| Internet Review of Science Fiction closes doors |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|03:18 pm] |
Longtime review and news site IROSF announced today that they would be shutting down in February.
Seattle, WA, 12/30/2009 – After six years of publication the Internet Review of Science Fiction (irosf.com) will cease operations after the February, 2010 issue. Publisher L Blunt “Bluejack” Jackson and Editor Stacey Janssen expressed their gratitude to all the subscribers, contributors, authors, and especially the volunteers who made IROSF such a success since its first issue in January, 2004.
Continuous financial shortfalls added to the challenges of publishing IROSF, and Jackson has expressed his intent to turn to new challenges related to the economy and logistics of Internet publishing. “What we learned with IROSF and AEon Speculative Fiction was that neither traditional nor community-driven economic models met our needs, and that the complexity of managing a distributed volunteer pool burned people out, despite a steady increase in revenue and readership. Our plan is to use this knowledge, and the ready availability of new distribution channels, to create the kind of environment that would have empowered the editors to achieve the success that IROSF’s superb content always deserved.”
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| Nalo Hopkinson offers mentorships in 2010 |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|02:45 pm] |
 Beginning in February 2010:
One on One Advanced Level Fiction Writing Mentorships in the Literature of the Fantastic (fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, etc.)
with Nalo Hopkinson
The first term of writing mentorships I offered is going well, (November 2009 to January 2010) and is coming to an end, so I’ve decided to undertake a second term. Via email, I’ll be conducting one-on-one mentorships in writing fantasy and science fiction. These are independent mentorships (i.e. offered privately by me, not through an educational institution).
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| Ursula K. Le Guin resigns from Authors Guild |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|09:20 pm] |
 Copyright © by Marian Wood Kolisch On December 18th, Ursula K. Le Guin posted an open letter on her website, resigning from the Authors Guild in protest about its role in the Google Book Settlement. She has been a member since 1972.
In part, the letter says:
I am not going to rehearse any arguments pro and anti the “Google settlement.” You decided to deal with the devil, as it were, and have presented your arguments for doing so. I wish I could accept them. I can’t. There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle.
So, after being a loyal if invisible member for so long, I am resigning from the Guild. I am, however, retaining membership in the National Writers Union and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, both of which opposed the “Google settlement.” They don’t have your clout, but their judgment, I think, is sounder, and their courage greater.
Today, the Guild responded to her letter, arguing that the deal was good for authors and ultimately protected copyrights.
Litigation, particularly litigation over the bounds of fair use, involves risk. Some critics of the settlement wrongly dismiss that risk, but the fact is that we certainly could have lost the case. Losing would have meant that anyone, not just Google, could have digitized copyright protected books and made them available through search engines. Since creating a search engine is rather simple, anyone with a website — Civil War buffs, science fiction fans, medical information providers — would then have been empowered to start the uncontrolled scanning of books and the display of “snippets.” Authors would have no say in those uses and no control over the security of those scans. The damage to copyright protection would have been incalculable.
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| Speculative Literature Foundation Announces 2009 Gulliver Travel Research Grant Winner |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|08:33 pm] |
 The Speculative Literature Foundation announced today that its 2009 Gulliver Travel Research Grant has been awarded to SFWA member Caren Gussoff. The $800 grant will be used to help Gussoff to travel to western Washington State in order to research the setting of her near-future novel The King of Seattle.
Gussoff’s stories have appeared in Abyss & Apex, PodCastle and Fantasy Magazine, and in several Seal Press anthologies. Her novel explores a post-pandemic Puget Sound, in which mental illness is a communicable disease.
An excerpt:
—–
Pills? I asked.
Yes, the majordomo answered. He held his hands still, and said, SSRIs, SSDIs, neuroleptics, anticonvulsant mood stabilizers, anxiolytics, hypnotics. Trans-dermal, sub-lingual, prophylactic. Peach, pink, blue. Then he looked at me.
I was holding my hand up against my mouth.
You’re about my age, he said. You’ll get used to the naked faces.Then he looked down at his rubbing hands like they had nothing to do with him. Do you remember before we knew you could catch crazy?
Yeah, I said, nodding. I remember.
——
This year the competition was especially fierce, with many excellent entries. Five Honourable Mentions were given:
Nisi Shawl
Jeremy Smith
Livia Llewellyn
Emily Jiang
Nadia Kalman
The Gulliver Travel Research Grant is awarded to assist a writer of speculative fiction in his or her research. As in previous years, the 2009 grant of $800 is to be used to cover airfare, lodging, and/or other expenses relating to the research for a project of speculative fiction. The grant is awarded by a committee of Speculative Literature Foundation members on the basis of interest and merit.
The grant is named after Gulliver, a character in the 1726 story “Gulliver’s Travels” written by Jonathan Swift. The story represents one of the earliest examples of fantasy travel.
Applications for the seventh annual Gulliver Travel Research Grant will open on July 1, 2010.
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| Drewlie and Julia: Or, The Case of the Alias’d Literary Agent |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|10:34 am] |
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
 Last August, I received several emails from writers who’d had a very strange experience.
They’d submitted to a literary agent in Boston called Sara Levine, only to be informed by Levine’s assistant, a few weeks later, that Levine had died suddenly of a heart attack. The regretful assistant suggested they contact Levine’s colleague, Julia Levin of the Florida-based Julia Levin Literary Agency, who was taking over Levine’s business. Other writers who’d submitted to Sara Levine were approached by Julia Levin herself, with much the same story.
No one had ever heard of Julia Levin before. Her profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook (the only info that could be found on her, online or off) indicated that she’d been in business since 2005, both on her own and as a co-agent with Sara Levine. In emails to prospective clients, as well as in a September Open House on Facebook, through which she hoped to add to her agency roster, she reported a number of recent book sales to major publishers.
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