Zoom links will be available on Patreon and pinned in #localannouncements on the Discord server.
How do you get access to these events? Details are here, but basically you can subscribe through Patreon or Paypal. There are free scholarships.
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I always feel like I should do something special for this weekend, and this year I remembered in time. So this year, for the Thanksgiving blow-out, there’s a big discount on live classes. This applies to all 2020 classes, which means anything taking place before December 31, 2020.
These live classes are $59 to sign up for through midnight on Cyber Monday! The price is good on Nov/Dec 2020 classes only; all available ones are listed below, classes that are already full are not included.
This prose poem appeared last century! 1997 to be precise. It originally was printed in small press magazine Dreams & Nightmares. It features dancing mice, dreams, and of course…hands.
It’s that time again! Once again I have created this post for consolidating fantasy and science fiction award eligibility round-ups. If you are an F&SF writer, editor, podcast, or publisher working in comics, fiction or games, I hope you’ll let people know what you have that they should be reading. People on my Discord server have already been gently prodded about this.
Past things I have written about why writers should do this include On Awards: To Be Pushy Or Not To Be Pushy (2014), The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated Awards Process (2015), and To Eligibility Post or Not to Eligibility Post? (2016).
Here are the previous such posts from 2017, 2018, 2019
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Hello! I have only a scattering of stuff this year (but 2021 is going to be a doozy, I can tell you that right now, because at least two novels, a novelette, appearances in BCS and Mag of F&SF, co-editing an anthology, a non-fiction project, and some other stuff are all coming up, wheeeee!)
Anyhow. When you are reading for awards, here’s what I published in 2020. But if you want a huge batch of them, what you should really do is consult the big post of F&SF awards eligibility 2020 posts that is here — and if you’ve got something that should be on there, let me know.
My favorite story of the year, which appeared in Daily Science Fiction, is “I Decline,” a short story which grew out of a writing prompt, write a complaint letter about an abstract concept. If you’re a SFWA member, I hope you’ll consider adding it to your recommended reading suggestions. Similarly, if you’re reading for the Hugos or Eugie Foster awards, I hope you’ll consider it when nominating. If you’d prefer to listen to it in audio form, I gotcha!.
“Because It Is Bitter” is an alternative-history novella, part of the AND THE LAST TRUMP SHALL SOUND project I did with Harry Turtledove and James Morrow. Want to buy it at Powell’s? Here’s the link.
I wish there were flash fiction awards, both because I appreciate the hell out of well-done flash, but also because I produced a number of good ones this year. Beside the earlier mentioned “I Decline,” the piece I did, At the End of the Song, A Ghost is Waiting, which appeared in Three-Lobed Burning Eye, is another nicely done piece.
“How Joyful the Work” is a clockpunk re-centering of the Odyssey on those left behind with a touch of lesbian romance, written for Predators in Petticoats.
Red Boots Blues is a cyberpunk mash-up of “The Red Shoes” and “The Girl who Trod on a Loaf,” done for the UPON A ONCE TIME anthology from Air & Nothingness Press. Also fun to write, and I let myself loose with poetic language sometimes. AAN does beautiful books and I picked up some to give as presents this year.
Wayne and I wrote a story together, “Stand and Deliver,” which appeared in Dark Matter Magazine. We wrote it while on a road trip together, and I hope we’ll do more in the future, because he’s fun to write with!
Patreon stories primarily were installments of serial novella Baby Driver, a #hopepulp focused on Pat Savage, cousin of Doc Savage, and her crew of five bad-ass women, but there were a number of flash pieces, snippets, and roughs from playing writing games.
I am part of a podcast this year! In 2020 we kicked off hopepunk-centered If This Goes On (Don’t Panic), cohosted by Alan Bailey, Diane Morrison, Rachel Renee, and myself. I can take very little credit for this project, but great pride in being associated with it, and we’ve had some awesome episodes over the course of our first year.
We’ve got the details finally nailed down a bit better on this project and so I am posting an official announcement.
I am very delighted to say that Jennifer Brozek is co-editing. Jenn’s put together a couple of dozen anthologies and I am ecstatic to have her organizational skills, keen editing eye, and sharp publicity skills on the project. I am very grateful that she’s signed on, because I looked at the amount of work already piled on my plate for the coming year and was panicking. This project is happening because she’s agreed to do it.
In the convulsions, I am afraid I have shortchanged the slushreaders. I throttled back on soliciting submissions during the month they were open and didn’t conduct the training sessions that I meant to do. What I would like to do, if you are on the list for that (and I’m going to send out an e-mail about this as well) is give you folks a Zoom session where we get to talk about slushreading in a way that may be useful and also keep you on a list for my next project.
Everything else remains the same except that solicited stories have a bit more time in their deadlines! If you submitted a story, it is still under consideration. Some of the solicited stories have been arriving and we’re both excited about the project coming out mid-way through 2021 from Arc Manor.
There’s this common misconception that the world of editing (in the sense of submitting your story to a magazine or contest) is an absolute puzzle constantly being shifted around by angry and jaded editors. In classes, writing groups, and even among non-writers, I hear it repeated that you have to have this unknowable combination of luck and talent to land a spot in a magazine, and it isn’t worth trying or learning. You got it or you don’t.
But that type of thinking leaves most people without it.
I want to say that in my years as a reader, judge, and developmental editor none of that is true. Especially about editors. We’re not shadowed goblins lying in wait to crush every writers’ dream. The reason we got into this line of work is because we want to hear a good story, a new story. We want to be entertained.
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Things are tense these days. I hope I’m not shocking anyone by saying that. There’s a lot of negative emotions going around, and people deal with them in different ways. One of the healthier ways is to engage with a good movie, game, book, or other form of media and get lost in a story. As a person empathizes with characters, they achieve catharsis as they experience their emotional journey together with the characters they empathize with. People enjoy dramas to release their sadness, they enjoy action to feel power over a world which often shows them to be powerless. Some enjoy horror for the endorphin rush, or to release pent up negative emotions in a more healthy way than going to the hardware store and looking for a chainsaw that’s light enough to chase someone with, yet not so light that it can’t get the job done.
Um, for example.
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You can read the story at Daily Science Fiction.
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Twenty fantasy stories of our world and others. Publisher's Weekly called them 'crisp and compelling'.
"If you want some really excellent stories, get the e-book. If you also want a physical object to warm the heart of any print-book collector, go for the paper version." Don Sakers, Asimov's
Cat's first nonfiction book talks about how to set up and maintain an online presence -- without cutting into your writing time.
Clockwork Fairies, a steampunk short story, originally appeared on Tor.com.
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