I need to read, both in the genres I write in and outside them. Just read; fill my head with other people's works and ideas and styles and themes. I need the escape that other writers can provide, to be in their reality for awhile, to get off my own frenetic mental hampster wheel. (You needed that earworm, didn't you?)
I need to refill my well creatively with other worlds and art, and the cheapest and easiest way to do that is to read.
I chug books. Wednesday night around 9 p.m. I picked up Sara Paretsky's Ghost Country and finished it around 2 a.m.*; my hardcover copy is 386 pages.
I hear other people talking about re-reading books and am generally nonplussed. Also uneasy; I know I should re-read, especially give how quickly I gulp fiction. How else can I truly appreciate the work that the author has done, the careful phrasing, the way a character has been developed, a setting drawn? But my motivation for reading is to find out what happened. Once I know how things turn out, it's hard to invest the time to go back. The escape I get from fiction is never as strong, never as visceral the second time. I'm an emotional reader; I sink into the action and absorb the feelings and experiences of the characters. (Which is why horror is generally just right out).
When I read a book without a strong plot line, like Angélica Gorodischer’s fantastic Kalpa Imperial, I do much better to read it aloud in chunks; otherwise I have trouble and put it down.
I've been doing so much re-reading of my own stuff while revising that the last thing I want to do is revisit somebody's else's. I might embed it too deeply. I'm terrified I'll use other people's phrases, ideas, concepts, plots without recognizing them. Daily, that self-doubt revisits. This phrase that is so familiar now -- am I sure it's really mine? It's too smooth, too clean, I must have stolen it without realizing it. Could I have read it somewhere else?
And yet, to come full circle, when I am tied in knots about my own plots and wording, reading someone else's work -- particularly writing that is beautifully crafted, tightly plotted, and/or sensually evocative -- takes me out of my self-absorption and refills me with delight for the written word. That enthusiasm and appreciation in turn motivates me to become a better writer myself.
---------------------
* I sometimes wonder how authors who spend years on a novel feel when they hear readers say things like that. I know I despair at times -- I'm spending days on this scene, if I count all the revisions, probably weeks, and a reader is going to blip through this in minutes. Why can't I revise it faster?
Friday, April 27, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
More books to read
More reading suggestions, mostly weird fiction (and a precursor to Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Alejo Carpentier).
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Lots of reading to catch up on
Books to read
Suggested by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Pym by Mat Johnson
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
Big Machine, Victor LaVelle
Suggested by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Pym by Mat Johnson
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
Big Machine, Victor LaVelle
Suggested at Norwescon 2012
Three Worlds Collide, by a neurobiologist
Sandman Slim, Richard Kadry
Lucifer Comics
Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor
The Dark Wife, Sarah Diemer (Persephone and Hades re-telling)
Hero
Witch Eyes, Scott Tracey
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
The Mage of Borne Tractor, Melanie Roan
Lavender Menace Queer Villains
Aqueduct Press Kelly A. Stories
The Steel Remains (rape triggers)
Black Lace Blues (second book better)
Necromancer.. Amanda Downs
Writing the Other by Neise Shawl and Cynthia Ward
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
Direwolf
House Stark
Game of Thrones
Authors:
Elizabeth Bear
Niese Shawl
Clive Barker
Marge Piercy
Online Markets from a Norwescon panel
One of the bad habits I have is filing away notes after going to workshops or panels -- sometimes spending a bit of money and traveling some distance -- and never looking at them again. *headdesk* It's as if I assume I'll remember everything I learned by osmosis. A waste of my time and energy, to say nothing of wasting some really good information and advice!
So one one of my goals with this blog is to revisit Things I Learned Elsewhere here. Not only will I remind myself what I learned by typing up the notes, I'll have a single easy-to-search "notebook" of lessons learned. That's the idea, anyway.
So today's post is about a panel presentation on ONLINE MARKETS at Norwescon in April 2012. Presenters were Cat Rambo, Jude-Marie Green and Tina Connolly.
Any errors below are mine: I had a few hysterical howlers of "what I heard" versus "what they meant." There are probably some still in the copy below; there were a number I couldn't find and that probably has to do with writing down something different than what was said.
I've found links to some markets and included them below. But use Ann's! Another recurring lesson: Someone out there has done what you're trying to do better; don't re-invent the wheel unless you really, really have to.
Why use online markets?
More exposure, shelf life, your family can read your work for free, most are free for your audience and easy for them to find, marketing for your own website, you can research them without shelling out money for a subscription or sample copies.
Find online markets
Places to look for online markets:
Ralan.com
Duotrope.com
The Black Hole tracker
Critters.com
SFWA bulletin (Market Maven column)
Spicy Green Iguana (I could not find a working link to this website).
Angie's Desk, a monthly listing of open anthologies to submit to, complete with full submission directions. Awesome.
Evaluate before you submit
Do you want to send your work to this 'zine? Read the market and its guidelines; find out about its pay scale, exposure (who's linked to it), response time (three months is reasonable; any longer and they get antsy), advertisers, ease of audience use and stability.
A pro market pays five cents a word or more. They spent some time discussing what makes a pro market different from a semi-pro or unpaid market. I didn't take notes on that.
Check to see if reading really is free for your audience, and what kind of ads show up -- do you want Great Aunt Sally or your kids seeing ads for vibrators or bondage gear?
Copyright.
What happens to your rights if a site goes down? You get it back (quantum kiss tanked) Some places go away, some go behind a pay archive.
Think Audio, too.
Most podcasts will buy reprints.
Drabblecast
Clone cast
escapepod
escape artists
A few of the presenters' favorite markets
In no particular order (except the ones without links that might have mistakes in them are at the bottom). Copy after links is from websites in April 2012; go check to see changes, I'm not tracking those).
Many have online submission trackers. One said she sends flash to DSF first; they pay well, will respond quickly. Opened last year, really proved themselves (M-F email flash model)
Look in the back of the Year's Best anthologies for magazines: Like this one, although it's from 2004
****
Ann's Market HAIL AND BLESS THIS WOMAN. She's already done all these links AND provided pay rate. Go visit her site. There are a couple on her page that I think the presenters referred to that I didn't catch at the time.
Also, Mary Soon Lee also has a nice page divided by pay per word.
*****
Everyday Fiction; also inbox model
Everyday Novel; serialized novels
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
The next big writer.com
Buzzy mag
Penumbra, beautiful
Broad Universe.org... support group, not market
Tin House
Glimmer Train
Crab Creek Review(.org) short story contest
(Brain Harvest is closed)
Rich Horton's livejournal, on which he does summaries of his favorite stories from particular magazines, which can give you a quick sense of what the magazine publishes.
Intergalactic Medicine Show. Editor is wonderful but it is Orson Scott Card's mag and apparently there is a paywall.
Tor.com ..
Fantastique (Okay, I found Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders, a Steampunk mag taking sci-fi, fantasy and horror submissions, which doesn't mention pay rate, and Fantastique Unfettered, a periodical of liberated literature which pays one cent a word.
Clarkesworld (from their website): is a monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine first published in October 2006. Each issue contains at least three pieces of original fiction from new and established authors. Our fiction is also collected by issue in signed chapbooks, ebook editions/subscriptionsand in our annual print anthology, Realms.
Ann Leckie's GigaNotoSaurus for the story with more meat on its bones -- longer sci-fi fantasy stories; one a month.
Strange Horizons -- literary weird. Need slush readers right now, which is a great way to get known. Volunteer. (from their website): Strange Horizons is a magazine of and about speculative fiction and related nonfiction. Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, and all other flavors of fantastika. Work published in Strange Horizons has been shortlisted for or won Hugo, Nebula, Rhysling, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards. Strange Horizons publishes fiction, poetry, reviews, essays and interviews. New issues appear weekly, on Mondays, but our blog is updated throughout the week.
Beneath the Ceaseless Skies. (Scott is so good, so careful, someone said).
(from their website): A SFWA-qualifying, pro-rate online magazine dedicated to publishing the best in literary adventure fantasy. We were the runner-up instorySouth's Million Writers Award for the Best New Online Magazine of 2008. At the close of 2009, reviewer and editor Rich Horton called us "a really important source of fantasy." We love traditional adventure fantasy, including classics from the pulp era and the new wave of post-Tolkien fantasy. But we also love how the recent influence of literary writing on fantasy short fiction has expanded the genre, allowing writers the freedom to use literary devices such as tight points-of-view, round characters, unreliable narrators, discontinuous narratives, and others. This sophisticated level of craft has made fantasy short fiction more powerful than ever before. We want stories that combine the best of both these styles—adventure fantasy plots in vivid secondary worlds, but written with a literary flair.Beneath Ceaseless Skies will feature exciting stories set in awe-inspiring places that are told with all the skill and impact of modern literary-influenced fantasy. That's what we mean by literary adventure fantasy. It could also be called modern traditional fantasy or literary swords and sorcery. There are many current short fiction markets that specialize in literary-style fantasy, and a hardy few that still publish adventure fantasy, but there is no magazine focusing on stories that combine both. Until now. Beneath Ceaseless Skies publishes two stories per issue, with a new issue every two weeks. Readers can subscribe by email notification or by RSS feed. We also release selected stories as Audio Fiction podcasts every two weeks. We maintain an online forum and a Facebook page to update submitting writers and to encourage reader discussion of all things fantasy.
Lightspeed -- recently merged with Fantasy mag and are taking both sci fi and fantasy
(from their website): Lightspeed is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales. No subject is off-limits, and we encourage our writers to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope. Lightspeed was a finalist for the 2011 Hugo Award, and stories from Lightspeed have been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams, every month Lightspeed brings you a mix of originals and reprints, and featuring a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven’t heard of yet. When you read Lightspeed, it is our hope that you’ll see where science fiction and fantasy comes from, where it is now, and where it’s going. Lightspeed also includes feature interviews, fiction podcasts, and Q&As with our authors that go behind-the-scenes of their stories. While Lightspeed originally published only science fiction, in January 2012, we merged with our sister publication,Fantasy Magazine, and we now publish an equal amount of fantasy and science fiction.
Daily Science Fiction (from their website): "Science Fiction" means—to us—everything found in the science fiction section of a bookstore, or at a science fiction convention, or amongst the winners of the Hugo awards given by the World Science Fiction Society. This includes the genres of science fiction (or sci-fi), fantasy, slipstream, alternative history, and even stories with lighter speculative elements. We hope you enjoy the broad range that SF has to offer.
chiaroscuro (from their website): Last year, ChiZine introduced a new look and new management for the Megazine issue. We were blown away by the support we had from our readers and authors, who came through for us at a difficult time. A heartfelt thanks to you all! By the end of 2011, however, it was clear that we would not be able to keep ChiZine exactly as it has been maintained in the past. Our own (Brett and Sandra's) efforts have become more absorbed by ChiZine Publications and the associated CZP side ventures. At the same time, the ChiZine family has grown as well, and there are more hands around to pick up the slack and to try new things. We have been and will be continuing to experiment with the magazine and its managment. We are trying to keep what works and do away with what doesn't. Largely, these changes are to make the magazine simpler to maintain and less driven by deadlines and more by content. This January, we will begin experimenting with a new release schedule. We will be moving away from a four-issue-per-year format and into something more appropriate to the way people read and access the magazine. Expect to see something here—a book review, a piece of fiction, a poem, or an essay—every week or so. What won't be changing is the ChiZine brand. Expect to find the finest dark literary content and uncompromising commitment to oddity that we have provided in the past. CZP publishes the same kind of weird, subtle, surreal, disturbing dark fiction and fantasy that ChiZine has become known for since 1997, only in longer form—novels, novellas, and short story collections. ChiZine Publications is willing to take risks. We’re looking for the unusual, the interesting, the thought-provoking. We look for writers who are also willing to take risks, who want to take dark genre fiction to a new place, who want to show readers something they haven’t seen before. CZP wants to startle, to astound, to share the bliss of good writing with our readership. What's Dark Genre Fiction? We say "dark genre fiction" because too much time is spent fighting over SF vs. horror vs. fantasy. If there're dragons, it's fantasy . . . Unless they're bio-engineered dragons, then it's SF . . . But a dragon apocalypse might be horror . . . We want stories using speculative elements—magic, technology, insanity, gods, or insane-magic-technology-gods all in one—to show the dark side of human nature. The good guy can feel—and act on—anger, hatred, vengeance just like the villain. Heroes don't always win, conclusions don’t always wrap things up nicely, and sometimes things can take a turn that’s just plain weird . . . even for the genre.
Redstone Science Fiction (from their website): publishes quality stories from across the science fiction spectrum. We are interested in everything from post-cyberpunk to new space opera. We want to live forever. Get us off this rock. We have all been reading Science Fiction and Fantasy since we were children. It has been a key element in our lives. From writing and submitting our own stories, we’ve learned that there are only a handful of online & print magazines that pay a professional rate for original science fiction stories. We decided that there needed to be one more. We know the magazine will probably not be profitable, but we have planned for that. We will focus on producing a quality science fiction magazine and on exploring every opportunity to make Redstone Science Fiction a long-term success.
Crossed Genres (not mentioned in my notes?) (from their website):. Crossed Genres Publications is a small press publisher of speculative fiction. CGP is the publisher of Crossed Genres Magazine. The magazine was founded in September 2008; Issue #1 was released on December 1, 2008. Crossed Genres Magazine works a bit differently than most magazines. Every month, a new genre is chosen as the Current Genre; for that month, all Fiction and Cover Art submissions must combine that genre with some aspect of Science Fiction or Fantasy. The online magazine is free to read. All submissions will be considered for publication in the magazine, which is published monthly online, and in print & ebook on a quarterly basis. The magazine also includes articles, artwork (both also accepted by submission) and interviews. If you want to submit a story, article or artwork, visit the submissions page for instructions. In December 2010 Crossed Genres released its first novel, A Festival of Skeletons by New Zealand author RJ Astruc. CGP is currently serializing its 2nd novel, the tense & invigorating Broken Slate by Kelly Jennings; Broken Slate will be published in print and ebook in July 2011.
Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction.
Apex Magazine (from their website): is an online prose and poetry magazine of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mash-ups of all three. Works full of marrow and passion, stories that are twisted, strange, and beautiful. Creations where secret places and dreams are put on display. Each month we bring you a mix of originals and reprints, interspersed with interviews and nonfiction. We have published many of the top short form writers working today: Mary Robinette Kowal, Saladin Ahmed, Genevieve Valentine, Amal El-Mohtar, Forrest Aguirre, Nick Matamas, Theodora Goss, Nalo Hopkinson, Eugie Foster, Cat Rambo, Jeff VanderMeer, Seanan McGuire, and Jennifer Pelland. And we’ve also presented the first professional work of amazing new writers such as Indrapramit Das, T.J. Weyler, Kathryn Weaver, Kelly Barnhill, Douglas F. Warrick, and Jeremy R. Butler. Apex Magazine placed two stories in the 2010 Nebula Award category of Best Short Story. Another was a finalist for the Million Writers Award. Four different stories from 2010 were selected for one of the “Year’s Best” anthologies–two stories were selected multiple times. A new issue is posted and placed on sale the first Tuesday of every month. Content can be read for free via the website. Alternatively, annual subscriptions are available and all our issues can be purchased in single issue formats (ePub/mobi/PDF or from the Kindle and nook stores). Apex. Orig print reprints for website
Hadley Rille Books (hardcopy anthologies) offers a flash fiction contest.
Corrections on the following welcome:
Imbrain (?)
Berinsnake (?)-- onine and print and also weird odd literary things.
G.U.D.?
Other links I found while looking around, not mentioned in panel
Ansible's list of magazines and other Sci-Fi resources.
Small presses and poetry
Senses Five Press (from their website):publishes fine speculative literature, including Sybil’s Garage and Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. Stories and poems in Sybil’s Garage have been selected for or received honorable mentions in several Year’s Best anthologies, have been nominated for Rhysling and Sir Julius Vogel Awards, and consistently receives high praise for its unique blend of fiction, poetry, and visual aesthetics. Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, ed. Ekaterina Sedia, won the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
Papaveria Press (from their website): is a micro-press founded in 2001 in the arts district of Philadelphia and now based in the UK. We do this because we love books. We create very small or miniature hand-bound editions and trade paperbacks, seeking out works from the fields of fairy tales and myth.
Apex Publications (from their website): an independent press publisher dedicated to producing exemplary works of science fiction, horror, fantasy and non-fiction. Based out of Lexington, Kentucky, Apex Book Company is owned and operated by Jason B. Sizemore. Apex Publications also operates The Zombie Feed Press. The Zombie Feed is a zombie imprint helmed by Ty Schwamberger and created to feed the carnivorous appetites of zombie fans.
STONE TELLING (from their website): is a speculative poetry quarterly dedicated to showcasing multi-perspective work of literary quality. Please look at the submission guidelines to see what we're after, and at the About page to find out more information about Stone Telling. You are also invited to visit our Livejournal community, stonetellingmag.
Goblin Fruit (from their website): We want poetry that we can call "of the fantastical", poetry that treats mythic, surreal, fantasy and folkloric themes, or approaches other themes in a fantastical way. Re-write a fairytale, ponder an old story, consider history from an unusual perspective -- really, it's up to you, so long as the fantastical element is there. Since what qualifies as "the fantastical" is easily debatable, however, here's what we're not interested in: science fiction poetry (it's not you, it's us), horror for horror's sake, and poetry that's self-consciously gothic.
So one one of my goals with this blog is to revisit Things I Learned Elsewhere here. Not only will I remind myself what I learned by typing up the notes, I'll have a single easy-to-search "notebook" of lessons learned. That's the idea, anyway.
So today's post is about a panel presentation on ONLINE MARKETS at Norwescon in April 2012. Presenters were Cat Rambo, Jude-Marie Green and Tina Connolly.
Any errors below are mine: I had a few hysterical howlers of "what I heard" versus "what they meant." There are probably some still in the copy below; there were a number I couldn't find and that probably has to do with writing down something different than what was said.
I've found links to some markets and included them below. But use Ann's! Another recurring lesson: Someone out there has done what you're trying to do better; don't re-invent the wheel unless you really, really have to.
Why use online markets?
More exposure, shelf life, your family can read your work for free, most are free for your audience and easy for them to find, marketing for your own website, you can research them without shelling out money for a subscription or sample copies.
Find online markets
Places to look for online markets:
Ralan.com
Duotrope.com
The Black Hole tracker
Critters.com
SFWA bulletin (Market Maven column)
Spicy Green Iguana (I could not find a working link to this website).
Angie's Desk, a monthly listing of open anthologies to submit to, complete with full submission directions. Awesome.
Evaluate before you submit
Do you want to send your work to this 'zine? Read the market and its guidelines; find out about its pay scale, exposure (who's linked to it), response time (three months is reasonable; any longer and they get antsy), advertisers, ease of audience use and stability.
A pro market pays five cents a word or more. They spent some time discussing what makes a pro market different from a semi-pro or unpaid market. I didn't take notes on that.
Check to see if reading really is free for your audience, and what kind of ads show up -- do you want Great Aunt Sally or your kids seeing ads for vibrators or bondage gear?
Copyright.
What happens to your rights if a site goes down? You get it back (quantum kiss tanked) Some places go away, some go behind a pay archive.
Think Audio, too.
Most podcasts will buy reprints.
Drabblecast
Clone cast
escapepod
escape artists
A few of the presenters' favorite markets
In no particular order (except the ones without links that might have mistakes in them are at the bottom). Copy after links is from websites in April 2012; go check to see changes, I'm not tracking those).
Many have online submission trackers. One said she sends flash to DSF first; they pay well, will respond quickly. Opened last year, really proved themselves (M-F email flash model)
Look in the back of the Year's Best anthologies for magazines: Like this one, although it's from 2004
****
Ann's Market HAIL AND BLESS THIS WOMAN. She's already done all these links AND provided pay rate. Go visit her site. There are a couple on her page that I think the presenters referred to that I didn't catch at the time.
Also, Mary Soon Lee also has a nice page divided by pay per word.
*****
Everyday Fiction; also inbox model
Everyday Novel; serialized novels
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
The next big writer.com
Buzzy mag
Penumbra, beautiful
Broad Universe.org... support group, not market
Tin House
Glimmer Train
Crab Creek Review(.org) short story contest
(Brain Harvest is closed)
Rich Horton's livejournal, on which he does summaries of his favorite stories from particular magazines, which can give you a quick sense of what the magazine publishes.
Intergalactic Medicine Show. Editor is wonderful but it is Orson Scott Card's mag and apparently there is a paywall.
Tor.com ..
Fantastique (Okay, I found Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders, a Steampunk mag taking sci-fi, fantasy and horror submissions, which doesn't mention pay rate, and Fantastique Unfettered, a periodical of liberated literature which pays one cent a word.
Clarkesworld (from their website): is a monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine first published in October 2006. Each issue contains at least three pieces of original fiction from new and established authors. Our fiction is also collected by issue in signed chapbooks, ebook editions/subscriptionsand in our annual print anthology, Realms.
Ann Leckie's GigaNotoSaurus for the story with more meat on its bones -- longer sci-fi fantasy stories; one a month.
Strange Horizons -- literary weird. Need slush readers right now, which is a great way to get known. Volunteer. (from their website): Strange Horizons is a magazine of and about speculative fiction and related nonfiction. Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, and all other flavors of fantastika. Work published in Strange Horizons has been shortlisted for or won Hugo, Nebula, Rhysling, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards. Strange Horizons publishes fiction, poetry, reviews, essays and interviews. New issues appear weekly, on Mondays, but our blog is updated throughout the week.
Beneath the Ceaseless Skies. (Scott is so good, so careful, someone said).
(from their website): A SFWA-qualifying, pro-rate online magazine dedicated to publishing the best in literary adventure fantasy. We were the runner-up instorySouth's Million Writers Award for the Best New Online Magazine of 2008. At the close of 2009, reviewer and editor Rich Horton called us "a really important source of fantasy." We love traditional adventure fantasy, including classics from the pulp era and the new wave of post-Tolkien fantasy. But we also love how the recent influence of literary writing on fantasy short fiction has expanded the genre, allowing writers the freedom to use literary devices such as tight points-of-view, round characters, unreliable narrators, discontinuous narratives, and others. This sophisticated level of craft has made fantasy short fiction more powerful than ever before. We want stories that combine the best of both these styles—adventure fantasy plots in vivid secondary worlds, but written with a literary flair.Beneath Ceaseless Skies will feature exciting stories set in awe-inspiring places that are told with all the skill and impact of modern literary-influenced fantasy. That's what we mean by literary adventure fantasy. It could also be called modern traditional fantasy or literary swords and sorcery. There are many current short fiction markets that specialize in literary-style fantasy, and a hardy few that still publish adventure fantasy, but there is no magazine focusing on stories that combine both. Until now. Beneath Ceaseless Skies publishes two stories per issue, with a new issue every two weeks. Readers can subscribe by email notification or by RSS feed. We also release selected stories as Audio Fiction podcasts every two weeks. We maintain an online forum and a Facebook page to update submitting writers and to encourage reader discussion of all things fantasy.
Lightspeed -- recently merged with Fantasy mag and are taking both sci fi and fantasy
(from their website): Lightspeed is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales. No subject is off-limits, and we encourage our writers to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope. Lightspeed was a finalist for the 2011 Hugo Award, and stories from Lightspeed have been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams, every month Lightspeed brings you a mix of originals and reprints, and featuring a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven’t heard of yet. When you read Lightspeed, it is our hope that you’ll see where science fiction and fantasy comes from, where it is now, and where it’s going. Lightspeed also includes feature interviews, fiction podcasts, and Q&As with our authors that go behind-the-scenes of their stories. While Lightspeed originally published only science fiction, in January 2012, we merged with our sister publication,Fantasy Magazine, and we now publish an equal amount of fantasy and science fiction.
Daily Science Fiction (from their website): "Science Fiction" means—to us—everything found in the science fiction section of a bookstore, or at a science fiction convention, or amongst the winners of the Hugo awards given by the World Science Fiction Society. This includes the genres of science fiction (or sci-fi), fantasy, slipstream, alternative history, and even stories with lighter speculative elements. We hope you enjoy the broad range that SF has to offer.
chiaroscuro (from their website): Last year, ChiZine introduced a new look and new management for the Megazine issue. We were blown away by the support we had from our readers and authors, who came through for us at a difficult time. A heartfelt thanks to you all! By the end of 2011, however, it was clear that we would not be able to keep ChiZine exactly as it has been maintained in the past. Our own (Brett and Sandra's) efforts have become more absorbed by ChiZine Publications and the associated CZP side ventures. At the same time, the ChiZine family has grown as well, and there are more hands around to pick up the slack and to try new things. We have been and will be continuing to experiment with the magazine and its managment. We are trying to keep what works and do away with what doesn't. Largely, these changes are to make the magazine simpler to maintain and less driven by deadlines and more by content. This January, we will begin experimenting with a new release schedule. We will be moving away from a four-issue-per-year format and into something more appropriate to the way people read and access the magazine. Expect to see something here—a book review, a piece of fiction, a poem, or an essay—every week or so. What won't be changing is the ChiZine brand. Expect to find the finest dark literary content and uncompromising commitment to oddity that we have provided in the past. CZP publishes the same kind of weird, subtle, surreal, disturbing dark fiction and fantasy that ChiZine has become known for since 1997, only in longer form—novels, novellas, and short story collections. ChiZine Publications is willing to take risks. We’re looking for the unusual, the interesting, the thought-provoking. We look for writers who are also willing to take risks, who want to take dark genre fiction to a new place, who want to show readers something they haven’t seen before. CZP wants to startle, to astound, to share the bliss of good writing with our readership. What's Dark Genre Fiction? We say "dark genre fiction" because too much time is spent fighting over SF vs. horror vs. fantasy. If there're dragons, it's fantasy . . . Unless they're bio-engineered dragons, then it's SF . . . But a dragon apocalypse might be horror . . . We want stories using speculative elements—magic, technology, insanity, gods, or insane-magic-technology-gods all in one—to show the dark side of human nature. The good guy can feel—and act on—anger, hatred, vengeance just like the villain. Heroes don't always win, conclusions don’t always wrap things up nicely, and sometimes things can take a turn that’s just plain weird . . . even for the genre.
Redstone Science Fiction (from their website): publishes quality stories from across the science fiction spectrum. We are interested in everything from post-cyberpunk to new space opera. We want to live forever. Get us off this rock. We have all been reading Science Fiction and Fantasy since we were children. It has been a key element in our lives. From writing and submitting our own stories, we’ve learned that there are only a handful of online & print magazines that pay a professional rate for original science fiction stories. We decided that there needed to be one more. We know the magazine will probably not be profitable, but we have planned for that. We will focus on producing a quality science fiction magazine and on exploring every opportunity to make Redstone Science Fiction a long-term success.
Crossed Genres (not mentioned in my notes?) (from their website):. Crossed Genres Publications is a small press publisher of speculative fiction. CGP is the publisher of Crossed Genres Magazine. The magazine was founded in September 2008; Issue #1 was released on December 1, 2008. Crossed Genres Magazine works a bit differently than most magazines. Every month, a new genre is chosen as the Current Genre; for that month, all Fiction and Cover Art submissions must combine that genre with some aspect of Science Fiction or Fantasy. The online magazine is free to read. All submissions will be considered for publication in the magazine, which is published monthly online, and in print & ebook on a quarterly basis. The magazine also includes articles, artwork (both also accepted by submission) and interviews. If you want to submit a story, article or artwork, visit the submissions page for instructions. In December 2010 Crossed Genres released its first novel, A Festival of Skeletons by New Zealand author RJ Astruc. CGP is currently serializing its 2nd novel, the tense & invigorating Broken Slate by Kelly Jennings; Broken Slate will be published in print and ebook in July 2011.
Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction.
Apex Magazine (from their website): is an online prose and poetry magazine of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mash-ups of all three. Works full of marrow and passion, stories that are twisted, strange, and beautiful. Creations where secret places and dreams are put on display. Each month we bring you a mix of originals and reprints, interspersed with interviews and nonfiction. We have published many of the top short form writers working today: Mary Robinette Kowal, Saladin Ahmed, Genevieve Valentine, Amal El-Mohtar, Forrest Aguirre, Nick Matamas, Theodora Goss, Nalo Hopkinson, Eugie Foster, Cat Rambo, Jeff VanderMeer, Seanan McGuire, and Jennifer Pelland. And we’ve also presented the first professional work of amazing new writers such as Indrapramit Das, T.J. Weyler, Kathryn Weaver, Kelly Barnhill, Douglas F. Warrick, and Jeremy R. Butler. Apex Magazine placed two stories in the 2010 Nebula Award category of Best Short Story. Another was a finalist for the Million Writers Award. Four different stories from 2010 were selected for one of the “Year’s Best” anthologies–two stories were selected multiple times. A new issue is posted and placed on sale the first Tuesday of every month. Content can be read for free via the website. Alternatively, annual subscriptions are available and all our issues can be purchased in single issue formats (ePub/mobi/PDF or from the Kindle and nook stores). Apex. Orig print reprints for website
Hadley Rille Books (hardcopy anthologies) offers a flash fiction contest.
Corrections on the following welcome:
Imbrain (?)
Berinsnake (?)-- onine and print and also weird odd literary things.
G.U.D.?
Other links I found while looking around, not mentioned in panel
Ansible's list of magazines and other Sci-Fi resources.
Small presses and poetry
Senses Five Press (from their website):publishes fine speculative literature, including Sybil’s Garage and Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. Stories and poems in Sybil’s Garage have been selected for or received honorable mentions in several Year’s Best anthologies, have been nominated for Rhysling and Sir Julius Vogel Awards, and consistently receives high praise for its unique blend of fiction, poetry, and visual aesthetics. Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, ed. Ekaterina Sedia, won the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
Papaveria Press (from their website): is a micro-press founded in 2001 in the arts district of Philadelphia and now based in the UK. We do this because we love books. We create very small or miniature hand-bound editions and trade paperbacks, seeking out works from the fields of fairy tales and myth.
Apex Publications (from their website): an independent press publisher dedicated to producing exemplary works of science fiction, horror, fantasy and non-fiction. Based out of Lexington, Kentucky, Apex Book Company is owned and operated by Jason B. Sizemore. Apex Publications also operates The Zombie Feed Press. The Zombie Feed is a zombie imprint helmed by Ty Schwamberger and created to feed the carnivorous appetites of zombie fans.
STONE TELLING (from their website): is a speculative poetry quarterly dedicated to showcasing multi-perspective work of literary quality. Please look at the submission guidelines to see what we're after, and at the About page to find out more information about Stone Telling. You are also invited to visit our Livejournal community, stonetellingmag.
Goblin Fruit (from their website): We want poetry that we can call "of the fantastical", poetry that treats mythic, surreal, fantasy and folkloric themes, or approaches other themes in a fantastical way. Re-write a fairytale, ponder an old story, consider history from an unusual perspective -- really, it's up to you, so long as the fantastical element is there. Since what qualifies as "the fantastical" is easily debatable, however, here's what we're not interested in: science fiction poetry (it's not you, it's us), horror for horror's sake, and poetry that's self-consciously gothic.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
New lessons, too
I'll also write about things that I think I've never learned before, or have had reinforced in new ways, when I've had opportunities to learn.
Had one of those yesterday at a writing workshop that followed a morning of planting cedar trees. First workshop I've ever taken with muddy knees.
Ana Marie Spagna told us that the best stories tell more than one story at once, and I heartily agree.
She also disagreed somewhat with one if the basic bits of advice many of us have been given: conflict, conflict, conflict!
Her take is that literary fiction can be about connections. I liked that, because what I remember from many of the deeply significant works I've read has not been the conflict -- which often existed -- but the connections forced or forged during the process. Conflict at some level was doubtless part of the work, but the focus was the connection.
That was something I don't believe I've learned elsewhere before, but I'm sure someone will remind me otherwise at some point.
Beginnings
One of my favorite .sig files is a quote from Chaim Potok, "All beginnings are hard."
Which makes it very tempting to make that a one-sentence post, but I probably shouldn't cop out like that, so I won't. I'm starting this blog in part because I'm tired of not being able to comment on places that only accept blogger IDs, and more importantly because I want an online presence of some form should any of those novels on my hard drive ever pique the interest of an agent.
A third reason is reflected in the title. I have a bad habit of forgetting things I don't see in writing. Even then, lessons I've learned are sometimes re-learned before they begin to stick. I see my friends' eyes start to roll when I rhapsodize about some new bit of writing I've learned or something about life I've taken to heart and I realize they've heard me go on and on about this before -- sometimes three or four times over the course of several years. Some days I feel like I've forgotten more than I've learned.
Epiphanies recur.
The point of this blog, for me, is to record what I've learned about the craft of writing, to remember and to illustrate the lessons so they stick with me longer. The process of taking notes always did help me remember. I was a straight-A student, pretty much, so feeling like a slow learner in the craft of writing would be harder to admit if I hadn't started feeling like I needed a remedial course in life sometime in my 20s.
But writing and reading are all about learning things over and over, at least for me, in deeper and more meaningful ways. How many times have you read a novel that won't quite let go of you until you realize there was a subtext, a deeper meaning, you'd overlooked? Maybe each time I relearn something I learn something a bit more profound about it.
I'd take that.
Which makes it very tempting to make that a one-sentence post, but I probably shouldn't cop out like that, so I won't. I'm starting this blog in part because I'm tired of not being able to comment on places that only accept blogger IDs, and more importantly because I want an online presence of some form should any of those novels on my hard drive ever pique the interest of an agent.
A third reason is reflected in the title. I have a bad habit of forgetting things I don't see in writing. Even then, lessons I've learned are sometimes re-learned before they begin to stick. I see my friends' eyes start to roll when I rhapsodize about some new bit of writing I've learned or something about life I've taken to heart and I realize they've heard me go on and on about this before -- sometimes three or four times over the course of several years. Some days I feel like I've forgotten more than I've learned.
Epiphanies recur.
The point of this blog, for me, is to record what I've learned about the craft of writing, to remember and to illustrate the lessons so they stick with me longer. The process of taking notes always did help me remember. I was a straight-A student, pretty much, so feeling like a slow learner in the craft of writing would be harder to admit if I hadn't started feeling like I needed a remedial course in life sometime in my 20s.
But writing and reading are all about learning things over and over, at least for me, in deeper and more meaningful ways. How many times have you read a novel that won't quite let go of you until you realize there was a subtext, a deeper meaning, you'd overlooked? Maybe each time I relearn something I learn something a bit more profound about it.
I'd take that.
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