On Genre

"Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, and Gene Wolfe discuss science-fiction writing with Studs Terkel and Calvin Trillin on the Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS)"

“Game of Thrones” is not genre for guys! Think you hate fantasy writing? So did I. But "Game of Thrones" taught me to look beyond my literary prejudices by LAURA MILLER

Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale -- good genre or no?

SyFy Wants To Distance Itself From Bad Monster Movies And Return to Its Genre Roots

Studio 360: YOU’RE LIVING IN A SCIENCE FICTION STORY with David Brin and Claire Evans

NPR:  When Modernism Met Science Fiction: Three New Wave Classics by KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

Reading Update: Fiction

-- Rereading Anne McCaffrey's 1st award-winning Pern stories that made up the first of the novels. Still potent.

--Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman (actually was reading it when my Kindle died)-- survival among the early hominids.

--Dan Krokos' Planet Thieves -- finished awhile ago and was in the writing throes of a review when a triptych of tech woes steered me off course.  The book's a fun YA romp with "alien" baddies.

--Scott Nicholson's Transparent Lovers, a PS Publishing noir-flavored novella about a detective coming back to life to find his murderer and stopping another in process.

--Cate Gardner -- short stories mostly.  Often takes a situation--sometimes common trope, sometimes not--and milks out the emotion of such a scenario.  This and her sometimes startling imagery are her strengths.

--J Kathleen Cheney's The Golden City -- approaching 1/2 way mark.  A cross between Tim Powers, Jane Austen, and a mystery--an original confection set in early 20th century Portugal--both familiar and sufficiently strange.  The love story's kicking in.


--Robert Heinlein (finished Menace from Earth collection -- I just need a stretch of time to write.

--Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.  Loved as a boy.  Still delightful.  It begins as a picaresque tale, but slowly events shape others.  Wonderful studying how Twain twists his turns.  I still remember thinking, "Man, if Tom's this ornery, imagine Huck's Adventures!"  And then Huck wasn't near so bad.  His was still a good story, but for different reasons.

Authors speak on...

Graham Joyce on his first novel, Dreamside.

Jon Armstrong's audio interview with Richard Bowes

Michael Swanwick on the creative process and not knowing how "luminous" a piece is until later.

Jeremy Zimmerman on his novella, Kensei. (Mary Robinette Kowal's blog)

Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells discuss story openings.

Ian McEwan on general questions, semi-literary interest.

Kim Stanley Robinson on Terraforming Earth

IO9 on Molly Gloss

David Farland/Wolverton workshops

Literary links

Where sentences come from (for one writer)

How to write reviews

James Gunn's Ad Astra magazine

Recommended nonfiction and science fiction

Grammar website with quizzes (costs money but worth it)

Kim Stanley Robinson interviewed by About SF

Literary terms (with examples)

1. http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/glossary_of_poetic_terms.htm
2. http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/poetic_glossary.html

Justin Cronin on craft (several similar videos)

LONTAR, southeast Asia journal (edited by Jason Erik Lundberg and Kristine Ong Muslim)

We see a different frontier

David Farland/Dave Wolverton's writing tips