This is the first day of Banned Books week. It’s a celebration of the right to read. Books are constantly challenged in the context of the right to read them, the right to sell them, the right for teachers and libraries to include specific books in their curricula and libraries. Book challenges and book bans take … Read more
SPENCER ELLSWORTH’s short fiction has previously appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Tor.com. He is the author of the Starfire Trilogy, which begins with Starfire: A Red Peace. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and three children and works as a teacher/administrator at a small tribal college on a Native … Read more
Melinda Snodgrass is the author of many SF novels, including the Circuit and Edge series. She also writes for and is the co-editor with George R. R. Martin of the Wild Cards series. She served as the story editor for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and wrote several episodes for ST:NG and other shows. An … Read more
The July session of Camp NaNoWritMo is about to start. Like the April NaNoWriMo Camp, Camp in July is an opportunity to work on projects with word count goals between 30 and 1,000,000. Writers can work on any project they’d like, including new novel drafts, revision, poetry, scripts, and short stories. A lot of writers … Read more
Baker of brownies and tormenter of characters, Alice Loweecey recently celebrated her thirtieth year outside the convent. She grew up watching Hammer horror films and Scooby-Doo mysteries, which explains a whole lot. When she’s not creating trouble for her sleuth Giulia Driscoll or inspiring nightmares as her alter-ego Kate Morgan, she can be found growing … Read more
I’m one of those writers who came to writing from reading. I never had any intention of “being a writer,” or writing for a living. I wanted to read books. I still love reading, not only the kind of reading where you inhale the pages out of pure narrative lust, but close reading, the kind … Read more
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Poetry is the philanthropy of the illuminated mind to the dulled wits of those immured in the tragedy of mundanity. —Aero Gantz of Pampa City.[/perfectpullquote] Poetry is the truest literary, spoken and visualized form of communication. Whether sonnet, haiku or that apex of wit, the limerick. Only the poet … Read more
You probably already know about National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. It’s all about writing a novel in a month. But twice a year, in April and July, there’s a version of NaNoWriMo called Camp NaNoWriMo. The basic idea behind the April Camp NaNo is that you spend the month of April working on a … Read more
Marko Kloos is the author of the Frontlines series of military Science Fiction and a member of George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards consortium. Born and raised in Germany, Marko now lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two children. Their compound, Castle Frostbite, is patrolled by a roving pack of dachshunds. Marko Kloos has a website. … Read more
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] I still like writing by hand. Normally I do a first draft using pen and paper, and then do my first edit when I type it onto my computer. For some reason, I much prefer writing with a black pen than a blue one, and in a perfect … Read more
