(date: 2024-12-01 15:32:06)
date: 2024-12-01, from: Locus Magazine
A Letter to the Luminous Deep, Sylvie Cathrall (Orbit 978-0-316-56553-0, $18.99, 352pp, tp) April 2024. Cover by Raxenne Maniquiz.
Sylvie Cathrall starts off her Sunken Archives series with the charming epistolary novel A Letter to the Luminous Deep. Set on a watery planet long after a catastrophic event that dramatically impacted the landscape, Luminous Deep is a romance and mystery spiced with some eye-rolling family moments that gently …Read More
date: 2024-12-01, from: Locus Magazine
The December 2024 issue of Locus magazine has interviews with Paolo Bacigalupi and Vajra Chandrasekera, a spotlight on artist Christine Mitzuk, and a spotlight on book subscription box service Illumicrate and their quarterly science fiction subscription, Starbright. The issue lists US and UK forthcoming books titles through September 2025. News includes Samantha Harvey’s Booker win, SFWA’s special election results, the 2024 Ignyte Awards, the final Kitschies Awards shortlist, and more. …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/issue-767-table-of-contents-december-2024/
date: 2024-11-29, from: Final Draft blog
Historical epics are rare. Long gone are the days when large-scale biblical stories were adapted to the big screen or tales of sweeping battles from centuries, if not millennia, ago brought audiences swarming to the cinemas. While they often don’t see a release in the summer tentpole season or the coveted holidays/Oscar-buzzing season they once did, they do still exist. And the master of bringing historical epics to life is Ridley Scott.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/how-to-write-a-historical-epic-like-gladiator-ii
date: 2024-11-29, from: Margaret Atwoods Substack
We interrupt our usual dour programming to bring you this happy-making news flash!
https://margaretatwood.substack.com/p/the-septic-tank-issue-solved
date: 2024-11-28, from: Literature & a Latte blog
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/black-friday-offers-2024
date: 2024-11-28, from: Locus Magazine
Welcome back for another week of new releases! Come by our YouTube channel to learn about the top new Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror releases for the week of 11/26/2024! Consider subscribing to the channel to keep up-to-date on new releases and support what we do!
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/weekly-youtube-video-is-up-new-releases-for-the-week-of-11-26-2024/
date: 2024-11-27, from: Locus Magazine
Winners for the 2024 Kitschies, awarded for “the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining fiction that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic,” have been announced.
The Red Tentacle (Novel)
The Golden Tentacle
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/2024-and-final-kitschies-winners/
date: 2024-11-27, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
You wrote characters, now find someone to play them.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/writers-need-actors
date: 2024-11-27, 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: You’re listening to episode 666 of Scriptnotes a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to Satan. Craig: We will eat your soul. John: Probably not, […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 666: Satanic Movies, Transcript first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/scriptnotes-episode-666-satanic-movies-transcript
date: 2024-11-27, from: Locus Magazine
Absolution, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD 978-0-37461-659-6, $30.00, 464pp, hc) October 2024.
While I try not to pick favourites, I have been looking forward to this month’s column (and not just because October is my birth month). Jeff VanderMeer, Laura van den Berg, and Jesse Ball are three authors who have made an art form of the weird, and, as you already know, I love my fiction seasoned with a generous …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/absolution-by-jeff-vandermeer-review-by-ian-mond/
date: 2024-11-27, from: Final Draft blog
When many of us think of Thanksgiving, several things come to mind.
Visiting family and loved ones, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day
Parade, football or
Planes,
Trains and Automobiles, a turkey dinner with stuffing, sweet potato,
cranberry sauce, etc. Not to take away from any of these things, but the
holiday is also a time to be reflective and express gratitude for all
the things that are good in our lives. Of course some people are going
to have more things to be grateful for than others, especially
screenwriters who have numerous ups and downs in their career pursuit.
Whether you’re a beginner screenwriter or a professional with a loaded
IMDB page, some years are bound to be better than others. That being
said, even during an “off year,” there might be more things to be
thankful for than you realize.
In this spirit, below are 5 Things Screenwriters Can Be Thankful
For this Thanksgiving holiday.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/5-things-screenwriters-can-be-thankful-for
date: 2024-11-27, from: Literature & a Latte blog
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/how-to-maintain-motivation-when-writing-a-novel
date: 2024-11-26, from: Final Draft blog
I broke into screenwriting 16 years ago thanks to
a
big spec sale. I was able to make a career out of it, selling other
scripts and landing various
assignment
jobs over the years.
Do you know what I was doing before I
sold my first screenplay?
I was washing dishes in New
Jersey.
I didn’t go to film school, and I’d
never
been to Los Angeles until a production company flew my writing
partner and me out there to pitch on a film project (one that we pitched
successfully). Within one wild year, I went from being a dishwasher to a
professional screenwriter, and it’s still what I do to this
day.
But how did I accomplish this exactly? Were there any things
I did, in retrospect, that made this happen?
Below are 5 Things
I Did To Become a Professional Screenwriter:
https://blog.finaldraft.com/5-things-i-did-to-become-a-professional-screenwriter
date: 2024-11-26, from: John August blog
John and Craig take a deep dive with the Devil, exploring the unholy trinity of satanic films: Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen. They look at how these three horror classics work, where our modern conception of Satan comes from, and the future of the Devil on screen. We also answer listener questions on […] The post Satanic Movies first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/satanic-movies
date: 2024-11-26, from: Locus Magazine
Cicada, Tanya Pell (Shortwave 978-1-95956-534-5, $13.99, 192pp, tp) September 2024. Cover by Alan Lastufka.
Tanya Pell’s Cicada is a fun, fast, pulpy horror novel that’s part survival narrative and part creature feature. It’s also a book that’s packed with tips of the hat and the kind of writing that lets you know an author is really a fan of the genre and has a great time doing what they …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/cicada-by-tanya-pell-review-by-gabino-iglesias/
date: 2024-11-26, from: Locus Magazine
Chapman, Greg: Black Days and Bloody Nights (IFWG Publishing International 9781922856869, $12.99, 206pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 12/02/2024)
Collection of short horror stories and novellas.
Datlow, Ellen, ed.: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen (Start/Night Shade 9781949102734, $19.99, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 11/26/2024)
Year’s best anthology of 19 stories, with a summation of the year 2022 in horror by Datlow and a list of honorable mentions. …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/new-books-26-november-2024/
date: 2024-11-26, from: Locus Magazine
Two fantasy novels debut this week: Mary E. Pearson’s The Courting of Bristol Keats (Flatiron), and Katee Robert’s Court of the Vampire Queen (Sourcebooks Casablanca), both ranking on three print lists.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 12.01 LAT 11.24 USAT 11.17 PW 11.25 Amz (11.25) UK: Amz UK (11.25) Canada: Amz.ca (11.25)
Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed
10×3 10×2 150 15×3 100 100 100 …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/weekly-bestsellers-25-november-2024/
date: 2024-11-25, from: Final Draft blog
“About 12 years ago, I had my very first meeting to staff. It was a
show being run by a playwright named Beau Willimon and he’d done one
season of a show that hadn’t dropped yet and they were going to do this
crazy new model where the whole season was going to drop at once and
they didn’t know how it was going to go. And that was a show called
House of Cards. And I was staffed for season two of that show
before season one dropped. So, that was my entrance into television. It
was my first meeting to staff on any show!” says Laura Eason, playwright
and current showrunner for Starz’s TV show Three Women.
In this episode of the Write On podcast, we chat with Laura Eason
about her illustrious career as a playwright and how she made the
intimidating transition to TV writing.
“I got a call a week
before the [ House of Cards] room started and I went to Barnes
and Noble and bought the book How to Write the One Hour Drama. I’m not
kidding. I was like, oh my God. And I called everyone I knew that had
been in TV and said, ‘Tell me everything you can about being in a room
and how it’s supposed to go.’ And then I was very lucky my first year in
TV,” says Eason who was nominated for an Emmy for House of
Cards in 2017.
Eason also talks about her latest show
Three Women, its unique structure and also shares her advice
for writing a TV pilot as the tides in Hollywood are changing.
“Well, we’re coming into a different moment with this contraction
that we’re having in the [TV] industry. We had a very beautiful time
where I think there was a lot of room for idiosyncrasy and a lot of room
for things to not quite check the list of everything a pilot should
probably be, but because the voice was really unique or the world was
interesting, those shows still got made. And I think we’re in a moment
now where all of the fundamentals need to be really, really strong. Like
the engine of your pilot really needs to work. Someone needs to read
that pilot and understand how you’re going to be able to make 10
episodes or 20 or 50 episodes of that show, especially because there’s
less interest in limited series. So, making sure that you’re paying as
much attention to engine, to character, to your act structure, that the
action is really moving and the acts the way it should as much as your
voice, the unique things you bring, because of course that’s the special
sauce. But you really need to have both now, in a really strong way.”
To hear more, listen to the podcast.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/write-on-tv-writing-with-laura-eason
date: 2024-11-25, from: Final Draft blog
Dinner tables can be more than a place to eat. From the mundane conversations that reveal character dynamics to the rising tension that happens when everyone is forced to sit down and share a meal, dinner scenes create the perfect setting for pivotal moments in your story while also engaging characters in one of the most relatable activities—eating.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/how-to-write-a-great-dinner-scene-in-your-screenplay
date: 2024-11-25, from: Locus Magazine
VIRGINIA LEE is an artist, illustrator and sculptor based on Dartmoor, England where she was raised in a creative household immersed in myth and fantasy art. She has illustrated several books for children, including the Greek myth of Persephone and the Russian fairy tale ‘‘The Frog Bride’’. She provided illustrations for “The Enchanted Lenormand Oracle”, StoryWorld cards, and The Secret Histories: Mermaids and Hobgoblins books. She also worked as a …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/spotlight-on-virginia-lee/
date: 2024-11-25, from: Locus Magazine
Remember You Will Die, Eden Robins (Sourcebooks Landmark 978-1-72825-603-0, $16.99, 336pp, tp) October 2024. Cover by Erin Fitzsimmons.
After reading Manuela Draeger’s fascinating novel Kree, about afterlives and reincarnation, and translator and anthologist Anton Hur’s excellent debut novel Toward Eternity, in which artificial intelligences and nanite-transformed humans have found a strange immortality, the centrality of mortality in Eden Robins’s Remember You Will Die is almost refreshing. While …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/remember-you-will-die-by-eden-robins-review-by-jake-casella-brookins/
date: 2024-11-25, from: Locus Magazine
Brom, Evil in Me (Nightfire 9/24) A woman who dreams of making it in the punk scene gets possessed, and the only way to exorcize the demon is to get hundreds of people to chant a spell together in this dark tale of music and mayhem. This author shows off his noted artistic talent as well with b&w illustrations throughout and eight pages of full-color plates.
https://locusmag.com/2024/11/new-notable-4/
date: 2024-11-24, from: Locus Magazine
Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions, Nalo Hopkinson (Tachyon 978-1-61696-426-9, $15.95, 224pp, tp) October 2024.
Story collections almost never sell as well as novels, but maybe they ought to. A novel is the end product of processes that may have unfolded over months or years, while a collection offers us glimpses into those processes themselves. All of the sixteen stories in Nalo Hopkinson’s Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions were published …Read More