Category Archives: SF Signal

This Week’s Writing Links

This week’s writing links feature a review of Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale, NPR’s user voted 100 best teen novels ever list, etiquette for proper beach reading material (in which a beach goer is criticized for bringing a book on string theory to the beach. I can’t lie. I did this once and it warranted a few odd looks from passing orange tinged Floridians), the announcement that Peter Jackson’s Hobbit adaptation will now be three films, SF Signal’s podcast on steampunk and the report card for Phillip K. Dick film adaptations.

Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale seems to be the toast of critics right now, praised as a modern fairy tale done right. Joyce’s novel is described in AV Club’s review as an, “achingly resonant story of a broken man who’s found his long-lost sister. His prose and dialogue, even more than usual, are carved with balance, clarity, and subtlety.” Some Kind of Fairy Tale has been added to my reading que, but I haven’t quite gotten to it yet. I am still plowing through Hugh Howey’s engrossing sci-fi omnibus Wool, which I would also encourage people to check out.

In other news, The Hobbit is now officially three movies, which certainly seems to have brewed some grumblings from the fans (albeit minor grumbling, I would point out that they are far from mutinous). Three movies may be stretching it a bit since the book itself is just over 300 pages (which would put each respective movie at about 100 pages of source material to cling to), but truthfully, I’ll watch anything Peter Jackson puts up on the big screen. I just hope that the movies don’t suffer from bloating with filler material and forced subplots. Anyway, on to the writing links!

Links:

– AV Club Reviews Graham Joyce’s Some Kind Of Fairy Tale (avclub)

– 100 Best Ever Teen Novels (npr)

– Literature Greatest Author And Illustrator Duos (flavorwire)

– Literary Agent: Elizabeth Kracht Of Kimberley Cameron Associates (writersdigest)

– Webinar: John Cusick Teaches Writing And Selling Sci-fi/Fantasy For Kids (writersdigest)

– Sci-fi Movie Moments That Made Us Believe In Wonder (io9)

– AV Club On Robert Cormiers The Chocolate War (avclub)

– First Panoramic View Of Mars From Curiosity (examiner)

– SF Signal Podcast: Steampunk (sfsignal)

– What Is Proper Beach Reading? (npr)

– Peter Jackson Confirms The Hobbit Will Be Three Films (deadline)

– The Phillip K Dick Report Card (tor)

– Joss Whedon Directing Avengers 2 (io9)

– The First 40 Pages Of Richard Kadrey’s New Sandman Slim Novel (io9)

BookExpo America

If any agents/publishers/writer friends are not responding to your calls or emails this week, just remember that today marks the start of BookExpo America (BEA).

For those of you who don’t know, BEA is the largest annual book trade fair in America. Held in New York this year, the expo sees most major publishers (both from the US and overseas), authors, agents and editors arrive to promote new titles, technologies, digital formats, and along the way, sell some books.

So, if you are waiting on a response about your manuscript from someone in the publishing industry, it might be awhile. I would go ahead and put in the second disk of that Ken Burns documentary that’s been holding up your netflix que and get comfortable.
And even if you are not attending or involved with BEA yourself, this can be a productive week for you. This would be a great week to put blogging and social media on hold in favor of buckling down and getting some work done on your manuscript. You’re simply not going to find a better block of time to add a quick ten or twenty thousand words to your novel outside of NANoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) or an extended prison stay.
If you still find it oh so hard to remove yourself from the vein of the internet/publishing world, check out some links popping up about early BEA announcements:
I’ll be keeping up with the expo and will try to post news and updates as they become available. Don’t despair if you didn’t make it to BEA this year, keep working hard on your manuscript and maybe you’ll be there next year signing copies. If you did attend this year or in past years, leave us a note and let us know how it was.
PS. I just stumbled on this mention from SF Signal. Make sure to check them out. They’re a really great science fiction site. Pretty cool to be linked in the first week or so of my blog’s existence. Many thanks to them.