2009 January at SF Novelists

Archive for January, 2009

Stephanie Burgis January 26th 2009

Firsts

Last week, I had one of the coolest “firsts” ever: the first novel in my first trilogy (which is also my first-ever sold novel) was sent by my editor to copyedits, with no major editorial changes left to be made. Wooot! And: whew! And also: OH MY GOD. When my editor emailed me with the [...]

Laura Anne Gilman January 22nd 2009

Grist for the Mill

This post was delayed 24 hours due to technical and authorial malfunctions. —————————- Yesterday, as befits the history major/geek I am, I was witness to history. Yesterday I became close friends with 1.9 million other people, standing shoulder to shoulder in the pre-dawn cold to witness a moment that will only come once in our [...]

Simon Haynes January 17th 2009

Awards and Ebooks

This month I’m posting two topics for the price of one. Bargain! First, ebooks. For the past eight months my first novel has been available as a free download via my website, an experiment which my (fabulous, progressive) publisher agreed to participate in. (40,000 downloads and counting.) I’ve blogged about the reasons for the freebie [...]

Diana Pharaoh Francis January 17th 2009

Call me nobody–a blog post of parenthetical asides

Anybody remember that western flick where the main character was named Nobody? Terence Hill plays Nobody and it also stars Henry Fonda and is directed by Sergio Leone. Here’s a link if you want to know more. It’s a good movie and worth watching, but now I’m going to stop talking about it so that [...]

Marie Brennan January 16th 2009

This is the story of a problem.

Once there was a young writer who could not write short stories. She tried every so often, noted that her attempts still sucked, and went back to the (unfinished, and later finished) novels she was much better at. But then one day she figured out the short story thing, and there was much rejoicing. Short [...]

S.C. Butler January 15th 2009

Doing Two Things At Once

I rarely write short stories, so I was surprised when an idea hit me last week. And there I was, too, right in the middle of the current novel. (Hopefully it’s a little past the middle by now, but you never can tell about that sort of thing till you reach the end.) What to [...]

David B. Coe January 13th 2009

I Have a Bone to Pick with the Inauguration Committee

Usually when I write my posts for the SFNovelists blog, I try to focus on issues relating to the creative process or the mechanics of writing. I see this blog as a chance for us to discuss craft with other published authors and also with writers who are still trying to make that first sale. But [...]

Kelly McCullough January 11th 2009

Backup—A Writer’s PSA

I recently had a hard drive melt down. Fortunately it was a backup drive and my actual primary drive was fine. Also, I’m a backup fanatic. So I rarely lose data. As a writer, you should be a backup fanatic too. If you’re not making sure that your stories are protected from being eaten by [...]

Jackie Kessler January 7th 2009

Mom, I Don’t Want to Write Today

Remember when you didn’t want to go to school, and you’d lie in bed and, well, lie about having a stomach ache? (Maybe that was just me. Don’t tell my mother. She’s already upset that I write about s-e-x under my legal name.) It didn’t matter that there were things to learn and homework to [...]

Alma Alexander January 5th 2009

Series and serials

Very soon now the third and final book in my Worldweavers trilogy, “Cybermage”, will be hitting the bookstores (look at www.worldweaversweb.com for more info…) At least one writer friend is currently in the same boat as I am – namely, coming out with a capstone, the completing book in a story arcing over several books, [...]

Author Information

Stephanie Burgis

Stephanie Burgis is an American writer who lives in Yorkshire, England, with her husband, fellow writer Patrick Samphire, their son "Mr Darcy", and their crazy-sweet border collie mix, Maya. Her Regency fantasy trilogy for kids, The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, will be published by Atheneum Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in 2010, 2011, and 2012, beginning with Book One: A Most Improper Magick. She has also published short stories in a variety of magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, including Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Escape Pod. You can find out more, or read/listen to her published stories online, at her website. Visit site.

Laura Anne Gilman

Laura Anne Gilman worked for fifteen years in the mines of NYC publishing before deciding that she would have less stress -- if fewer benefits -- working for herself. She's still debating if not having to attend meetings was worth the loss of benefits, but other than that, ten books [and counting] later, she thinks that the decision was a good one. She is the author of the urban fantasy "Retrievers" series for Luna, the forthcoming PSI novels, also from Luna, and FLESH & FIRE: BOOK 1 OF THE VINEART WAR, coming from Pocket Books this October. Visit site.

Simon Haynes

Simon is the author of the Hal Spacejock series, featuring intergalactic loser Hal and his junky sidekick, Clunk. His website contains a number of articles on writing and publishing, and he's also the programmer of several freeware apps including yBook, BookDB and yWriter. In his spare time(!) he helps to run Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Visit site.

Diana Pharaoh Francis

Diana Pharaoh Francis has written the fantasy novel trilogy that includes Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood. Path of Fate was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Recently released was The Turning Tide, third in her Crosspointe Chronicles series (look also for The Cipher and The Black Ship). In October 2009, look for Bitter Night, a contemporary fantasy. Diana teaches in the English Department at the University of Montana Western, and is an avid lover of all things chocolate. Visit site.

Marie Brennan

Marie Brennan is the author of more than thirty short stories and the Onyx Court series of historical fantasy novels, concluding in the upcoming With Fate Conspire (due out September 2011). Visit site.

S.C. Butler

Butler is the author of The Stoneways Trilogy from Tor Books: Reiffen's Choice, Queen Ferris, and The Magician's Daughter. Find out what Reiffen does with magic, and what magic does with him... Visit site.

David B. Coe

David B. Coe is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including the books of the LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, and Blood of the Southlands. He has also written the novelization for the Ridley Scott production of ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe, that is due out in May 2010. In 1999 he received the Crawford Fantasy Award, given annually by the IAFA to the best new author in fantasy. He has a Ph.D. in United States environmental history and lives on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with his wife and daughters. Visit site.

Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough is a fantasy and science fiction author. He lives in Wisconsin with his physics professor wife and a small herd of cats. His novels include the WebMage and Fallen Blade series—Penguin/ACE. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Writers of the Future and Weird Tales. He also dabbles in science fiction as science education with The Chronicles of the Wandering Star—part of an NSF-funded science curriculum—and the science comic Hanny & the Mystery of the Voorwerp, which he co-authored and co-edited—funding provided by NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Visit site.

Jackie Kessler

Visit site.

Alma Alexander

Alma Alexander is a Pacific Northwest novelist whose new YA trilogy, "Worldweavers", debuted with "Gift of the Unmage" in March 2007 ("Spellspam" follows in 2008, and "Cybermage" in 2009). Her other books include the internationally acclaimed "The Secrets of Jin Shei". Visit site.