Category Archives: Uncategorized

The New York Times published a piece last week about the latest tool being utilized by Hollywood movie executives:  statistics and algorithms.  It sounds a lot like the sabermetrics chronicled in Moneyball, except applied to storytelling rather than sports.  This … Continue reading →

Special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen passed away yesterday in London at the age of 92.  You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who works in the SF genre (whether writing or filmmaking) who doesn’t owe a considerable debt to Harryhausen in … Continue reading →

This year’s nominees for the Shirley Jackson Award have been announced (taken from their website).  Congratulations to everyone; the winners will be revealed in July at Readercon 24. NOVEL The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (ROC) The Devil in Silver, … Continue reading →

Jeremy Greenfield has an interesting article about writers as control freaks.  I agree with the sentiment; e-books allow writers to control many more variables (price, cover, meta-data, etc.) than traditional publishers allow.  Most variables are still out of authors’ hands, … Continue reading →

An interesting article from the New York Times about writers with terminal illnesses who throw themselves into their work during the final months.  Every author should be so lucky to be able to write up until the very end. And Neil Gaiman gave … Continue reading →

On Friday, April 19, I will be at the Progress Energy art gallery in New Port Richey for an authors’ soiree.  Several writers from the community will be in attendance, and it’s open to the public.  Drop by and say hello … Continue reading →

I came across this 50-year-old documentary about Ray Bradbury from 1963.  This is a great piece that follows Bradbury’s writing process from idea creation through story submission.  This is Bradbury at his height, and well worth a look. Another interesting article … Continue reading →

Two developments of note: A good article about agent-assisted publishing and Amazon’s White Glove program.  This seems like the next logical step for literary agents, and it’s one that should make authors wary.  Rather than pay 15% of your income … Continue reading →

It’s been a rough week or so for the horror genre.  We lost three great writers in a very short span:  David B. Silva, James Herbert and Rick Hautala, all in their sixties.  Although no longer with us in body, … Continue reading →

Last week John Scalzi, current president of the SFWA, blasted Random House for unconscionable terms in its contracts.  Specifically the Hydra imprint, RH’s latest SF/F/H venture that deals only with e-books.  Read all about it here.  After the very public … Continue reading →