(date: 2024-05-17 10:40:40)
date: 2024-05-17, from: Locus Magazine
Clarkesworld 3/24
Clarkesworld’s March issue opens with “Hello! Hello! Hello!” by Fiona Jones, a sweet story about an alien entity encountering a human adrift in a shuttle, eventually realizing that the human is dying, and carrying out a rescue mission. Jones does a wonderful job of presenting a truly alien alien, and showing the difficulties of communication between vastly dissimilar species, but also the possibilities opened up …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/a-c-wise-reviews-short-fiction-clarkesworld-2/
date: 2024-05-17, from: Locus Magazine
The 47th Williamson Lectureship was held April 11-13, 2024 in Portales NM. The theme of Lectureship, held at Eastern NM University and around town to honor SF pioneer Jack Williamson, was “Oh, the (In)Humanity”, and included discussions of AI, robots, posthumans/anti-humans, and guest of honor Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries, including 2023’s System Collapse. Connie Willis served as toastmistress.
San Jose criminalist Cordelia Willis started events Thursday with a presentation …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-williamson-lectureship/
date: 2024-05-17, from: Final Draft blog
If there’s one thing I know about screenwriters, they love the process of pitching their movie ideas to industry professionals.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/why-short-stories-are-better-than-pitches
date: 2024-05-16, 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: Oh. Oh. My name is Craig Mazin. John: And you’re listening to Episode 638 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, you can’t […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 638: Lawyer Scenes, Transcript first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/scriptnotes-episode-638-lawyer-scenes-transcript
date: 2024-05-16, from: Locus Magazine
Power to Yield, Bogi Takács (Broken Eye Books 978-1-40372-266-2, $17.99, 203pp, tp) February 2024.
Hungarian American poet, writer, translator, critic, and editor Bogi Takács has spent eir career promoting, encouraging, and showcasing the work of marginalised authors. The anthology Rosalind’s Siblings, edited by Takács and publishing poetry and fiction focusing on scientists erased or diminished because of their gender or sexuality, fittingly featured on the 2023 Locus Recommended …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/ian-mond-reviews-power-to-yield-by-bogi-takacs/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-15, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Then read this thread…
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kskud2izrc2m
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-15, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
First read this thread…
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kskucgbvr225
date: 2024-05-15, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
How many pages does a feature really need to be taken seriously as a feature?
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/can-my-script-be-as-short-as-somewhere
date: 2024-05-15, from: Margaret Atwoods Substack
I’ll soon be back to the French Revvie with New Atrocities and Scandals for You, but first…
https://margaretatwood.substack.com/p/alice-munro
date: 2024-05-15, from: Locus Magazine
Winners for the 2024 CrimeFest Awards have been announced, including authors and titles of genre interest.
eDUNNIT Award
Best Crime Novel for Young Adults
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-crimefest-awards-winners/
date: 2024-05-15, from: Locus Magazine
The winner of the the Tähtivaeltaja Award is Tällä tavalla hävitään aikasota [This Is How You Lose the Time War] by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Hertta), translated by Kaisa Ranta.
The award honors the best science fiction book published in Finland in the previous year, and is sponsored by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society.
The judging panel includes Hannu Blommila, Toni Jerrman, Elli Leppä, and Kaisa Ranta. For more
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/tahtivaeltaja-award-winner/
date: 2024-05-15, from: Locus Magazine
MAGGIE SEKELLA is now represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.
DAVID LANGFORD won the Doc Weir Award, given to ‘‘someone in fandom who helps make things happen, contributing time, effort, ideas and support – often behind the scenes,’’ at Eastercon, held March 24 – April 1, 2024 in Telford, UK.
ZAIN KHALID, author of Brother Alive, is one of the National Book Foundation’s ’’5 …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/people-publishing-roundup-may-2024/
date: 2024-05-15, from: Locus Magazine
Dead Girls Walking, Sami Ellis (Amulet Books 978-1-41976-676-3, $19.99, 368pp, hc) March 2024.
Serial killing runs in the family in Dead Girls Walking, Sami Ellis’s debut young adult horror novel. Several years ago, Thomas Baker was arrested, his reign of terror finally ended. He confessed to kidnapping, torturing, branding, and murdering more than a dozen people, burying their bodies on his sprawling farm. Temple grew up surrounded by …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/alex-brown-reviews-dead-girls-walking-by-sami-ellis/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-15, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Beautiful
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@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-15, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
“Of course, A.I. companies are always promising that an actually useful version of their technology is just around the corner.”
Will A.I. Ever Live Up to Its Hype? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/opinion/artificial-intelligence-ai-openai-chatgpt-overrated-hype.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sE0.2pJC.01Wt4_Qoo_ut Gift Link
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ksjoutaa3s2j
date: 2024-05-15, from: Literature & a Latte blog
<p>When you’re writing a novel or another long work, it’s like running a marathon, not a sprint. You won’t finish it in a few days or a week, and you have to work at a rhythm that allows you to remain creative and achieve the appropriate word count over time. Slow and steady writing will eventually get you to your goal.</p>How much should you write each day?
If possible, it’s a good idea to write every day, even if you can’t write very much each day. You can set a target, which isn’t a hard goal, but which is something to aim for. Some writers are happy with 500 words a day, others with 1,000 words, and some, who write full time, may even strive to write 2,000 words a day. If you do the math, even if you only write five 500 words a day, that comes to 130,000 words in a year. That means you can write the first draft of a novel - with room to spare - in twelve months, if you remain consistent.
Many writers can’t write every day, so they set aside a couple of days a week to write. If you plan to write 1,000 words a day for two full days a week, that’s more than 100,000 words a year. The key is consistency and maintaining your momentum.
How do you decide how many words to write a day? A lot depends on how experienced you are, and what your writing rhythm is. In On Writing, Stephen King says, “As with physical exercise, it would be best to set this goal low at first, to avoid discouragement. I suggest a thousand words a day, and because I’m feeling magnanimous, I’ll also suggest that you can take one day a week off, at least to begin with. No more; you’ll lose the urgency and immediacy of your story if you do.“
Anthony Trollope had a day job at the General Post Office, but he would write before going to work. “It was my practice to be at my table every morning at 5.30; and it was also my practice to allow myself no mercy. […] It had at this time become my custom, and it still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient to myself, to write with my watch before me, and to require from myself 250 words every quarter of an hour.“ This meant that he could write up to 3,000 words each morning, and this is how he wrote dozens of novels and other works.
Scrivener has useful tools to help you set and meet targets. You can view the word count of your current document in the app’s footer, and you can view the total word count of your project by hovering your cursor over the Quick Search box in the toolbar.
You can also get detailed statistics of your project by choosing Project > Statistics:
And you can set and view targets for each writing session, and for your overall project.
When should you end your writing sessions?
So when should you stop writing? Should you set an alarm, time yourself, or write precisely for one or two hours? If your target is a word count, should you stop once you hit that number, or keep going if you feel the juices flowing?
Some writers push on to reach their daily sessions, but this can be counterproductive. When you’ve lost your mojo, there’s no point trying to force it. Sometimes, you just can’t meet your target.
Other writers may choose to end their writing session when they finish the chapter or a scene. The fact of completing something, even if you haven’t hit your session target, can be very satisfying.
However, some other writers like to end their writing session in the middle of a scene, paragraph, or even a sentence. Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.“
And consider Anthony Trollope, who, if he finished a novel by 8:30 would immediately start writing the next one. This is probably not practical for most writers who need to work on multiple drafts to finish a novel. Trollope was immensely prolific, and, in his time, novels were not revised extensively, so he could easily move on to the next one at will.
It’s up to each writer to determine how much they should write and when they should end. Many factors influence this decision: how much time you have to write, how many days you can write, and what your writing goals are. It's a good idea to develop a rhythm, and you can take advantage of Scrivener’s features to set session and project targets to help you meet your goals.
<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: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
The Barnes & Noble Children’s & YA Book Awards have announced their winners, including Powerless by Lauren Roberts (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) in the YA category and A Royal Conundrum by Lisa Yee (Random House Children’s Books) as the overall winner.
The Awards “discovers, champions, and celebrates the very best in Children’s publishing in three categories: Picture Books, Young Readers and YA.”
While you are here, please …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-bn-childrens-ya-book-awards-winners/
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
The Associazione World SF Italia announced the finalists for the 2024 Premio Ernesto Vegetti, an Italian SF award.
Novel
Nonfiction
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-premio-ernesto-vegetti-finalists-2/
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
The Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) has announced the 2024 winners of its annual book awards.
The SFRA Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship
The SFRA Innovative Research Award
Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service
Mary Kay Bray Award
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-sfra-awards/
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced the shortlists for the 2024 Dagger Awards, including several titles and authors of genre interest.
Gold Dagger
Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
Historical Dagger …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-dagger-awards-shortlists/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-14, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
I’m going to plug this SELECTED SHORTS podcast: a Bradbury Centennial with three small nightmares…
https://www.symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts/episodes/ray-bradbury-centennial-with-neil-gaiman
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kshm3pqd7s2j
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
Beagle, Peter S.: I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 9781668025277, $26.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 05/14/2024)
Fantasy novel. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’s job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart, in part because he likes dragons. Illustrated by Justin & Annie Gerard.
Bedi, Aman J.: …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/new-books-14-may-2024/
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
Blade, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island Press 978-193719-744-5, $7.99, 308pp, eb) March 2024. Cover by Sarah Anne Layton
Subtract the mystery/thriller-family elements and most of the same tropes and devices enable Linda Nagata’s Blade, the fourth entry in her Inverted Frontier sequence, itself a continuation of the Nanotech Succession series. The frontier in question is inverted because the story line reverses the outward-bound pattern of much interstellar adventure by …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/russell-letson-reviews-blade-by-linda-nagata/
date: 2024-05-14, from: John August blog
In this compendium episode, John and Craig demystify the the relationship between writers and the people who represent them, looking at how to acquire, work with and (if necessary) fire your agents and managers. How do you get an agent or a manager? What are they looking for in a potential client? What frustrates them? […] The post Agents and Managers 101 first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/agents-and-managers-101
date: 2024-05-14, from: Final Draft blog
Crafting memorable characters is the first step in writing engaging short stories. As the reader, we are choosing to spend a brief period of time inside the head of the main character, going on an emotional ride with them that may bring us a new perspective on life, like the resilience of human nature. Although the wants and needs of your protagonist drive the plot forward, all the characters, including your antagonist and any supporting characters, should each leave a lasting impression.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/how-to-create-memorable-characters-for-your-short-story
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-14, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
On AI. A metaphor.
https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/750412770921611264/i-apologize-if-youve-been-asked-this-question
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3kshctpqylc2m
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-14, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Good luck!
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@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-14, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
That’s actually really lovely. The whole thing.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ksh3qrhskc2s
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
The Bookseller has announced the winners of the 2024 British Book Awards, also known as The Nibbies, including several works of genre interest:
Fiction
Pageturner
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-british-book-awards/
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
Literary speculative fiction magazine Apparition Lit will close at the end of 2024.
The magazine was founded in 2017 by Rebecca Bennett, Clark Doty, Amy Robinson, and Tacoma Tomilson, who all served as senior editors.
In a post on Patreon, the editors thanked their staff and contributors, and explained, “It comes down to this: we’re tired and most of all, we miss writing for ourselves.”
Apparition Lit is no longer …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/apparition-lit-to-close/
date: 2024-05-14, from: Locus Magazine
The Free Library of Philadelphia has announced “Pride Month: How Science Fiction Dances to the Music of Time”:
Samuel R. Delany speaks with Music Department library trainee & Hollywood indie film composer Mark Inchoco on the intersections between science fiction & music. Hear how great musicians, librettists, & musical events such as Cab Calloway, Pete Seeger, the Newport Folk Festival, Igor Stravinsky, Bob Dylan, Samuel Barber, Leontyne Price, & Macy …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/delany-event-in-philadelphia/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-14, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
From @janeygodley.bsky.social
“Come see me in WEST END LONDON with Onscreen Onstage at @CentralPictureH
@CosmicCatFilms it’s a film then a
stand up show right in the heart of Soho tickets here
https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-details/022/HO00014469/janey-on-screen-on-stage-live-event
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ksfvywa6f22k
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-13, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Glorious!
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ksfqursaak2k
date: 2024-05-13, from: Locus Magazine
Lauren Roberts’s Powerful (Simon & Schuster), set in the world of earlier novel Powerless, debuts on three lists this week, ranking as high as #1 on the New York Times Young Adult Hardcover list.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 05.19 LAT 05.12 USAT 05.05 PW 05.13 Amz (05.13) UK: Amz UK (05.13) Canada: Amz.ca (05.13)
Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed
10×3 10×2 150 …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/weekly-bestsellers-13-may-2024/
date: 2024-05-13, from: Locus Magazine
The shortlist for the annual Arthur C. Clarke Award, celebrating the best science fiction novel published in the UK, has been announced:
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-clarke-award-shortlist/
date: 2024-05-13, from: Author’s Union blog
By Dave Hansen and Dan Cohen Rapidly advancing artificial intelligence is remaking how we work and live, a revolution that will affect us all. While AI’s impact continues to expand, the operation and benefits of the technology are increasingly concentrated in a small number of gigantic corporations, including OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. Challenging […]
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/05/13/books-are-big-ais-achilles-heel/
date: 2024-05-13, from: Locus Magazine
MALKA ANN OLDER was born October 30, 1977. She attended Harvard for undergrad, where she studied literature, and has a master’s degree in international relations and economics from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. She got her doctorate in political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, where she did work on governmental disaster responses. Older is an expert in humanitarian aid and international development …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/malka-older-perspective-shift/
date: 2024-05-13, from: Locus Magazine
The Girl, the Ring, & the Baseball Bat, Camille Gomera-Tavarez (Levine Querido 978-1-646-14265-1, $19.99, 391pp, hc) February 2024. Cover by Dotun Abeshinbioke.
The Girl, the Ring, & the Baseball Bat by Camille Gomera-Tavarez is about navigating high school, finding true friends (and romance), and a magic jacket, magic ring, and magic baseball bat. (I’m not going to lie, while all of them are cool, the baseball bat really rocks.) …Read More
date: 2024-05-12, from: Locus Magazine
Shoreline of Infinity has announced a spin-off publication, SF Caledonia, edited by founding publisher and editor Noel Chidwick. SF Caledonia will showcase “the often overlooked contributions by Scottish writers to the popular worlds of science fiction, speculative fiction and fantasy.” The new publica tion will initially re-publish public domain stories, and is also open to “all Scottish writers wishing to submit already published work.” Chidwick says,
From the start, we …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/sf-caledonia-launched/
date: 2024-05-12, from: Locus Magazine
Lightspeed 2/24 GigaNotoSaurus 2/24 Diabolical Plots 2/24 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2/8/24, 2/22/24
Phoebe Barton returns to the pages of Lightspeed in their February issue with “But from Thine Eyes My Knowledge I Derive”, which should scratch anyone’s science-fiction procedural mystery itch. In it, Va is the head science officer on a ship sent to examine what could be a miniature black hole. When the discovery turns out to …Read More
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-12, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Oh good.
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