(date: 2024-04-26 08:51:08)
date: 2024-04-26, from: Locus Magazine
The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey 978-1-9848-2070-9, $28.99, 432pp, hc) February 2023.
Robert Jackson Bennett’s previous fantasy works – The Divine Cities and Founders trilogies – were immensely and somewhat unexpectedly delightful for me. I don’t often seek out fantasy series anymore. So, when I encounter an author who writes the kind of fun, propulsive work that kept my teenage self scouring the shelves for the next …Read More
date: 2024-04-25, from: Locus Magazine
Fiyah 1/24 Flash Fiction Online 1/24 GigaNotoSaurus 1/24 Diabolical Plots 1/24
The first Fiyah of 2024 is unthemed, but as guest editor Nelson Rolon describes, that doesn’t mean certain motifs and elements didn’t end up running through most or all of the pieces – most engaged with death and what comes after. In N. Romaine White’s “D.E.I. (Death, Eternity, and Inclusion)”, a group of vampires meet to …Read More
date: 2024-04-25, from: Locus Magazine
Recipients were announced for the 2024 Windham-Campbell Prizes, including authors of genre interest. Christopher Chen was honored for drama and Kathryn Scanlan was honored for fiction.
The Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize was established in 2013 “to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.” The prize is administered by Yale University, with a new nominating committee …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/2024-windham-campbell-prize-winners/
date: 2024-04-25, from: Locus Magazine
Clever Creatures of the Night, Samantha Mabry (Algonquin 978-1-61620-897-4, $18.99, 240pp, hc) March 2024. Cover by Kayla E.
Samantha Mabry’s Clever Creatures of the Night is a master class in atmosphere with a literary bent and a few surprising turns up its creepy sleeve. At once a murder mystery, a postapocalyptic narrative, and a story about friendship, this novel about a missing friend and some strange young people living …Read More
date: 2024-04-25, from: Locus Magazine
Katherine Arden, The Warm Hands of Ghosts (Del Rey 2/24) A combat nurse in WWI searches for her brother, believed dead, but rumors of haunted trenches keep her looking In this historical fantasy novel of supernatural events during the war. This ‘‘hits hard as a novel of survival, horror, and the melancholia of fleeting hope…. a stunner.’’ [Colleen Mondor]
Robert Jackson Bennett, The …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/new-notable-books-april/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-25, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Dead Boy Detectives is now up on Netflix, to lovely reviews.
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqxpqhcogk2k
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-25, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
@indyfromspace.bsky.social sorry. https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/748667456255606784/in-this-case-the-word-satirical-is-being-used-to?source=share
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqxfjjfxz22d
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-25, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
It just gets better as it goes.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqwdtioqkc2q
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-24, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
The series will go live about 9 hours from now on Netflix.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqvwjfvoxs2y
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-24, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
So glad you enjoyed it.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqvw7q73d22q
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-24, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
It’s a joy to experience @robinince.bsky.social’s enthusiastic joy in books and in his father:
https://youtu.be/3-hlOjK5Q0Y?si=usB_slFXGPM36Zc3
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqvnjeg7ts2d
date: 2024-04-24, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
Questions from the past with evergreen responses.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/quick-answers
date: 2024-04-24, from: Locus Magazine
The Society of Illustrators has announced the 2024 inductees into its Hall of Fame. Honorees “are chosen based on their body of work and the impact it has made on the field of illustration.”
2024 Hall of Fame Laureates
The artists will be honored at the 2024 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, to be held September 26, …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/society-of-illustrators-hall-of-fame-2/
date: 2024-04-24, from: Locus Magazine
Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW 978-0-75641-885-4, $28.00, 320pp, hc.) April 2024.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In is award-winning short fiction writer John Wiswell’s debut novel. I went in expecting good things, and I wasn’t disappointed. The most straightforward shorthand I have to describe it is: ’’It’s as if T. Kingfisher wrote one of her fantasy romance novels from the point of view …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/liz-bourke-reviews-someone-you-can-build-a-nest-in-by-john-wiswell/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-24, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
No, Marvel still have the rights. Interesting trivia — according to the court case, Todd is still obligated to pay me royalties for these. And he never has. Once a crooked publisher, always a crooked publisher, I guess.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kquzji76gk2z
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-24, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
I’m so glad.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kquzent2h22u
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-24, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Today I am thinking about my late cousin Helen Fagin, and wishing I had her here to talk about the world we are in.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/12/18/a-velocity-of-being-helen-fagin/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0BMQABHeoMwdpwsezAjQoR_PC4QGLEyUbk2ONzzShUfeDPFpstmdYlO1etmNcUzA_aem_AWerKfSbx4GB2JvN46ilqwyHh1az4Au5UlnVZax5DGIn15YqyFEDHvtDV5gG1syM5OU
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kquzcmn3hs2t
date: 2024-04-24, from: Literature & a Latte blog
<p>Every writer makes mistakes. They may make errors in verb agreement, type the wrong preposition, or use incorrect punctuation. In addition, there are many types of grammatical errors that are hard to spot when you’re rereading your work. For example, you might not spot when you type “in” instead of “on,” “of” instead of “off,” or type “the the” before a noun.</p>Computers, tablets, and smartphones have built-in spelling and grammar checkers, but these tools generally just find misspelled words or basic grammatical errors. To give your writing a once-over, you might want to use an online spelling and grammar checker. Here’s why.
Spelling and grammar checking on computers
While computing devices can check spelling and grammar, they are limited and not totally accurate. They are very good at spotting and even automatically replacing misspelled words. However, they are poor at incorrect preposition use, incorrect plural agreement, and other errors that aren’t just spelling.
It’s rare that when using Scrivener on Mac or Windows you will end up with misspelled words in your projects, as long as you use the inline spell checker. But grammar errors are much harder to flag, and it’s not a good idea to totally depend on computers.
Even if you carefully proofread and edit your work, you won’t find every error. When you’ve been working on a text for a long time, you become blind to the sentences you’ve read a dozen times, and it’s harder to spot errors.
One tip for proofreading: when you write, use one font, and when you proofread use a different font. The words will appear different, and you’re likely to spot errors that you don’t see in the original.
Online spelling and grammar checkers
Online spelling and grammar checkers are much more powerful than the tools built into computer operating systems. They use different algorithms, based on very large data sets, which allow them to spot the kind of errors that writers may miss.
There are many online spelling and grammar checkers; here are three that are worth checking out. All of these services have both free and paid plans.
<strong><a href="https://app.grammarly.com/" target="_blank">Grammarly</a></strong>: Grammarly’s free plan lets you check spelling, punctuation, and basic grammar; what the service calls “correctness.” Their premium plan also makes suggestions for style, and tone, can rewrite full sentences, and more.
<strong><a href="https://app.prowritingaid.com" target="_blank">ProWritingAid</a></strong>: ProWritingAid’s free plan checks grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Its premium plan adds features like advanced style improvements, a custom style guide, rephrasing, and more. It’s worth noting that <a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/check-grammar-in-your-scrivener-projects-with-prowritingaid" target="_blank">ProWritingAid can interface directly with Scrivener</a>.
<strong><a href="https://quillbot.com/grammar-check" target="_blank">QuillBot</a></strong>: QuillBot’s free plan checks grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Its premium plan offers advanced style features, as well as summarization and paraphrasing. It offers grammar checking in a half-dozen languages, unlike Grammarly and ProWritingAid, which are only available in English.You use these tools by copying a text from your Scrivener project and pasting it into a website. (With ProWritingAid, you can use its Scrivener integration, if you wish.) After you’ve made your corrections, you then copy the text and paste it back into your Scrivener project. It’s a good idea to make snapshots of each document in your Scrivener project before pasting in the corrected version, in case you want to revert to the original.
All of these spelling and grammar checkers also include AI tools in their paid plans. Many of these AI tools are available in other ways, using the many AI options available today, but having them in a spelling and grammar checker may be useful. You can use these tools to rewrite sections of texts, rephrase long sentences, get bullet points for articles, compose descriptions, shorten and simplify texts, and more. These tools are mostly useful for non-fiction and academic writing.
With the rise of generative AI, it’s likely that these spelling and grammar checkers will improve, and it’s likely that spelling and grammar checking on computers will also get a boost from this new technology.
Why you might not want to use an online spelling and grammar checker
These online tools are not perfect. They can miss more complex errors and may flag specific elements of your personal voice as incorrect. They also have difficulty with dialog, which you may write in incomplete sentences or with signs that a character is speaking in dialect.
They can also flag too many false positives, or give suggestions that aren’t adapted to the type of writing you do. When they make suggestions for rephrasing text, the language can often be overly formal or bland, it can sound like AI language. One thing I find, when comparing different online grammar checkers, is that they use different rules regarding commas. One grammar checker will tell me to add commas, and another will tell me to remove commas from the same text. Over time, you get used to this, but you can’t just accept all of their corrections en masse. However, using these tools, you may discover writing quirks that you hadn’t noticed, and that you might wish to change.
You should also consider how the texts you upload are handled. Here are what the three different services mentioned above say.
<p><a href="https://www.grammarly.com/trust" target="_blank">Grammarly</a>: No one at Grammarly can read your text at will, as we tightly control access to user data within the company. You own what you write.</p>
<p><a href="https://prowritingaid.com/trust-center" target="_blank">ProWritingAid</a>: Your text segments are transmitted securely to our cloud service. Our writing suggestions use our unique Natural Language Processing models that never retain your text. Suggested improvements are transmitted securely back.</p>
<p><a href="https://help.quillbot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360056530894-How-does-QuillBot-use-my-data" target="_blank">QuillBot</a>: When you write with QuillBot, your data is used to improve our algorithms. We aim for writing created with QuillBot to be natural, accurate, and satisfactory to our users, and understanding our users’ inputs helps us achieve this.</p>The first two services have many enterprise users, and it’s important to businesses that the data their users send for correction be secure and private. QuillBot, however, clearly uses all the text that you send them to “improve our algorithms.” If you use a service like this, it’s a good idea to be aware of what they do with your texts.
There are pros and cons to using online spelling and grammar checkers. At a minimum, they can catch spelling errors that computers miss; going further, they can offer style corrections to improve your writing. Try them out and see if they help.
<p>Kirk McElhearn is a <a href="https://kirkville.com" target="_blank">writer</a>, <a href="https://kirkville.com/podcasts/" target="_blank">podcaster</a>, and <a href="https://kirkville.com/kirks-photos-2/" target="_blank">photographer</a>. He is the author of <a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/store" target="_blank">Take Control of Scrivener</a>, and host of the podcast <a href="https://podcast.scrivenerapp.com" target="_blank">Write Now with Scrivener</a>.</p>
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
Storytelling organization Climate Spring has announced the new Climate Fiction Prize, to “showcase novels of powerful literary merit and to solidify, grow and expand fiction that engages with the climate crisis.” The prize will be launched at this year’s Hay Festival, to be held May 23 – June 2, 2024.
The award is supported by Climate Spring, and the winner will receive £10,000. The judges for the inaugural year are …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/new-climate-fiction-prize/
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
The winners of the O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction have been announced, honoring contemporary short stories.
Winners of genre interest include:
To view …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/2024-o-henry-prize-for-short-fiction-winners/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-23, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Your last reminder to RSVP…
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqt2om2his2y
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-23, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
I wondered if the Cats Laughing cover of Gloomy Sunday was out there in the world, and it’s on the Internet Archive. No need to thank me. https://archive.org/details/CatsLaughingGloomySunday
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqszcmmins2a
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
The 2024 Tähtifantasia Award shortlist has been announced, presented by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society for the best Finnish fantasy book published in the previous year.
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/2024-tahtifantasia-award-shortlist/
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
The winners of the Zsoldos Péter Award have been announced, honoring Hungarian works of speculative fiction.
Short Stories
Best Translated Novel
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/2024-zsoldos-peter-award-winners/
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
Authors James Lee Burke and Lynda La Plante are joint winners of the 2024 Diamond Dagger Award, presented by the Crime Writers’ Association. Burke is the author of In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (2011), among other works of genre interest.
The award is the highest honor offered by the group, and “recognises authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/diamond-dagger-winners/
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
The Mars House, Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury US 978-1639732333, 480pp, $29.99, hc). March 2024.
If, a century from now, there are enough readers and enough academic presses to warrant reprinting early 21st-century Anglophone science fiction, editors in search of candidates might do worse than considering Natasha Pulley’s The Mars House for their list. In its style, its intellectual interests, and the strengths and weaknesses of its execution, Pulley’s sixth novel …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/niall-harrison-reviews-the-mars-house-by-natasha-pulley/
date: 2024-04-23, from: Locus Magazine
Carpenter, Daniel: Hunting by the River (Black Shuck Books UK 9781913038885, $15.99, 172pp, formats: trade paperback, 04/25/2024)
Collection of urban weird stories set in England. A first collection.
Cathrall, Sylvie: A Letter to the Luminous Deep (Orbit US 9780316565530, $18.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 04/23/2024)
Fantasy novel of magical academia in an underwater world. Two people piece together the letter, sketches and field notes left behind to …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/new-books-23-august-2024/
date: 2024-04-23, from: John August blog
John welcomes writer and comedian Alex Edelman to look at how he wrote his solo show Just For Us, and dig into the meaning of “write what you know.” They discuss finding your voice as a writer, developing your story with an audience, why Alex doesn’t write his shows down, and the sample that first […] The post Can You Believe It? first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/can-you-believe-it
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-23, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
https://web.archive.org/web/20240422144617/https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/20/dead-boy-detectives-this-ghost-sleuth-show-is-silly-spooky-and-wicked-fun
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqsnz37xzc2k
date: 2024-04-23, from: Final Draft blog
Landing a staff writing gig on a TV show is pretty much every aspiring screenwriter’s dream. However, what exactly goes on in a writers’ room remains a mystery for those starting their careers. How long are the hours? Who writes which episode and why? When do you eat lunch?
https://blog.finaldraft.com/crack-open-the-door-to-the-world-of-a-writers-room
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-23, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
I wound up sitting next to Ian on a flight to LA. I asked all the questions I had about the first production of Joe Orton’s LOOT. He told me all about that ans everything else as well.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqsf7jmebc2n
date: 2024-04-22, from: Locus Magazine
The Los Angeles Times has announced winners for their 44th annual Book Prizes.
Works of genre interest include The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (Saga), which received the Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction Award, Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park (Random House), which received the Fiction Award, and Gone Wolf by Amber McBride (Feiwel & Friends) in Young Adult Literature. Jane Smiley received the 2023 Robert Kirsch Award for …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/2023-la-times-book-prize-winners/
date: 2024-04-22, from: Locus Magazine
Leigh Bardugo’s standalone fantasy novel The Familiar (Flatiron) debuts strongly, ranking #1 or #2 on all four print lists compiled here. Further down the lists is one other debut: Hannah Whitten’s The Hemlock Queen (Orbit), second in her Nightshade Crown series, ranking as high as #14 on the NYT list.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 04.28 LAT 04.21 USAT 04.14 PW 04.22 Amz (04.22) UK: Amz UK …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/weekly-bestsellers-22-april-2024/
date: 2024-04-22, from: Locus Magazine
Glasgow 2024, the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention, has announced that voting is open for the 2024 Hugo Awards, the Lodestar Award for best Young Adult Book, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.
All members of Glasgow 2024 are eligible to vote, including Attending Adult, Young Adult, Teen Members, Online Attending Members, and WSFS Members. The ballots must be received by July 20, 2024 at 08:17 p.m. GMT.
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/2024-hugo-awards-voting-open/
date: 2024-04-22, from: John August blog
The original post for this episode can be found here. John August: Hey, this is John. Heads up that today’s episode has just a little bit of swearing in it. Hello and welcome. My name is John August. Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin. John: And this is Episode 635 of Scriptnotes, a podcast […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 635: Is This Person Going to Ruin Everything?, Transcript first appeared on John August.
date: 2024-04-22, from: John August blog
The original post for this episode can be found here. John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August. Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin. John: And this is Episode 634 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. What if Alexander the Great had died at the […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 634: What If? Hollywood Edition, Transcript first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/scriptnotes-episode-634-what-if-hollywood-edition-transcript
date: 2024-04-22, from: Locus Magazine
Author Ray Garton, 61, died April 21, 2024, just weeks after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Garton was the author of nearly 70 books, most horror.
Ray Garton, Jr. was born December 2, 1962 in Redding CA, and grew up in Anderson CA with his adopted parents. He worked at Pinnacle Books in New York City in the 1980s.
Garton’s debut novel, Seductions, appeared in 1984. Other …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/ray-garton-1962-2024/
date: 2024-04-22, from: Locus Magazine
The Fair Folk, Su Bristow (Europa Editions 979-8-889-66012-5, $18.00, tpb, 464pp) January 2024.
In her gorgeous new historical fantasy, The Fair Folk, author Su Bristow crafts the story of a particularly complex interaction between mortals and faeries. Opening in 1959, the novel follows the shifting relationship between then-eight-year-old Felicity and Elfrida, the apparent queen of a long-established fairy group ensconced in the woods near her home. At first, the …Read More
date: 2024-04-22, from: Locus Magazine
Lee & Low publishers have released their latest diversity survey, documenting ‘‘incremental’’ changes in the demographics of the publishing industry in North America. ‘‘We know institutional change takes time to bear fruit, which is why revisiting the survey every few years is so vital.’’ The survey reached out to executives and staff at 200 companies, including trade and academic presses, literary agencies, and review publications, and received over 8,600 responses. …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/lee-low-diversity-report/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-22, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
That’s awful!
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqpxpycre22k
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-22, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
And our beloved editor Jennifer Brehl. And yes, we did…
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqpxl7orbc2t
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-22, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
A gift link. An excellent article.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqpsrerpnk25
date: 2024-04-21, from: Locus Magazine
Triangulum: An Epic of the Nine Worlds of Surya, Subodhana Wijeyeratne (Rosarium Publishing 979-8-98661-460-1, $19.95, 300pp, tp) January 2024.
In his first novel, Subodhana Wijeyeratne takes elements of religious stories from the Indian subcontinent and reimagines them in space, with godlike aliens and humanity spread across the solar system. None of these aspects are apparent from the outset, but are gradually revealed as the story unfolds in epic, and …Read More
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-04-21, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Read this.
What Began as a War on Theater Won’t End There https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/opinion/high-school-theater-banned.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE0.EM6D.KeM_EDbTUCgy
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kqmlxeh52k2a