: Writer Beware’s Top Blog Posts of 2013
Every January, I look back over this blog and pick out what I think were the most useful, interesting, and/or important posts of the previous year. Here goes.
2014 Prometheus Hall Of Fame Award Finalists
For more than three decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that stress the importance of liberty as the foundation for civilization, peace, prosperity, progress, and justice.
Who Reads Science Fiction?
Surveys have become my friend, and provided me with an answer to a very important question: who reads science fiction?
Tools for Authors: Goodreads
Goodreads is the largest reader community site in the world, with over thirteen million members. Users can track their reading, find or make book recommendations, and discuss what they’re reading.
Happy Holidays!
Writer Beware is taking time off for the holidays. Unless there’s some especially major publishing news, look for us to be back after January 1.Victoria will still be answering email. Contact her at beware [at] sfwa.org. We wish…
Guest Post: What Heroes Eat: Cooking the Books with Saladin Ahmed
While fighting and magic are central to the action in many of Saladin Ahmed’s stories, he never makes the mistake of letting his characters go to battle on empty stomachs.
News of the Weird: Quill Shift Literary Agency
So…if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I love the crazy stuff, the little nuggets of publishing weirdness that I run across from time to time. Like author reality shows.
SFWA at Midwinter ALA
As mentioned earlier this year, SFWA will have a table at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits, January 24-28, 2014, in Philadelphia, PA. Participation in this event will offer members access to librarians, teachers, bloggers and reviewers. We will be taking…
Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 103: Five Markets to Consider (and Two Databases to Bookmark)
by Caren Gussoff Note: Part One appears here: Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 101. Part Two appears here: Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 102: Is It Literary? ••• Now, you’ve decided to submit to a literary market for…
Crowdfunded Anthologies: Concerns For Writers
Anthologies, once a staple of genre publishing, have become a rarity at major publishing houses over the past couple of decades.
Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 102: Is it Literary?
by Caren Gussoff Note: Part One appears here: Lit Fic Mags for Spec Fic Writers 101 This may seem totally obvious, but is actually worth a deeper dive: if you want to market your speculative fiction to literary markets, it has…
SFWA Announces Special Bulletin Issue
In June, the SFWA Board announced the suspension of the SFWA Bulletin, allowing time to update our official publication’s distribution, content, and process. Over the past months, we have surveyed the membership, asking them what they see as the future…