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SFWA joins Open Book Alliance
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has joined the Open Book Alliance, a coalition of librarians, legal scholars, authors, publishers and technology companies dedicated to countering the proposed Google Book Settlement.
How morphology can help you!
Morphology is a fantasy and science fiction writer’s best friend. Seriously. Why? Because everyone uses it, and I mean everyone, whether they know it or not. Every story that makes up a name for a group of people and…
Interview: Jeffrey Ford
Our sister site, Nebulaawards.com, has an interview with Jeffrey Ford who was nominated for his short story “The Dreaming Wind.”
Victoria Strauss — Postage Promotion
Whenever I think I’ve seen it all, something new comes along.
The explosive growth of self-publishing options over the past decade or so has spawned a mini-industry catering to writers trying to get notice for their books. From…
The explosive growth of self-publishing options over the past decade or so has spawned a mini-industry catering to writers trying to get notice for their books. From…
2009 Octavia E. Butler Scholar – Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
A beautiful, handcast commemorative pendant in the shape of an owl has been awarded to the 2009 Octavia E. Butler Scholar. Rochita Loenen-Ruiz received her pendant on July 31, at the party celebrating the conclusion of this year’s Clarion West…
Quick Updates for 2009-08-24
Obscure math and astronomy texts. Arbitrary backlist policies. Member News about David Anthony Durham, Ken Scholes, N. K. Jemisin, and Victoria Janssen.
The Pros and Cons of Having Your Own Website
Do you need to have you own website? It depends on what you want to use the website for. Having an online presence may or may not translate to your desired action, in part because your presence really is about…
How articulatory phonetics can help you!
Articulatory phonetics deals with how the human vocal tract creates sounds.
Knowing the principles of how the vocal tract works can help science fiction and fantasy writers to create languages that follow naturalistic patterns of pronunciation, thus making created languages that…
How linguistics can help you!
This sequence of “How ____ can help you!” pieces concerns various areas of linguistics. These aren’t intended to be technical, or even introductory discussions of linguistics itself. They are short, practical pieces which relate linguistics topics to the use of…
Quick Updates for 2009-08-21
Congratulations to Edward Willet for winning the Aurora Award for the best long-form work of science fiction or fantasy by a Canadian writer in English in 2008. Mike Resnick is the newest Writers of the Future judge Celebrate Mary Shelley’s…
Victoria Strauss — Publishers’ Kill Fees, and Why They’re Bad For Everyone
Traditionally, in the magazine and newspaper industry, a kill fee is “a negotiated payment on a magazine or newspaper article that is given to the freelancer if their assigned article is ‘killed’ or cancelled.” (Read the full definition here.)…
Quick Updates for 2009-08-20
Research Tool: An online archive of vintage tools
Market Update: If you’ve submitted to Strange Horizons from a gmail address, they’ve been having problems with responses vanishing. Jed Hartman has an update.
Market Update: Asimov’s, Analog, Hitchcock’s, & Ellery Queen have…
WSFA Small Press Award Committee Announces Finalists for 2009 Award
The Washington Science Fiction Association is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2009 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction. Our congratulations to all the nominees, but we are particularly proud to see SFWA members K.D Wentworth, John Joseph…
SF meets real life: US Government issues patents on human genes
This could be Science Fiction, but it isn’t. For the last twenty years, the US patent office has been issuing patents on human gene sequences.
Volunteer: Call members to update info
We need twenty SFWA members to help us make calls to ensure that every member has current contact information.
Resource: The Convention Finder
The Convention Finder searches a database of cons based on location, making it easy to find the convention nearest you.
Interview with Charles Coleman Finlay
Our sister site, Nebulaawards.com, has an interview with Charles Coleman Finlay who was nominated for his novella “The Political Prisoner.”
Site Errors and Slowdown
As you may have noticed, the site is intermittently slow or returning server errors such as 500 server errors, configuration errors, etc. We have contacted the hosting company and it appears that another site on the same server is experiencing…
RIP: Gene Van Troyer 1950-2009
Gene Van Troyer
(1950-2009)
Gene Van Troyer, a science fiction writer and poet who worked as an English teacher in Japan, died July 17, 2009 of cancer. He was 58.
Interview: Johanna Sinisalo
Our sister site, NebulaAwards.com, interviews Johanna Sinisalo about her Nebula Nominated Novelette, “Baby Doll.”
Victoria Strauss — Bad Impressions for Good Impressions Audio Books
To fee-charging services looking for more customers, what could be more lucrative than a referral from a literary agency or publisher? To a literary agency or publisher, what could be more tempting than to make money not just from its…
Reading Aloud
There are few things that can destroy a good story faster than a bad reading. At the same time, a really good reading can make an audience excited and drive sales. Short of a background in theater, how…
Philip Pullman speaks against UK’s vetting laws
A measure in the UK that would require anyone working at a school, even if for only a day, to be vetted by the government has caused some outcry, particularly among children’s authors. Philip Pullman has gone on record as…
Resource: Historical Food Timeline
When writing historical fiction or fantasy, the question of food either seems daunting or is completely overlooked. With the Historical Food Timeline, you can get an approximate idea of when a given food was introduced.