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Category Archives: career
A Week of Convulsive Activity
Well, as you may know, Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain made it onto the Nebula ballot. I can’t express how much that means to me. The Nebulas are voted on by members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, all of whom are writers in their own right, and so this feels very much like recognition and validation from my peers. Wow. That’s all I can say about that.
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Putting Your Work Through the Mill: The Submissions Grinder
As a follow-up to Sylvia’s guest post about Submitomancy, I asked David Steffen, who’s working on a similar project for a Duotrope replacement, to write about his Submissions Grinder. Here’s David:
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Posted in 2013, career
Tagged anthony sullivan, david steffen, diabolical plots, submissions, submissions grinder, submitomancy
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Submitting with Submitomancy
Recently, Duotrope’s announcement that it was going paid caused some stir among speculative fiction writers. One of the results has been to create some new alternatives. I asked Sylvia Wrigley to guest post about her new system, Submitomancy.
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Posted in 2013, career, freelancing, Writing
Tagged duotrope replacements, submissions, submitomancy, superheroes, sylvia spruck wrigley
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Your Cover Letter: A Basic Template
I’ve seen a lot of cover letters in my time. Some ramble, some describe the story, others list thirty small publications, some are misaddressed or rife with typos.
So here’s a cover letter. It’s really all you need to say. Fill in the blanks yourself. Italics indicate commentary and should not be included.
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Posted in career, Writing
Tagged cover letters, submissions, submitting to magazines, writing cover letters
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What We Talk About When We’re Not Talking About Writing
Tonight’s the final session of the recent Thursday F&SF class, and it’s the one labelled in my notes as “Everything Else.” All the career stuff, the mechanics of submissions, how to schmooze at conventions, foreign reprints, agents, etc. Here’s the rough outline from my notes.
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Adventures in E-publishing: The Rationale Behind It
One of the things I’ve decided to do over the next six months is release a number of my stories in small mini-collections in electronic form. Each of these will consist of 2-3 already published stories, with 1-2 ones original to the collection. The first is Halloween Quartet, which contains “Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know” (appeared originally in Clarkesworld), “Niobe in the Rain” (appeared originally in Serpentarius), “So Glad We Had This Time Together” (appeared originally in Apex Digest), and “Pumpkin Knight,” which is original to the collection.
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Connections
I had a wonderful time talking to Shaun Duke and Jen Zink of the Skiffy and Fanty Show last week. The podcast is up here. If you enjoy it and use iTunes, show them a little love with a rating on there.
A reason the interview wa so enjoyable was that they asked really interesting, incisive questions about the stories in Near + Far, in that way a writer desires and dreads at the same time, where they’re seeing some of your psyche’s underpinnings shaping the stories that you create. I’ve been mulling over some of those questions since then, and was thinking about one on the bus home the other day.
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Posted in 2012, career, near+far, podcasts, Writing
Tagged connections, interviews, jen zink, shaun duke, skiffy and fanty, writing
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Advice on Writing Mentors
One of the things that sometimes comes up when talking to new writers is the question, “How do I acquire a mentor?” There’s a glazed and desperate look in the eyes of each querier, and sometimes a bit of professional jealousy, because occasionally we see people in positions where we’re not convinced they really should be, and an easy explanation is that a mentor’s personal pull helped get them there.
Well, maybe.
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Problematic Markets
One of the questions that often comes up in the Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction class is: are there markets that should be eliminated due to factors outside of pay, reply time, exposure, and the other usual suspects?
This is something that probably one needs to think about, and my rule is simply this: would you feel pleased and proud to have your work appear there?
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Posted in 2012, career, politics, Writing
Tagged career decisions, duotrope, intergalactic medicine show, marvin kaye, save the pearls, weird tales
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Wheeeeee! World Fantasy Convention, Here I Come
Many, many congrats to everyone on the ballot, and particularly Clarkesworld Magazine, whose amazing staff better deserves to win the category I’m in, as does Charles Tan, who’s done an awesome job with the Bibliophile Stalker website. There’s lots and lots of names whose presence is well-deserved, but particular shouts out to Lily Yu, the inimitable Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, Karen Joy Fowler, and Ken Liu.
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Posted in 2012, career, conventions
Tagged ann vandermeer, charles tan, clarkesworld magazine, fantasy magazine, jeff, lily lu, wfc, world fantasy awards
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