Archive for September, 2011

James Alan Gardner September 29th 2011

The Skill List Project: Starting to Plot

This is another post in The Skill List Project: an attempt to list all the skills involved in writing and selling fiction, particularly science fiction and fantasy. Last time, I laid out some basic terminology for talking about plot. This time, I’ll look at how to get started on developing a plot: figuring out the [...]

Simon Haynes September 25th 2011

About writing for kids

Simon Haynes is the Australian author of the Hal Spacejock series, and the programmer behind yWriter. His latest work is Hal Junior: The Secret Signal, a middle-grade science fiction novel for readers aged 9+. I did a guest blog recently about writing for kids, and I found it hard to stop adding more and more [...]

Marie Brennan September 16th 2011

Research for Writers #2: In Defense of Wikipedia

Ah, Wikipedia. Bane of every teacher who has to grade student papers, butt of a thousand jokes. Not a good source for research, right? Actually, I love Wikipedia. It’s an amazing resource, one I make extensive use of. The trick is, you need to know its strengths and weaknesses, and how to get the most [...]

S.C. Butler September 15th 2011

Is Harry Potter YA?

Not the most important writing question in the world, but one that’s been bugging me for several months. So, I thought I’d ask what you think (after giving my own two cents first): are the Harry Potter books YA? Curmudgeon that I am, I scoff. Nobody called Harry Potter YA when the books first came [...]

Mindy Klasky September 1st 2011

You Don’t Know Me

There’s a T-shirt that vendors sell to tourists near the National Mall.  It purports to be from the Federal Witness Protection Program, and it says:  “You Don’t Know Me”.  For the first time in my life, I’m thinking of buying one. Because, for the first time in my life, I’m writing a novel under a [...]

Author Information

James Alan Gardner

James Alan Gardner got his M.Math from the University of Waterloo with a thesis on black holes...and then he immediately started writing science fiction instead. He's been a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award as well as the Aurora award (twice). He's published seven novels (beginning with "Expendable"), plus a short story collection and (for street cred) a Lara Croft book. He cares deeply about words and sentences, and is working his way up to paragraphs. 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.

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.

Mindy Klasky

Mindy Klasky is the author of eleven novels, including WHEN GOOD WISHES GO BAD and HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH in the As You Wish Series. She also wrote GIRL'S GUIDE TO WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY AND THE SINGLE GIRL, and MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL, about a librarian who finds out she's a witch. Mindy also wrote the award-winning, best-selling Glasswrights series and the stand-alone fantasy novel, SEASON OF SACRIFICE. Visit site.

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