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Using Poetry to Enhance Your Writing
By Holly Henderson Poetry can be one of the shortest forms of fiction, but it has the ability to make an outsized impact on the…
SFWA Market Report – February 2024
Welcome to the February edition of the SFWA Market Report. Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by…
Publishing Taught Me Accepting Pitches for Four Essays
Publishing Taught Me, the SFWA online anthology project supported by a grant from the NEA, is seeking pitches for four essays to be included in…
Sourcing Art on a Budget
By Austin Conrad Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series from Austin Conrad on acquiring illustrations for tabletop games. Part 1 focused…
In Memoriam: Howard Waldrop
Howard Waldrop (15 September 1946 – 14 January 2024), was a prolific short fiction author known for revealing tragic consequences through a voice of humor…
SAFETY DISPATCH: Don’t Get Hooked by Phishing and Scams
by the SFWA Safety Committee Listen, so there’s this prince in Nigeria who really needs— Hey, wait, where are you going??? I’m joking, of course….
In Memoriam: Tom Purdom
Tom Purdom (19 April 1936 – 14 January 2024), was a science fiction writer, a charter member of SFWA, and held two roles within the…
THE INDIE FILES: Productivity That Fits You
by Marie Andreas New year, new you, new stories! And, as always, new ways to increase your productivity. Every January, writers look at ways to…
The LGBTQ+ Speculative Experience: Part 4
(Kind of like the Star Trek Experience—lots of diversity that some accept, some fight, and others never see) by Elle Ire Concluding Mission Our…
How Writing Challenges Made Me a Better Writer
By Rachel Craft I’ve recently gotten hooked on writing “challenges,” multi-round contests that give participants a creative prompt and a tight deadline to write a…
Sharing the Spotlight: 6 Tips for Collaborative Storytelling
By Hildy Silverman Sharing story creation and developmental duties with a writing partner might seem daunting, given that we authors tend to invest a certain…
THE INDIE FILES: 5 Ways to Sell Your Books Directly
Is Using Direct Sales the Right New Channel for Your Books? by Kelly McClymer Direct sales are a hot topic for indie authors right now…
Choose Your Own Dr. Scientist Adventure
by Jason P. Burnham Did you know that the human body has fewer human cells than it does microorganisms? Fortuitously, Dr. Scientist knew that—and they…
Cooperative Publishing: Writers Taking Charge of Their Publishing Careers
By Diana Pharaoh Francis Writers can have great success when indie publishing, but many feel underqualified or underprepared to handle all the dimensions of self-publishing….
Overcoming the Rejection Machine: Why a Positivity Read Should Be Part of Your Publishing Journey
By Shawn Proctor Whether you enroll in a writing workshop or writer’s group, there is a premium placed on critique as the main path to…
THE INDIE FILES: Measuring Your Success as an Author
by Steven Radecki During the more than a decade that I have been involved in indie publishing, I have worked with more than three hundred…
Art Direction on a Budget
by Austin Conrad Editorial note: This is the first in a two-part series from Austin Conrad on acquiring illustrations for tabletop games. Part 1 will…
Making the Most of Your Con Budget
by Cat Rambo Writers are often told that they must go to conventions and conferences in order to network and move their careers forward. It’s…
SFWA Comments on AI to US Copyright Office
On October 30, the SFWA Board and the SFWA Legal Affairs Committee sent the following letter to the US Copyright Office in response to their…
SFWA Market Report – November 2023
Welcome to the November edition of the SFWA Market Report. Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by…
An Approach for Shifting the Setting in an Alternate Retelling
By J.D. Harlock Four years ago, I started writing speculative fiction professionally to modest success. I owe my entire career in the field to the…
SAFETY DISPATCH: How to Establish and Use a Pen Name
by the SFWA Safety Committee Have you ever considered writing under a pen name? Some authors use pseudonyms to separate works under different genres, reboot…
THE INDIE FILES: Wide For the Win 2 – Retail Promotions
by John Wilker In my previous post on going Wide for the Win, I gave an overview of an author’s options when self-publishing wide, which…
Designing Your Fictional Spaceship
by Jeremy Zentner Spaceships have been iconic in science fiction ever since Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon. There are many features…
SFWA Market Report – October 2023
Welcome to the October edition of the SFWA Market Report. Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement…
The LGBTQ+ Speculative Experience: Part 3
(Kind of like the Star Trek Experience—lots of diversity that some accept, some fight, and others never see) by Elle Ire Continuing Mission Our exploration…
THE INDIE FILES: Making Use of Genre and Categories
by Anthony W. Eichenlaub Genre: A marketing construct. Its only purpose is to get books into the hands of people who will enjoy them. There…
Anatomy of a Tabletop Adventure
By Austin Conrad Writing in the genre of tabletop games has a lot of similarities to fiction writing when it comes to character, plot, and…
SFWA Market Report – September 2023
Welcome to the September edition of the SFWA Market Report. Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by…
Work-for-Hire in Short Fiction: An Overview
By Rachael K. Jones Work-for-hire writing jobs are common in novel-length work, especially in the world of tie-in fiction, but rarer in short fiction. If…