Submitted by janit0r on December 31, 2006 - 1:06pm
THE BUSINESS OF WRITING
Two literary agents talk shop.
SF Novelists is an organization of professional fantasy and science fiction authors. Here you can read what's up in our corner of the publishing world.
Ralan's market listings. Want to know where to send your SF/F/H story for possible publication? Ralan Conley's site has great market listings.
IT'S POLITICAL
Writer Tobias Buckell goes to the mat on the issue of the lack of racial diversity in science fiction and fantasy.
Afrofuturism online discussion.
THE CRAFT OF WRITING
How to Write a Novel, from writer Justine Larbalestier. I particularly like the part where Justines describes how to create a snapshot of the various scenes of your novel. There are many different ways to do this -- I use computer programmes such as Scrivener and yWriter -- but many of us find it useful to create some kind of snapshot when the manuscript gets to the point where it's too big to hold the whole thing in your head. Especially interesting is how Justine and her partner Scott plot the energy of each scene to get an idea of whether the novel's driving forward at a good pace. It's something I do in my head, but it's also neat to see it plotted out like this. When you're trying to conceptualize your novel, pictures can be a great help.
READING SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
Panel: Teaching Science Fiction: Unique Challenges Proceedings of the MLA Special Session, New York, December 1978. Participants: Gregory Benford (speaker); Samuel Delany (speaker); Robert Scholes (speaker); Alan J. Friedman (respondent); and John Woodcock (moderator). This panel happened thirty years ago, but I still find it relevant, especially Chip's (Delany's) comments on the difficulties his students who are unfamiliar with science fiction have with learning how to read it.
