Planetside Full Archives
Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
No post found!
The SFWA Blog
Quick Updates for 2009-12-06
Resources, Member News, and Industry News
RIP: Don Congdon 1918-2009
Don Congdon
1918-2009
Quick Updates for 2009-12-04
Resources, Member News, and Industry News for 2009-12-04
MWA delists Harlequin and all its imprints
The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from their list of Approved Publishers,…
Transracial Writing for the Sincere
If you want to go beyond the level of just assigning different skin tones and heritages to random characters, you’re going to have to do…
Google Settlement, Supplemental Notice
The Google Books Settlement has released a Supplemental Notice that has a summary of the changes between the original version and the 2.0. It is…
Blurred Distinctions: Vanity Publishing vs. Self-Publishing
Of the many issues highlighted by the recent launch of pay-to-publish divisions by two major commercial publishers (Harlequin Enterprises’ DellArte Press–nee Harlequin Horizons–and Thomas Nelson’s…
How pragmatics can help you!
So what is Pragmatics? Basically, it deals with those areas of meaning which aren’t really meaning. What does that mean? It deals with implications (in…
Useful link: Ergociser — stretches for writers
One of the most common pieces of advice for new writers is “Keep your seat in the chair.” The downside is that it becomes…
RIP: Robert Holdstock (1948-2009)
Robert Holdstock
1949-2009
Member news: Jay Lake safely out of surgery
This morning, SFWA member Jay Lake went in for an operation to remove a growth from his lung. For those of you who have not…
New Name for Harlequin Horizons: DellArte Press
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware True to its promise, Harlequin has ditched the Harlequin Horizons name. It’s now DellArte Press.
Nebula Awards: “International SF” and Problems of Identity
Our sister site, NebulaAwards.com has an essay by Larry Nolan on “International SF” and Problems of Identity
And Speaking of Vanity Publishing…
…heeeeere’s Tweetbookz!
Tweetbookz will turn your tweets–those 140-character electronic messages about what you had for breakfast this morning or maybe something more interesting or important, but…
From Novelists Inc. Issues Position Statement on Vanity Publishing
Last week, RWA, MWA, and SFWA all issued official statements condemning Harlequin Enterprises’ new self-publishing division, Harlequin Horizons. Now Novelists Inc. has weighed in, with…
Quick Updates for 2009-11-21
A good article about the difference between self-publishing & vanity imprints. Plus, Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel Windup Girl was just named in Library Journal’s Best Books…
How semantics can help you! Part 3
As part of her continuing series on How Linguistics Can Help You, Juliette Wad discusses that ubiquitous genre activity making up words.
Quick Updates for 2009-11-20
Welcome to new members Terence Taylor, Sarah Rees Brennan, Katherine Allred, Kristen Painter, Tim Stretton and Heather McDougla, plus interesting links about vanity and self-publishing…
Judge grants preliminary approval to Google Book Settlement
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin has granted preliminary approval to the revised Google Book Settlement, which was filed on Friday. He has set the…
SFWA Statement on Harlequin’s vanity press imprint
Until such time as Harlequin changes course, and returns to a model of legitimately working with authors instead of charging authors for publishing services, SFWA…
MWA Weighs In On Harlequin Horizons
Today, Mystery Writers of America (a sponsor of Writer Beware, along with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) issued this announcement to…
Harlequin Horizons: Another Major Publisher Adds A Self-Publishing Division
Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss analyzes Harlequin Horizons and the trouble it presents for authors.
Paul Di Filippo and Sheila Finch Join Campbell Award Jury
Paul Di Filippo and Sheila Finch have accepted appointment to the jury for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best SF novel of…
Agent Inbox
Yesterday, PW reported on the launch of AgentInbox, a new service from collaborative writing website WEbook.
“AgentInbox is a service that connects publication-ready authors with reputable,…
Revised Google Book Search Settlement Filed
On Friday, Google, the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild filed a revised version of the Google Book Search Settlement. It’s now…
Nebula Nomination Period has opened
In January of 2009, SFWA adopted a new set of Nebula Rules. This year is their first in effect so we thought we’d review the…
Wanna Be a Virtual Author’s Assistant?…Maybe Not
As readers of this blog know, I’m fascinated by the strange phenomena that flourish at the fringes of the publishing world. So I was thrilled…
Podcast: Google Book Settlement at WFC
At World Fantasy there was a one-hour panel on the Google Book Settlement with Russell Davis, Karen Wester Newton, Charles Petit, Jay Lake, Christopher Kastensmidt,…
NASA finds water on the moon
In an announcement that has scientist and science-fiction authors alike reeling with the new possibilities, NASA announced today that it has found a “significant amount”…
How semantics can help you! Part 2
Neural networks are really amazing things. In my last post I talked about how a word brings up all of its meanings simultaneously; today I’m…