I didn't expect the Happy Kittens movement would start this quickly, but stuff is happening. Hugo Award Winner Mary Robinette Kowal has made the speculative fiction community an offer it can't refuse. The Puppy masters convinced their supporters to pay up for Worldcon memberships so they could vote on their slates and they did it. Sasquan, the 73rd ( Read more... )

So a lot of people are angry with the Hugo nomination results and not for the first time. This year the pundits are more upset than ever. The Sad/Rabid Puppies campaign, led by Brad Torgersen, Larry Correia and Vox Day, to put their favorites on the ballot was significantly successful and many in the community saw it as a slap against progression ( Read more... )

Yesterday I learned that Epinions.com is shutting down the community aspect of its website. It won't be accepting anymore new reviews. (It officially started disabling the website yesterday.) A huge part of their reasoning was decreasing participation. Sadly, I was one who wasn't keeping up. My activity has been practically been non-existent since ( Read more... )

This year we're seeing the first contested bidding for the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon 73) that the community has seen in several years. Among the three contending bids to host in 2015 are Spokane, Washington; Orlando; and Helsinki. All full-attending and supporting members of this year's Worldcon, aka LoneStarCon 3, are ( Read more... )

The thing I like best about the World Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon) is that it gives me a reason to travel to places I probably wouldn’t choose on my own. In 2007, the honor (or sentence, depending on how the individual interprets it) of hosting it was awarded to the Montréal bidding committee, who held it August 6-10, 2009. With ( Read more... )

This actually warrants a longer, more thoughtful essay, but since I'm flying to Denver tomorrow morning and this is timely, I'm going to make it short. As I pack for my trip, I have been watching the local news and it ran a story on the consumer review website, Yelp. The integrity of consumer reviews has always been questioned, but apparently Yelp ( Read more... )

An agent I had met at Windycon 34 left the agency he was with, so I googled him and ran across a website that looks like a very helpful resource for writers. It's called LitMatch and does nothing except list agents and agencies. I've had published authors ask me if I knew of any agents looking for writers, so I thought I'd share this URL ( Read more... )

I finally did it. I finally got DSL. I spent all evening yesterday installing my new modem. The ethernet cable confused me because both ends had telephone-like jacks on them and the yellow socket on the back of my computer had a round socket. I called AT&T and it wasn't until 11:30 p.m. until both e-mail and internet service were thoroughly ( Read more... )

A friend at work introduced me to a British website for new writers, You Write On, where users can exchange constructive criticism for novels and short stories, whether they be completed or in progress. It is sponsored by the Arts Council and those who are rated well will have their work looked at by industry editors and agents. My friend, by the ( Read more... )

I've been making some inquiries about the upcoming bids for Worldcon and am somewhat assured they bode a future for writers workshops ( Read more... )