ted chiang

We spend a good bit of time in the Writing F&SF class on how to deliver information. Here’s a useful piece from Kate Elliott talking about how to give your reader what they need.

We also spend a certain amount of time talking about slush piles and how to break out of them. Here’s a story illustrating how hard that can be to do. In light of that, some useful advice from Hugh Howey.

Fireside Magazine is taking flash submissions through May 1.

A really interesting piece talking about neuroscience in fiction, using Ted Chiang’s story “Exhalation.”

Wondering about some of the gender breakdowns in publishing from last year? Here’s coverage of women on f/sf blogs in 2012. Read Renay’s piece talking about the project first. She also mentions a book I highly, highly recommend, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, by Joanna Russ. I found that book in college and it really shaped my thinking.

A Tumblr blog of paying markets, primarily non-fiction.

Another resource, listing writing contests, grants, and awards, from Poets and Writers.

Participants: Lou Anders, Brenda Cooper, Gordon Van Gelder, Cat Rambo, Sam Sykes

Works from 2010:
Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot. (Kindle version)
Lou Anders, (editor) Masked. (Kindle version)
Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan, (editors) Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery. (Kindle version)
Ilona Andrews, Bayou Moon. (Kindle version)
Ilona Andrews, Magic Bleeds. (Kindle version)
Jon Armstrong, Yarn. (Kindle version)
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Alchemist.
Paolo Bacigalupi, Shipbreaker. (Kindle version)
Elizabeth Bear, By the Mountain Bound. (Kindle version)
Elizabeth Bear, Chill. (Kindle version)
Elizabeth Bear, The White City. (Kindle version)
Lauren Beukes. Zoo City. (Kindle version)
Patricia Briggs, Masques. (Kindle version)
Patricia Briggs, Silver Borne. (Kindle version)
Patricia Briggs, Wolfsbane. (Kindle version)
Bullington, Jesse. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart. (Kindle version)
Jim Butcher, Changes. (Kindle version)
Jim Butcher, Side Jobs. (Kindle version)
Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects.
James Enge, Travellers’ Rest. (Kindle version)
Catherine Fisher. Incarceron.
Eric Flint, The Tangled Web (Ring of Fire). (Not recommended as an entry into the series; those new to it should start with 1632).
Kate Griffin. The Midnight Mayor: Or, the Inauguration of Matthew Swift. (Kindle version)
Clay and Susan Griffith, The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, Book 1). (Kindle version)
Hale, Benjamin. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore. (Kindle version)
M.K. Hobson. Native Star. (Kindle version)
Mark Hodder, The Strange Affair of Springheel Jack. (Kindle version) Philip K. Dick award winner)
N. K. Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms. (Kindle version)
Mary Robinette Kowal, Shades of Milk and Honey. (Kindle version)
Ian McDonald, The Dervish House. (Kindle version)
Devon Monk, Magic at the Gate. (Kindle version)
Devon Monk, Magic On the Storm. (Kindle version)
Elizabeth Moon, Oath of Fealty. (Kindle version)
Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death. (Kindle version)
A G Pasquella, Why Not A Spider Monkey Jesus?
Mike Resnick, The Buntline Special: A Weird West Tale. (Kindle version)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Diving Into the Wreck. (Kindle version)
John Scalzi (editor), Metatropolis. (Kindle version)
Sprunk, Jon. Shadow’s Son. (Kindle version)
Sam Sykes, Tome of the Undergates (The Aeons’ Gate, Book 1). (Kindle version)
Ian Tregillis, Bitter Seeds. (Kindle version)

Right off the bat, let me point you at a piece of evidence more compelling than any argument I could muster: the list of short story Hugo winners on Wikipedia. Look at that first one, Eric Frank Russell’s winning “Allamagoosa” in 1955, starting us off with a quirky bang. It’s worth going through that list to see how consistent the quality of the titles is.

Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star” (winner in 1956) actually violates what I tell my students. It’s the sort of name, an article and common noun, devoid of verb that I would circle on a paper. But it’s such a classic story of its time, shamelessly yanking out every emotional stop, and so it’s pretty easy to see why it was that year’s winner.

Past that, others bear out my thesis. Avram Davidson’s “Or All The Sea With Oysters” (winner in 1958) is a stylish killer of a title, carrying a whiff of Caroll-esque steampunk long before its time. Robert Bloch – “That Hellbound Train” (winner in 1959) (What train, the reader wonders, what is it like, who are its riders?); Anton Lee Baker – “They’ve Been Working On…” (nominee in 1959) (Who are they? What are they working on, and why does the author give us that trailing off, that textual pause of the …?); Alfred Bester – “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” (nominee in 1959) (Murder’s a sinewy lump of a word that sometimes overpowers the rest of the title, but here it’s effective as can be.); Algis Budrys – “The Edge of the Sea” (nominee in 1959) ( plain language in a poetic construction, which manages to pull it off given that Bester is usually a guarantee of decent quality that will justify it); C.M. Kornbluth – “The Advent on Channel Twelve” and “Theory of Rocketry” (both nominees in 1959) (simple but powerful); and then Fritz Leiber’s audacious and (imo) funny as hell “Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum_Tah-Tee” (nominee in 1959).