2009 September at SF Novelists

Archive for September, 2009

Stephanie Burgis September 26th 2009

One year later

One year ago today, I wrote my first post on SFNovelists. It was called “Different Kinds of Limbo”, and I talked about how I was eight months pregnant and waiting for my baby to be born. At the same time, I had just sold my first novel but […]

Jim C. Hines September 24th 2009

Writers and Depression

The Mermaid’s Madness comes out in 12 days. I should be in a great mood. I should be bouncing around like a ferret on Pixie Stix. Unfortunately, I’ve found that emotions rarely worry about things like “should.”
It started with an e-mail from my editor letting me know we might not be able to get the same […]

David B. Coe September 23rd 2009

What Sports Can Tell Us About Storytelling…And What they Can’t

I’m a sports fan. Big time. I enjoy watching pretty much all forms of competition. Baseball, soccer, football, basketball, golf, tennis. I love all the Olympic sports. I’ll even watch hockey. It’s more than just a guy thing. I love sports because they are utterly unpredictable. You […]

Kate Elliott September 18th 2009

More on Writing Women in SFF

I want to follow up on Marie Brennan’s posts on writing women in fantasy (and science fiction, although it seems to be more of a problem in fantasy than in sf).
In her most recent post, she writes:
I’ve been here before. Reading a book, epic fantasy, relatively new, not bad, but I’ve got a growing feeling […]

Diana Pharaoh Francis September 17th 2009

Writers Are Magpies–or Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Writers are magpies. We watch everything, we pry into everything, and we take whatever shiny bit we might like. We haul it back to our nests and pile it like dragon’s treasure. And then we turn into replicators (pardon me Stargate SG1). But we take our treasure and sift through it and make things out […]

Marie Brennan September 16th 2009

The value of the Bechdel Test

I’ve been here before. Reading a book, epic fantasy, relatively new, not bad, but I’ve got a growing feeling that something’s missing. Something like . . . half the world.
Where are the women?
Two hundred pages into the book, and there’s been three named female characters. One is evil. The second existed […]

S.C. Butler September 15th 2009

We Are the Orcs

Yesterday was the third annual Brooklyn Book Festival in Brooklyn Heights. This is basically my neighborhood (my kids went to school a block from the site), so, when the first one rolled around, all my Brooklyn friends asked if I would be participating. “Of course not,” I answered.
“Why not?” they asked.
“Because I write genre.”
New York is […]

glenda larke September 13th 2009

The Condescending Review

Every now and then you get a reviewer who doesn’t read fantasy or science fiction reviewing a sff book. The result is often just awful. And here is a superb example: the Sept 8th review by Michael Agger of Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” in the New York Times Sunday Book Review.
For a start, such […]

Kelly McCullough September 11th 2009

Self-Promoting Authors Anonymous

With apologies to the original, the Twelve Steps for self-promoters:
1. We admitted we were powerless over sales—that our careers had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that surrendering to a marketing machine greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity–our publisher’s publicity department.
3. Made a decision to turn our books and our careers over to the […]

Alma Alexander September 5th 2009

Happily Ever After…

The first book I ever had published was a collection of three fairy tales* of the Oscar Wilde-ian kind – the sort in which there is a thread of sadness, even tragedy, weaving through the story and there is no scene where the Prince and the Princess are left in a rosy […]

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.

Jim C. Hines

Jim C. Hines' latest book is THE MERMAID'S MADNESS, the second of his fantasy adventures that retell the old fairy tales with a Charlie's Angels twist. He's also the author of the humorous Goblin Quest trilogy. Jim's short fiction has since appeared in more than 40 magazines and anthologies, including Realms of Fantasy, Turn the Other Chick, and Sword & Sorceress XXI. Jim lives in Michigan with his wife and two children. He's currently hard at work on the fourth book in his fairy tale series. 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.

Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott is the author of multiple fantasy and science fiction novels, including the Crown of Stars series and the Novels of the Jaran. She's currently working on Crossroads; the first novel, Spirit Gate, is already out, and Shadow Gate will be published in Spring 2008. 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 several fantasy novels and short stories, including the Elizabethan faerie spy fantasy Midnight Never Come. 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.

glenda larke

Visit site.

Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough's first novel in the WebMage series, WebMage, was released by Ace in 2006 to considerable critical praise. Cybermancy, and CodeSpell followed in '07 and '08. His 4th, MythOS, is slated for late May '09 with SpellCrash to follow in '10. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Weird Tales, Writers of the Future, and Tales of the Unanticipated. His illustrated collection, The Chronicles of the Wandering Star, is part of a National Science Foundation-funded middle school science curriculum, Interactions in Physical Science. 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.

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