- The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
- Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom
- Arguing With Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government by Glenn Beck
- The Associate by John Grisham
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
- Cross Country by James Patterson
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
- The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi
- Razor Sharp by Fern Michaels
- The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
Friday, October 09, 2009
Top 10 Best-Sellers as of 2009/10/4
From USA Today's best-seller list (you can find out their basis here):
Thursday, October 08, 2009
October 8, 2009 Links and Plugs
My BSC Review column is up: The Taboos of Editing.
Not quite fantasy or science fiction, maybe horror. Not everything is in English. Pinoy Transgressive.
And zen photo for the day from the immortal (how many times do we have to kill him?) Jack Haringa:
Interview
Not quite fantasy or science fiction, maybe horror. Not everything is in English. Pinoy Transgressive.
And zen photo for the day from the immortal (how many times do we have to kill him?) Jack Haringa:
Interview
- Mur Laffery interviews Lou Anders and Pablo Defendini (podcast).
- Mur Lafferty interviews J.C. Hutchins.
- Mihai interviews Stephanie Pui-Mun Law.
- The Dragon Page interviews David Anthony Durham (podcast).
- BSC Review interviews Sharon Shinn.
- Storytellers Unplugged Q&A with Sarah Monette.
- Wil Wheaton on An open letter to the guy who put just a geek the audiobook on his website for people to steal.
- SF Signal Mind Meld: What Book Introduced You to Fantasy?
- Charlie Stross on Jeff Bezos Eats Kittens.
- Nick Mamatas on What is a "clip job"?
- Jim C Hines on How to REALLY Help an Author Out.
- Jeff VanderMeer on Gene Wolfe, Jack O'Connell, and 09.09.09 Stone Vertical Epic Ale: The Perfect Pairing?
- Joe Schreiber on Enter the Kendalls.
- Shawn Speakman on Espresso Book, Coming Right Up!
- GD Falksen on Steampunk 101.
- Cherie Priest on Prescription: Zombies.
- Don Lee On Getting Current in Heroic Fantasy, Part II.
- Chris Walters on How publishers encourage piracy.
- Colleen Mondor on Dear FTC, here's how it is out in the real world.
- Margaret Ronald on Other worlds.
- Brenda Clough on Ways to Trash Your Writing Career: An Intermittent Series.
- Madeleine E. Robins on The Write Tools.
- Dan Holloway on Year Zero Writers Collective.
- Lynne Patrick on Home Sweet Home.
- Juliette Wade on How Children are Like Aliens.
- Janice Hardy on Re-Write Wednesday: Taking Control.
- Nicola Morgan on Myths About Writing 1 - I Can Leave It to Editors.
- Pimp My Novel on This is a Business.
- Amazon Kindle Now for Sale to Customers in More Than 100 Countries.
- October 11 is COMING OUT DAY!
- Latino Author Reviewer List.
- Fans to redesign Tardis console.
- Old Man Scratch, Ramsey Campbell special offer and Joe Hill pre-orders.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
October 7, 2009 Links and Plugs
I'm currently nursing a cold and feeling weak.
In the meantime, you can read about Mike Allen's The Speculative Poetry Scene at the Nebula Awards Blog.
Or enjoy these illustrations from several Filipino Marvel/DC illustrators of a local comic, Trese.
Interviews
In the meantime, you can read about Mike Allen's The Speculative Poetry Scene at the Nebula Awards Blog.
Or enjoy these illustrations from several Filipino Marvel/DC illustrators of a local comic, Trese.
Interviews
- Jon Armstrong interviews David Anthony Durham (podcast).
- Sierra Godfrey interviews Janice Hardy.
- Geoff Boucher profiles Tim Powers on 'Pirates of the Carribean'.
- Innsmouth Free Press interviews Myke Amend.
- Penguin Podcast features Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon.
- Rose Fox interviews Jim C. Hines.
- Irene Gallo interviews Scott Westerfield.
- Victoria Strauss on Thoughts on Self-Promotion.
- S Boyd Taylor On Writing #4: The Secret to Consistent Productivity and Getting Things Done -- Momentum.
- Marshall Payne on Writing New Words Right...Hopefully.
- Charlie Jane Anders on Escapism Is The Highest Form Of Art.
- Dear Author on FTC Guide re Endorsement Update. Related: Paul Levinson on FTC Wrong to Regulate Deceitful Bloggers. Jeff Jarvis on FTC regulates our speech. Eric Rosenfield on FTC vs. Bloggers.
- Jaymee Goh on Steampunk as Subculture.
- Shawn Speakman on What If... These Three Books Published On The Same Day?
- Kassia Krozser on In Defense of Single Purpose Devices.
- David Parkman on The Book Industry is in Trouble. But Piracy is Just a Symptom.
- Mark Coker on Why We Need $4.00 Books.
- Index // mb on Against Forecasting: A Case for More Agility in Book Publishing.
- Lisa Abeyta on Life After Magazines.
- John Howell on Why science fiction authors just can't win.
- Rachelle Gardner on Dedicated to the Lone Ranger.
- The Book Publicity Blog on If you’re requesting a book, please, provide an address.
- Nathan Bransford on Making Taste Overly Personal.
- Rebecca Wells Jopling on Distancing Ourselves from Fiction.
- Pimp My Novel on More On Comp Titles.
- The Rejectionist on Nobody Likes A Jerkwad.
- The Fix Is Switching Venues to TTAPress.com.
- New market Strangetastic.
- October issue of Apex Magazine is out.
- Announcing Discounts on the Tor.com Store for Steampunk Month!
- 2009 Spectrum Grand Master Announced.
Essay: Post Typhoon Ketsana and Science Fiction
Every Wednesday, I have an essay or feature article on any topic that catches my fancy!
This is probably more appropriate for a site like the Shine Anthology Weblog but I want to tackle it here. It's all too easy to take modern technologies for granted: it might be your flash drive (I still remember the days when I had a 650 MB hard drive), Skype (remember when calling people abroad was expensive?), or even PayPal. Typhoon Ketsana and people's reaction to it makes me appreciate that the present is the future, and that we have access to technology which makes life easier (although it's not without its own complications). Take for example the fact that I could donate to charities like the Red Cross by simply sending a text message. This wouldn't be possible if the Philippines didn't have 1) a functional micropayment system in place and 2) a widespread cellular network (to the point that mobile carriers are providing landline numbers to cell phones). You'd expect 1) since we're a third-world country but 2) is surprisingly considering we're a third world country.
Of course technology is only useful if there are people to utilize it. If Americans were saddened by the actions of former US president George W. Bush during Hurricane Katrina, they can console themselves that such impotent bureaucracy is not limited to their country. Our president, for example, declared that Malacanang (our equivalent of the White House) would be open to victims as a relief center, rescinds the offer, and then reverts to the original policy. What's surprising however is how a lot of the relief operations arose from both the public and private sectors, whether it's businesses, schools (and this is where the Catholic-run institutions come into play), churches (my Protestant church was using a truck selling Sto. Nino figurines to transport goods so how's that for cooperation and irony), and individuals.
Social media played a big part in this. There were blogs for example that collated information and applications like Google Maps and Google Spreadsheets were used to organize, mobilize, and disseminate strategic news. Filipinos everywhere were flooding Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk with status updates, whether it's directing people to venues that need donations/volunteers/help, as well as tracking missing people. An interesting development was how relief centers were lacking either volunteers, goods, or transport vehicles (and it's a constant tug-of-war in having one but lacking the other), and all these social media sites attempted to remedy this imbalance. Amateur photographers and film students (or simply anyone who had a camera-ready phone) are also not to be discounted, and perhaps one of the reasons this tragedy gained so much attention was due to all the footage and photographs circulating around the Internet. One of the more heroic stories involved hijacking a radio station so that they could aid and comfort victims.
Not that all's well in such a scenario. Just as ingenious solutions have popped up, these technologies also gave way to unique problems. There were warnings against scams for example, as well as misinformation being spread around. Sometimes, this misinformation is unintentional: information that was a few hours outdated was still being forwarded. And since election season is next year, social media was also used as a venue to both praise and demolish political figures. And the negative aspect about amateur efforts is that there's a lot of redundancy (although some will claim it's better to be safe than sorry) and lack of verification (although in such a crisis, even professionals will be hard-pressed to check everything). For example, if you have 100 Filipinos on your Twitter list, imagine all one hundred of them, circulating every piece of information they come across, whether it's true or false, recent or outdated. That's not to say it did more harm than good, and I'd say the mob was directed at a positive cause this time, but there's something to be said about organization.
Of course post-Ketsana, Filipinos are suddenly in a panic at the news of an incoming storm (and rightly so considering some of our still-flooded streets). Supermarkets, for example, quickly ran out of supplies (to be fair, a lot of them became donations) but I also heard news of people stocking more food than their usual. Perhaps one valid criticism against this entire incident is our disposal procedures. First off, our floods are partially caused by drains clogged by trash and unfortunately, we don't fare any better at disposing of our donations (all those canned goods, bottled water, and plastic bags...). There's too much emphasis on short-term solutions as opposed to long-term ones (victims will be needing medicine and housing budgets in the long-run as well, nor do instant noodles and canned goods provide healthy sustenance).
Both solutions and problems wouldn't have been possible two decades ago. The potential for technology swings both ways, and we have to remember that while there's no magic-bullet, it's human effort and will that determine how effective these tools are.
This is probably more appropriate for a site like the Shine Anthology Weblog but I want to tackle it here. It's all too easy to take modern technologies for granted: it might be your flash drive (I still remember the days when I had a 650 MB hard drive), Skype (remember when calling people abroad was expensive?), or even PayPal. Typhoon Ketsana and people's reaction to it makes me appreciate that the present is the future, and that we have access to technology which makes life easier (although it's not without its own complications). Take for example the fact that I could donate to charities like the Red Cross by simply sending a text message. This wouldn't be possible if the Philippines didn't have 1) a functional micropayment system in place and 2) a widespread cellular network (to the point that mobile carriers are providing landline numbers to cell phones). You'd expect 1) since we're a third-world country but 2) is surprisingly considering we're a third world country.
Of course technology is only useful if there are people to utilize it. If Americans were saddened by the actions of former US president George W. Bush during Hurricane Katrina, they can console themselves that such impotent bureaucracy is not limited to their country. Our president, for example, declared that Malacanang (our equivalent of the White House) would be open to victims as a relief center, rescinds the offer, and then reverts to the original policy. What's surprising however is how a lot of the relief operations arose from both the public and private sectors, whether it's businesses, schools (and this is where the Catholic-run institutions come into play), churches (my Protestant church was using a truck selling Sto. Nino figurines to transport goods so how's that for cooperation and irony), and individuals.
Social media played a big part in this. There were blogs for example that collated information and applications like Google Maps and Google Spreadsheets were used to organize, mobilize, and disseminate strategic news. Filipinos everywhere were flooding Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk with status updates, whether it's directing people to venues that need donations/volunteers/help, as well as tracking missing people. An interesting development was how relief centers were lacking either volunteers, goods, or transport vehicles (and it's a constant tug-of-war in having one but lacking the other), and all these social media sites attempted to remedy this imbalance. Amateur photographers and film students (or simply anyone who had a camera-ready phone) are also not to be discounted, and perhaps one of the reasons this tragedy gained so much attention was due to all the footage and photographs circulating around the Internet. One of the more heroic stories involved hijacking a radio station so that they could aid and comfort victims.
Not that all's well in such a scenario. Just as ingenious solutions have popped up, these technologies also gave way to unique problems. There were warnings against scams for example, as well as misinformation being spread around. Sometimes, this misinformation is unintentional: information that was a few hours outdated was still being forwarded. And since election season is next year, social media was also used as a venue to both praise and demolish political figures. And the negative aspect about amateur efforts is that there's a lot of redundancy (although some will claim it's better to be safe than sorry) and lack of verification (although in such a crisis, even professionals will be hard-pressed to check everything). For example, if you have 100 Filipinos on your Twitter list, imagine all one hundred of them, circulating every piece of information they come across, whether it's true or false, recent or outdated. That's not to say it did more harm than good, and I'd say the mob was directed at a positive cause this time, but there's something to be said about organization.
Of course post-Ketsana, Filipinos are suddenly in a panic at the news of an incoming storm (and rightly so considering some of our still-flooded streets). Supermarkets, for example, quickly ran out of supplies (to be fair, a lot of them became donations) but I also heard news of people stocking more food than their usual. Perhaps one valid criticism against this entire incident is our disposal procedures. First off, our floods are partially caused by drains clogged by trash and unfortunately, we don't fare any better at disposing of our donations (all those canned goods, bottled water, and plastic bags...). There's too much emphasis on short-term solutions as opposed to long-term ones (victims will be needing medicine and housing budgets in the long-run as well, nor do instant noodles and canned goods provide healthy sustenance).
Both solutions and problems wouldn't have been possible two decades ago. The potential for technology swings both ways, and we have to remember that while there's no magic-bullet, it's human effort and will that determine how effective these tools are.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Press Release: World SF News Blog Reboot: New Site and Original Content
The World SF News Blog, began in February this year to offer news and links relating to the international SF field, has announced it is expanding into offering original content. Initially set up by Lavie Tidhar to promote the Apex Book of World SF, an anthology of international speculative fiction coming out this November from Apex Books, the blog has since grown into an entity of its own, covering a range of topics such as Arab science fiction, Malaysian horror, African fiction, Indian comics and much more.
As part of the expansion, the site is now hosted on WordPress, with syndication to both LiveJournal and Twitter. A significant part of the site “reboot” will include featuring original content alongside news and links. “It was a question of, do we stay where we are, or do we take the next step?” said blog editor Lavie Tidhar. “And we thought it was time to move forward. There’s a lot of talent out there and, I think, a lot of interest today in what’s happening in speculative fiction around the world.”
Joining Tidhar is blogger Charles Tan, who will be in charge of original content and co-ordinating a team of guest bloggers and columnists from around the world. “Charles has been instrumental in getting this blog going,” Tidhar said, “not to mention an indefatigable promoter of international SF in his own right, and I’m delighted he’s agreed to take a more formal position with the site.”
The World SF News Blog intends to offer original content in the form of interviews, round table discussions, reviews, regular columns and more. Columnists have so far been confirmed from Portugal, Israel and Romania, with more forthcoming. Tidhar and Tan are both nominated in the International Activism category of this year’s inaugural Last Drink Bird Head Award, set up by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer to celebrate “those in the genre community who enrich us with their time, energy, and words, often for causes greater than themselves.”
October 6, 2009 Links and Plugs
Congrats to the The First Annual Last Drink Bird Head Award Finalists! (And wow, I'm mentioned in the same breath as Lavie Tidhar and James & Kathy Morrow--I can freely concede defeat.)
And since I already mentioned Lavie Tidhar, check out the World SF Round Table 1: On Environment and Background.
Today's the last day to apply for mentorship from Nalo Hopkinson.
(Also blog reviewers, be sure to read the FTC links below.)
Interviews
And since I already mentioned Lavie Tidhar, check out the World SF Round Table 1: On Environment and Background.
Today's the last day to apply for mentorship from Nalo Hopkinson.
(Also blog reviewers, be sure to read the FTC links below.)
Interviews
- Edward Champion interview with the FTC’s Richard Cleland.
- Jeff VanderMeer interviews Peter Crowther.
- Cheryl Morgan on FTC Regulation Causes Blogger Panic. Related: Katiebabs on Big Brother Is Watching! Beware Those Who Review!
- Index // mb on Against Forecasting: A Case for More Agility in Book Publishing.
- Natania Barron on A Year Ago...
- Nithska on Necrography is Dead.
- Betsy Lerner on You’ll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again.
- John Picacio on Coverspotting in SA: October 2009.
- GD Falksen on The world is not enough... but it is such a perfect place to start.
- Gary Gibson on Burn After Reading – ‘Science Fiction, And Why It Needs Secret Decoder Rings’.
- Diana Rowland on Just Ask.
- Steven Harper Piziks on Writers Groups: Expectations.
- Maria Schneider on Giving Yourself Permission.
- Justine Larbalestier on Unmemorable Book Titles.
- Alma Alexander on What then should we do…?
- Alan Russell on Do As I Say, Not As I Do.
- Juliette Wade on A different value: information.
- Janice Hardy on And the Pace is On.
- David Steffen on Through Another’s Eyes: The Narrative Lens.
- Nicola Morgan on Twittering Is Not Just for Birds.
- Nathan Bransford on Should You Pay Someone to Edit Your Work?
- The Intern on author website curmuddlement.
- FTC: Bloggers Must Disclose Payments for Reviews.
- Banning at Octocon SF.
- HuffPost's New Books Section Is Here.
Interview: Pablo Defendini
Every Tuesday, I'll have an interview posted.
Pablo Defendini is the Web producer for Tor.com.
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview.
Thanks for having me!
First off, how did you get acquainted with speculative fiction? What's the appeal of the genre for you?
You know, that’s a deceptively simple question! I honestly can’t remember life without SF—I’m thirty, so one of my first memories as a child is of watching The Empire Strikes Back with with my older cousins; at some point early on, someone stuck copies of the Foundation trilogy under my nose—I suppose this explains why one of my favourite sub-genres is Space Opera. My grandma used to take me every week to the comics store in San Juan (Puerto Rico, where I’m from), followed by lunch at Woolworth’s, where I’d (to my regret these days) ignore the hell out of her and dive into the week’s stash. I gravitated towards the science-fictional spectrum of the underwear pervert genre—the X-Men, Superman, etc. And of course, I read voraciously: Asimov, LeGuin, Haldeman, and more Asimov on the English-speaking side; and Borges, GarcÃa Márquez, Ana Lydia Vega, and Miguel de Unamuno on the Spanish-speaking side, to name a few.
Puerto Rico is a colony/commonwealth of the U.S., and as such we are bombarded with American media and culture—and SF and (maybe to a larger extent) Fantasy play to our natural Caribbean tendency towards general weirdness. It’s a strange mix. I suspect there’s a similar vibe in the Philippines, since PR and the Philippines share so much history: Spanish colonies ceded to the US in 1898, and all that. So I suppose that speculative fiction is somehow hard-wired into me.
As far as the appeal of SF for me, personally, it’s all about exploring the possibilities of the human race, of our—and other—civilizations. It’s very much about the sense of wonder, the exploration of the ideas of today within the worlds of tomorrow, the building of fantastic worlds that—who knows—could maybe come to pass one day. That’s probably why I favour SF over Fantasy, actually: as far as modern science can ascertain, elves and fairies don’t exist, period. But when I’m reading about FTL drives and artificial intelligence and post-singularity lobster/hive minds traveling to the edge of known space in a tin-can spaceship, a quiet little voice pipes up and says “Hey. You know... maybe, just maybe, this stuff could actually happen someday...”
Who are some of your favorite authors or what are some of your favorite titles?
Asimov, of course. I absolutely love the Foundation series, and his Robot Stories are beautiful, elegant logic puzzles that are as much of a joy to unwrap the first time as the eleventy-seventh.
Neal Stephenson. I came to him late—I read the Barroque Cycle before I read Cryptonomicon, actually; and Anathem just blew my mind.
Katsuhiro Otomo. Akira remains a top favourite, and his subsequent creations are all beautiful in their own right.
Borges and his time spirals.
There’s a novel by Miguel de Unamuno, called Niebla (Fog) that’s just a mind bending trip to read. I first encountered it in high school, and I suppose that’s coloured my perception of it (as a matter of fact, I haven’t revisited it since then—I probably should), but I remember being very intrigued with what he was doing with his charactes and how he treated (or mis-treated, rather) the fourth wall.
I’ve recently discovered David Weber’s Honor Harrington series (after first having discovered him through his Safehold series, which I also enjoy very much), and I’ve been absolutely devouring those on my iPhone. I go back to Fictionwise or Baen’s Webscription site for new installments like a rat to the feeder bar. His immense breadth of military knowledge, his astute and incisive descriptions of complex political situations, and the trappings of space opera all make for a very compelling read for me.
As for newer authors, I’m a huge fan of Cory Doctorow’s—the way he uses SF to work through the ways technology is changing our society and our politics. Little Brother is a masterpiece in this sense, but my favourite is still Eastern Standard Tribe. I’ve also been reading and re-reading his next book, Makers, which is out in print in October, as we serialize it in its entirety throughout the rest of 2009 on Tor.com, and that may just unseat EST, by dint of the sheer expansiveness of the ideas he’s exploring throughout the course of the novel; again, ideas that are already out there, and that he’s—in true Doctorovian fashion, I suppose—remixing and recombining in order to extrapolate some very compelling and optimistic scenarios where someone else might only see doom-and-gloom.
Tobias Buckell, aside from being a friend, is a kickass writer, and hits me right in my sweet spot: Caribbean-tinged Space Opera. His latest, Sly Mongoose, can be summed up as “Rasta cyborgs fighting zombies in space.” There is not one word in that phrase that is not made of pure awesome (except maybe ‘in’, I suppose). Plus, it’s got one of the coolest opening sequences I’ve ever read.
Junot DÃaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao—the story of a Dominican geek living in the NY diaspora—hit so close to home, it’s not even funny.
Anything Brian K. Vaughan touches, from Ex Machina to Lost.
Warren Ellis—Spider Jerusalem will always have a special place in my heart, and Freak Angels is intriguing as hell, if a little slow.
I’m currently reading China Miéville’s The City and The City, which is reminding me of how much I love police procedurals.
I could go on and on and on, but there are more questions to answer.
Before I proceed, maybe you could tell us more about Tor.com? It's a common misconception that it's part of the Tor imprint but from my understanding, that's not necessarily the case and Tor.com is its own entity.
That’s correct—Tor.com is actually an initiative of Macmillan’s (Tor Books’ parent company) ‘Digital Marketing’ Department, which is the department I belong to now, officially. As such, I’m an employee of Macmillan, not Tom Doherty Associates, which is Tor Books’ corporate name. It’s a fine distinction which takes advantage of the already-convoluted corporate ownership structures of the publishing industry, but for all practical purposes, it works to separate me from Tor Books, and allows me to engage with people from all over SF/F fandom and industry.
The seed of Tor.com did indeed come from within Tor Books. I wasn’t involved back then, but as I understand it, Tor.com sprang up during a conversation between (Tor Books Art Director) Irene Gallo, Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor Books Senior Editor) and my current boss, Fritz Foy (VP of Strategic Technology for Macmillan), who is also a lifelong SF fan—‘one of us’ in every sense of the word. They asked Tom Doherty for his blessing, and permission to use the Tor brand, but wisely kept the site separate from the daily workings of Tor Books. This is good for two main reasons:
—It facilitates our publisher agnostic stance. It would be disingenuous for me to say that I treat the people at Tor Books with exactly the same regard as someone from another publisher. After all, these people are my co-workers, collaborators on the site, and some are also dear friends. Tor.com wouldn’t work without them, particularly Irene, Jamie Stafford Hill, Liz Gorinsky and PNH. I also have more access to Tor Books than to any other publisher, obviously (although I tend to be very cautious—possibly too cautious for some people’s tastes—in how I leverage that). But being part of another, separate division of the company, not reporting to Tom Doherty, and working on a separate floor from them does help me keep a healthy distance, particularly from the marketing, publicity, and sales departments.
—It lends a bit more credibility to outreach efforts to other publishers. I can encourage editors and people involved with other houses, such as Lou Anders, John joseph Adams, etc, to contribute to Tor.com much more convincingly if I can point them to content on the site that has absolutely nothing to do with Tor Books.
Did you ever consider changing the site's name?
We did, actually, and it was a long and arduous process before we settled on the obvious. After countless ideas and iterations we finally realized that if we went with another name, it might seem like we were trying to hide the site’s pedigree, or its ties to Tor books, and that might make us seem disingenuous from the get-go. In the end, we decided to own up to what we are and where we come from, and that it would be better to deal with the branding issues as they cropped up, in a straightforward and open manner, always leveraging our track record in order to prove that we really are trying to ‘walk the walk’.
How did you initially get involved with Tor.com?
I had been working in Tor Books’ art department as a junior mass market designer—low man on the totem pole, if you will—for about two years. Since I’ve always been a pretty vocal guy, and I had my own (now sadly semi-neglected) blog, I was put on a short list of people within Tor Books to approach for blogging on the site before it launched. The powers that be decided that it would be good to make a big splash at San Diego Comic con last year, and they asked me if I wanted to go to Comic Con as one of Tor.com inaugural bloggers. It took me all of two seconds to blurt out a rather enthusiastic “Fuck yes!”. Right around that time, my predecessor on the site resigned, and I decided to apply for the job. To my surprise, they hired me on. So I put down my Wacom tablet and here I am. I have a pretty varied background: I’ve worked in new media before, as well as in advertising and branding, so my bailiwick extends far beyond simply graphic design or production for printed matter, and I’m dusting off all those old skills and more every day.
Your official position is producer. What exactly is it that a producer does?
I’m not sure there’s a straight answer for that, actually. I do a lot of little things that add up: I’m the project manager for any development work that we need done, be it site upgrades, squashing bugs, or bringing together our bookstore; I acquire, set up, and coordinate with bloggers for the site; I coordinate and run promotions, publicity efforts, and contests; I help develop content (such as the aforementioned Makers project) and acquire some comics (such as Dan Goldman’s “Yes We Can” from earlier this year); I help establish the editorial direction of the site, as well as the strategic vision for where it’s headed overall.... It really depends on the day of the week.
What would you say are the important qualities that a producer needs to have? How does one become a producer?
You need to be organized. I can’t stress this enough, and I also can’t stress enough that being organized is not so much a state of being, but more like a constant struggle, where more often than not, the goalposts keep moving on you. I used to make fun of people who went crazy over productivity and organization software or techniques like Evernote, Things.app, GTD, or inbox zero, but these days they’re my bread-and-butter.
You need to be tactful, because you’re usually juggling a whole bunch of people (and egos), and trying to massage them all into working for you. But at the same time you need to strike a balance between tact and being direct and to-the-point, and not mince words when you’re trying to get something done. As for how to become one, I’m not quite sure, since I kind of fell into it myself. If there is a formal career track or path to ‘producerhood’, I missed the memo on that.
What's your working environment like? Do you get to meet authors (whether virtual or in person)?
I share an office in the Flatiron building with the rest of the Macmillan Digital Marketing department (my little corner boasts a bunch of comics and a big, big relief print of a zombie hanging like a tapestry on the wall behind my desk). But my boss lives in California, and Torie, Tor.com’s administrative editor and community manager (and the only other full-time member of the staff), works on a separate floor of the building, so often I work from home, a basement apartment in Brooklyn that I’ve dubbed my “Underground Lair”. I work on the internet, so it’s a rare occasion when it really makes a difference where I’m located physically. As long as the tubes are fat and the lulz are flowing, we’re in business.
One of the most gratifying aspects of my job is, in fact, meeting so many interesting people, authors included, and creating good relationships with them. Mostly via the web, but once or twice a year you’ll go to a con and meet up with an IM or Xbox buddy, Every once in a while, an author will pop up in NYC for a signing or something, and they’ll swing by the Flatiron.
What are some of the challenges you're currently facing?
We’re facing the same broad challenges that the entirety of publishing is facing, and to a more general extent, the entire media/content creation industry: How does the digital paradigm affect our product: from its look and feel, to the way in which the end user interacts with it, to how the work is produced or created, to how the creator gets rewarded for their work. Additionally, we’re facing the same challenges that web-based content services are facing: decreased ad sales, a general sense of ominous foreboding that all this is going to come crashing down in a very unceremonious way, just like in the Dot Com bubble burst of 2001, etc.
In your opinion, how is Tor.com leveraging New Media and the genre? What are the things that you're doing right?
One of the things we’re doing the best, I think, is engaging with our audience, and listening. Publishing is a very insular industry, where insiders are constantly talking to each other, but very rarely do they actually talk to or listen to the actual end customer: the reader. There have traditionally been some very valid arguments as for why this is the case, but as digital media democratizes the world more and more, those arguments become much less convincing or even relevant.
Tor.com is one way in which we’re talking directly with readers, listening to what they have to say, and we’re finding out a lot about them. And I do mean a whole hell of a lot—some of the very dearly-held assumptions of the publishing industry really don’t hold much water with the reading public, and it’s very sobering to compare and contrast what I see and read every day on Tor.com in particular and the internet in general with what I see and hear from within the walls of the Flatiron building.
Currently, what's your metric for determining the site's success?
That depends on who you ask. If you ask one person, it’s traffic in order to charge more for ads. If you ask another, it’s profit from the bookstore. If you ask yet another, it’s the perception of the Tor.com brand as a leader in the online space, from the point of view of the publishing industry. If you ask me, all these factor in, but for me the site is successful if people find it useful, entertaining, and valuable. Whenever someone tells me “Tor.com is one of my top five must-check-out-every-day sites” I fee l like I’ve been doing my job successfully.
What can we expect in the future from Tor.com?
Well, we’ll be staging a robot uprising sometime in early 2010, which will lead to the activation of Skynet on August 29 2012, which will then—oh, wait. Nevermind. strike that, you never heard any o that...
All joking aside, we’ve got a few things up our sleeves:
We’ve made no secret that we’re working on an ebook store, but that’s taking us a bit longer than expected: none of the current solutions out there for purchasing and delivering ebooks—not Amazon, not Barnes and Noble, not Fictionwise, not Macmillan’s content distribution partners, no one—are all that good, and as an avid ebook consumer myself, I’m trying my damndest to create something that can help break free of that morass, as opposed to simply another iteration of the same problem which has so many ebook aficionados frustrated, and so many casual ebook consumers confused and paralyzed in perplexity. It’s been a very hard slog in trying to find just the right recipe—we’ve literally had to go back to square one on more than one occasion—and it’s taken much longer than I (naively, I suppose) anticipated, but I think we’re making some progress.
We’re also contemplating undertaking a massive overhaul of the site, taking into consideration the feedback from actual users over the last year. We’re just now starting to get this process rolling, and so far, we’ve come up with some really promising approaches.
Additionally, as always, we’ve got some really great content in the pipeline: short stories by top authors, comics by up-and-coming creators, games, illustrations by masters of the form, and not to mention our intrepid bloggers, who post on whatever fannish or SF/F related subjects they feel passionate about.
You're a designer by training. Did you ever imagine yourself running Tor.com?
Absolutely not. I’m not the most social person in the world, and in my default state, I’m perfectly happy being locked away in a dim office with a Wacom tablet, a powerful Mac, a very large monitor, and a 2GB, 150-layer Photoshop file. This job is in many ways the direct opposite of that—I’m constantly meeting people, keeping on top of contacts, forging relationships with authors, editors, publicists, bloggers, etc., and I’m still surprised to this day that I’ve been able to pull it off so far!
Do you get to practice what you've learned as a designer at Tor.com?
Sometimes, but not often. The lion’s share of the design work that goes into Tor.com is handled by the amazing Jamie Stafford-Hill, who’s real day job is designing hardcover books for Tor Books. I really can’t stress this enough: Jamie’s a badass. An incredibly professional, competent, talented, thoughtful and sensible designer who consistently surprises me in wonderful ways. As for art direction duties (which is the flipside to the designer question), we’re incredibly lucky to be able to count on Irene Gallo, who is one of the most accomplished and respected art directors in the field, not to mention the genre. She’s got an almost preternatural sensibility for finding just the right artist for a project, and she brings that to each one of the stories that PNH acquires for Tor.com. The beautiful illustrations that you see accompanying Tor.com’s stories are all her fault. Both Jamie and Irene know that I’m a designer (I’d like to think they know I’m at least a competent and relatively good one, at that), and have worked with me in that capacity in the past, so there’s always some back and forth, and I like to think that they take my opinions seriously. But (to my disappointment sometimes) there’s little time for me to really dive into design issues as deeply as they require, so I usually defer to Jamie and Irene, and trust them to do the jobs they’re so good at.
How did you become Tor Books' Mass Market Designer?
I filled out a job application, came in for an interview, and showed my portfolio. It really was as simple as that . I had just graduated from Pratt Institute with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, with a major in Graphic Design and a minor in printmaking. Before that I’d worked as an art director in the advertising industry for about six or seven years, so I’d built up a nice book, which apparently impressed someone, because I was offered the job of Junior Mass Market Designer a few days after I interviewed.
What is it that a Mass Market Designer does? What were the challenges in that position? What was the most rewarding experience?
A Mass Market Designer, for the most part—probably about 70% of the time—adapts extant designs from hardcover books (like the ones Jamie designs, for example) into the smaller mass market paperback size. There are also certain considerations with regard to what we call effects (foil stamping, embossing, etc) which may or may not differ from the hardcover design, depending on the marketing and sales strategy for the particular title in question.
The other 30% —and the fun part, for a designer—are original book cover designs, be they for new, direct-to-mass-market title, or for a book for which the hardcover design is not appropriate for mass market (or a design that didn’t work in the hardcover edition and the publisher wants to try a new approach to see if it will improve sales).
What a mass market designer does *not* do, at least at Macmillan, is design the interiors of books. This is handled by a completely separate department (sometimes outsourced altogether to a compositing house) from the group that creates covers, both on the hardcover and the paperback end. As a typographer, and a type geek who can sit in front of a monitor and set type for hours and be entertained by the slightest minutiae of the space between two letters on a given block of text, this actually came as a surprise and a bit of a disappointment when I first took the job.
What advice do you have for aspiring designers?
Never take anything for granted; there is always someone better than you out there, and no one owes you anything. Be open to criticism, which is a trite, clichéd piece of advice, but one much harder to actually follow than at first blush—a designer must always be open to critiques from others, and to self-criticism, which is even harder still. Think hard before going to art school. The benefits may debatable, but the responsibility for paying back thousands of dollars in crushing student loan debt is not. Don’t take work on spec, or no or low pay in exchange for the so-called exposure (that word should be a red flag); it hurts you, it hurts your industry, and it hurts your colleagues (see www.no-spec.org for more details). Your client doesn’t expect his or her lawyer or plumber to work for free, why should he or she expect that from you?
Advice for aspiring producers?
Be hungry. Be opinionated. Become an expert. Don’t just learn a skill set, learn instead how to learn. In other words, become an autodidact: odds are that the things you’ll be trying to wrap your head around in a year’s time aren’t even a blip on the horizon, and you’ll have to figure them out on your own, without a the help of a mentor, a teacher, or a curriculum. Don’t complain, but don’t let people walk all over you, either. Be solution-oriented: try to be the person people think of when they have a problem, and they need an answer, or at the very least a shove in the right direction.
Anything else you want to plug?
World peace. Universal healthcare. Atheism. Robot rights. A manned mission to Mars, followed by a robust colonization and terraforming program, preferably within my lifetime.
Pablo Defendini is the Web producer for Tor.com.Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview.
Thanks for having me!
First off, how did you get acquainted with speculative fiction? What's the appeal of the genre for you?
You know, that’s a deceptively simple question! I honestly can’t remember life without SF—I’m thirty, so one of my first memories as a child is of watching The Empire Strikes Back with with my older cousins; at some point early on, someone stuck copies of the Foundation trilogy under my nose—I suppose this explains why one of my favourite sub-genres is Space Opera. My grandma used to take me every week to the comics store in San Juan (Puerto Rico, where I’m from), followed by lunch at Woolworth’s, where I’d (to my regret these days) ignore the hell out of her and dive into the week’s stash. I gravitated towards the science-fictional spectrum of the underwear pervert genre—the X-Men, Superman, etc. And of course, I read voraciously: Asimov, LeGuin, Haldeman, and more Asimov on the English-speaking side; and Borges, GarcÃa Márquez, Ana Lydia Vega, and Miguel de Unamuno on the Spanish-speaking side, to name a few.
Puerto Rico is a colony/commonwealth of the U.S., and as such we are bombarded with American media and culture—and SF and (maybe to a larger extent) Fantasy play to our natural Caribbean tendency towards general weirdness. It’s a strange mix. I suspect there’s a similar vibe in the Philippines, since PR and the Philippines share so much history: Spanish colonies ceded to the US in 1898, and all that. So I suppose that speculative fiction is somehow hard-wired into me.
As far as the appeal of SF for me, personally, it’s all about exploring the possibilities of the human race, of our—and other—civilizations. It’s very much about the sense of wonder, the exploration of the ideas of today within the worlds of tomorrow, the building of fantastic worlds that—who knows—could maybe come to pass one day. That’s probably why I favour SF over Fantasy, actually: as far as modern science can ascertain, elves and fairies don’t exist, period. But when I’m reading about FTL drives and artificial intelligence and post-singularity lobster/hive minds traveling to the edge of known space in a tin-can spaceship, a quiet little voice pipes up and says “Hey. You know... maybe, just maybe, this stuff could actually happen someday...”
Who are some of your favorite authors or what are some of your favorite titles?
Asimov, of course. I absolutely love the Foundation series, and his Robot Stories are beautiful, elegant logic puzzles that are as much of a joy to unwrap the first time as the eleventy-seventh.
Neal Stephenson. I came to him late—I read the Barroque Cycle before I read Cryptonomicon, actually; and Anathem just blew my mind.
Katsuhiro Otomo. Akira remains a top favourite, and his subsequent creations are all beautiful in their own right.
Borges and his time spirals.
There’s a novel by Miguel de Unamuno, called Niebla (Fog) that’s just a mind bending trip to read. I first encountered it in high school, and I suppose that’s coloured my perception of it (as a matter of fact, I haven’t revisited it since then—I probably should), but I remember being very intrigued with what he was doing with his charactes and how he treated (or mis-treated, rather) the fourth wall.
I’ve recently discovered David Weber’s Honor Harrington series (after first having discovered him through his Safehold series, which I also enjoy very much), and I’ve been absolutely devouring those on my iPhone. I go back to Fictionwise or Baen’s Webscription site for new installments like a rat to the feeder bar. His immense breadth of military knowledge, his astute and incisive descriptions of complex political situations, and the trappings of space opera all make for a very compelling read for me.
As for newer authors, I’m a huge fan of Cory Doctorow’s—the way he uses SF to work through the ways technology is changing our society and our politics. Little Brother is a masterpiece in this sense, but my favourite is still Eastern Standard Tribe. I’ve also been reading and re-reading his next book, Makers, which is out in print in October, as we serialize it in its entirety throughout the rest of 2009 on Tor.com, and that may just unseat EST, by dint of the sheer expansiveness of the ideas he’s exploring throughout the course of the novel; again, ideas that are already out there, and that he’s—in true Doctorovian fashion, I suppose—remixing and recombining in order to extrapolate some very compelling and optimistic scenarios where someone else might only see doom-and-gloom.
Tobias Buckell, aside from being a friend, is a kickass writer, and hits me right in my sweet spot: Caribbean-tinged Space Opera. His latest, Sly Mongoose, can be summed up as “Rasta cyborgs fighting zombies in space.” There is not one word in that phrase that is not made of pure awesome (except maybe ‘in’, I suppose). Plus, it’s got one of the coolest opening sequences I’ve ever read.
Junot DÃaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao—the story of a Dominican geek living in the NY diaspora—hit so close to home, it’s not even funny.
Anything Brian K. Vaughan touches, from Ex Machina to Lost.
Warren Ellis—Spider Jerusalem will always have a special place in my heart, and Freak Angels is intriguing as hell, if a little slow.
I’m currently reading China Miéville’s The City and The City, which is reminding me of how much I love police procedurals.
I could go on and on and on, but there are more questions to answer.
Before I proceed, maybe you could tell us more about Tor.com? It's a common misconception that it's part of the Tor imprint but from my understanding, that's not necessarily the case and Tor.com is its own entity.
That’s correct—Tor.com is actually an initiative of Macmillan’s (Tor Books’ parent company) ‘Digital Marketing’ Department, which is the department I belong to now, officially. As such, I’m an employee of Macmillan, not Tom Doherty Associates, which is Tor Books’ corporate name. It’s a fine distinction which takes advantage of the already-convoluted corporate ownership structures of the publishing industry, but for all practical purposes, it works to separate me from Tor Books, and allows me to engage with people from all over SF/F fandom and industry.
The seed of Tor.com did indeed come from within Tor Books. I wasn’t involved back then, but as I understand it, Tor.com sprang up during a conversation between (Tor Books Art Director) Irene Gallo, Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor Books Senior Editor) and my current boss, Fritz Foy (VP of Strategic Technology for Macmillan), who is also a lifelong SF fan—‘one of us’ in every sense of the word. They asked Tom Doherty for his blessing, and permission to use the Tor brand, but wisely kept the site separate from the daily workings of Tor Books. This is good for two main reasons:
—It facilitates our publisher agnostic stance. It would be disingenuous for me to say that I treat the people at Tor Books with exactly the same regard as someone from another publisher. After all, these people are my co-workers, collaborators on the site, and some are also dear friends. Tor.com wouldn’t work without them, particularly Irene, Jamie Stafford Hill, Liz Gorinsky and PNH. I also have more access to Tor Books than to any other publisher, obviously (although I tend to be very cautious—possibly too cautious for some people’s tastes—in how I leverage that). But being part of another, separate division of the company, not reporting to Tom Doherty, and working on a separate floor from them does help me keep a healthy distance, particularly from the marketing, publicity, and sales departments.
—It lends a bit more credibility to outreach efforts to other publishers. I can encourage editors and people involved with other houses, such as Lou Anders, John joseph Adams, etc, to contribute to Tor.com much more convincingly if I can point them to content on the site that has absolutely nothing to do with Tor Books.
Did you ever consider changing the site's name?
We did, actually, and it was a long and arduous process before we settled on the obvious. After countless ideas and iterations we finally realized that if we went with another name, it might seem like we were trying to hide the site’s pedigree, or its ties to Tor books, and that might make us seem disingenuous from the get-go. In the end, we decided to own up to what we are and where we come from, and that it would be better to deal with the branding issues as they cropped up, in a straightforward and open manner, always leveraging our track record in order to prove that we really are trying to ‘walk the walk’.
How did you initially get involved with Tor.com?
I had been working in Tor Books’ art department as a junior mass market designer—low man on the totem pole, if you will—for about two years. Since I’ve always been a pretty vocal guy, and I had my own (now sadly semi-neglected) blog, I was put on a short list of people within Tor Books to approach for blogging on the site before it launched. The powers that be decided that it would be good to make a big splash at San Diego Comic con last year, and they asked me if I wanted to go to Comic Con as one of Tor.com inaugural bloggers. It took me all of two seconds to blurt out a rather enthusiastic “Fuck yes!”. Right around that time, my predecessor on the site resigned, and I decided to apply for the job. To my surprise, they hired me on. So I put down my Wacom tablet and here I am. I have a pretty varied background: I’ve worked in new media before, as well as in advertising and branding, so my bailiwick extends far beyond simply graphic design or production for printed matter, and I’m dusting off all those old skills and more every day.
Your official position is producer. What exactly is it that a producer does?
I’m not sure there’s a straight answer for that, actually. I do a lot of little things that add up: I’m the project manager for any development work that we need done, be it site upgrades, squashing bugs, or bringing together our bookstore; I acquire, set up, and coordinate with bloggers for the site; I coordinate and run promotions, publicity efforts, and contests; I help develop content (such as the aforementioned Makers project) and acquire some comics (such as Dan Goldman’s “Yes We Can” from earlier this year); I help establish the editorial direction of the site, as well as the strategic vision for where it’s headed overall.... It really depends on the day of the week.
What would you say are the important qualities that a producer needs to have? How does one become a producer?
You need to be organized. I can’t stress this enough, and I also can’t stress enough that being organized is not so much a state of being, but more like a constant struggle, where more often than not, the goalposts keep moving on you. I used to make fun of people who went crazy over productivity and organization software or techniques like Evernote, Things.app, GTD, or inbox zero, but these days they’re my bread-and-butter.
You need to be tactful, because you’re usually juggling a whole bunch of people (and egos), and trying to massage them all into working for you. But at the same time you need to strike a balance between tact and being direct and to-the-point, and not mince words when you’re trying to get something done. As for how to become one, I’m not quite sure, since I kind of fell into it myself. If there is a formal career track or path to ‘producerhood’, I missed the memo on that.
What's your working environment like? Do you get to meet authors (whether virtual or in person)?
I share an office in the Flatiron building with the rest of the Macmillan Digital Marketing department (my little corner boasts a bunch of comics and a big, big relief print of a zombie hanging like a tapestry on the wall behind my desk). But my boss lives in California, and Torie, Tor.com’s administrative editor and community manager (and the only other full-time member of the staff), works on a separate floor of the building, so often I work from home, a basement apartment in Brooklyn that I’ve dubbed my “Underground Lair”. I work on the internet, so it’s a rare occasion when it really makes a difference where I’m located physically. As long as the tubes are fat and the lulz are flowing, we’re in business.
One of the most gratifying aspects of my job is, in fact, meeting so many interesting people, authors included, and creating good relationships with them. Mostly via the web, but once or twice a year you’ll go to a con and meet up with an IM or Xbox buddy, Every once in a while, an author will pop up in NYC for a signing or something, and they’ll swing by the Flatiron.
What are some of the challenges you're currently facing?
We’re facing the same broad challenges that the entirety of publishing is facing, and to a more general extent, the entire media/content creation industry: How does the digital paradigm affect our product: from its look and feel, to the way in which the end user interacts with it, to how the work is produced or created, to how the creator gets rewarded for their work. Additionally, we’re facing the same challenges that web-based content services are facing: decreased ad sales, a general sense of ominous foreboding that all this is going to come crashing down in a very unceremonious way, just like in the Dot Com bubble burst of 2001, etc.
In your opinion, how is Tor.com leveraging New Media and the genre? What are the things that you're doing right?
One of the things we’re doing the best, I think, is engaging with our audience, and listening. Publishing is a very insular industry, where insiders are constantly talking to each other, but very rarely do they actually talk to or listen to the actual end customer: the reader. There have traditionally been some very valid arguments as for why this is the case, but as digital media democratizes the world more and more, those arguments become much less convincing or even relevant.
Tor.com is one way in which we’re talking directly with readers, listening to what they have to say, and we’re finding out a lot about them. And I do mean a whole hell of a lot—some of the very dearly-held assumptions of the publishing industry really don’t hold much water with the reading public, and it’s very sobering to compare and contrast what I see and read every day on Tor.com in particular and the internet in general with what I see and hear from within the walls of the Flatiron building.
Currently, what's your metric for determining the site's success?
That depends on who you ask. If you ask one person, it’s traffic in order to charge more for ads. If you ask another, it’s profit from the bookstore. If you ask yet another, it’s the perception of the Tor.com brand as a leader in the online space, from the point of view of the publishing industry. If you ask me, all these factor in, but for me the site is successful if people find it useful, entertaining, and valuable. Whenever someone tells me “Tor.com is one of my top five must-check-out-every-day sites” I fee l like I’ve been doing my job successfully.
What can we expect in the future from Tor.com?
Well, we’ll be staging a robot uprising sometime in early 2010, which will lead to the activation of Skynet on August 29 2012, which will then—oh, wait. Nevermind. strike that, you never heard any o that...
All joking aside, we’ve got a few things up our sleeves:
We’ve made no secret that we’re working on an ebook store, but that’s taking us a bit longer than expected: none of the current solutions out there for purchasing and delivering ebooks—not Amazon, not Barnes and Noble, not Fictionwise, not Macmillan’s content distribution partners, no one—are all that good, and as an avid ebook consumer myself, I’m trying my damndest to create something that can help break free of that morass, as opposed to simply another iteration of the same problem which has so many ebook aficionados frustrated, and so many casual ebook consumers confused and paralyzed in perplexity. It’s been a very hard slog in trying to find just the right recipe—we’ve literally had to go back to square one on more than one occasion—and it’s taken much longer than I (naively, I suppose) anticipated, but I think we’re making some progress.
We’re also contemplating undertaking a massive overhaul of the site, taking into consideration the feedback from actual users over the last year. We’re just now starting to get this process rolling, and so far, we’ve come up with some really promising approaches.
Additionally, as always, we’ve got some really great content in the pipeline: short stories by top authors, comics by up-and-coming creators, games, illustrations by masters of the form, and not to mention our intrepid bloggers, who post on whatever fannish or SF/F related subjects they feel passionate about.
You're a designer by training. Did you ever imagine yourself running Tor.com?
Absolutely not. I’m not the most social person in the world, and in my default state, I’m perfectly happy being locked away in a dim office with a Wacom tablet, a powerful Mac, a very large monitor, and a 2GB, 150-layer Photoshop file. This job is in many ways the direct opposite of that—I’m constantly meeting people, keeping on top of contacts, forging relationships with authors, editors, publicists, bloggers, etc., and I’m still surprised to this day that I’ve been able to pull it off so far!
Do you get to practice what you've learned as a designer at Tor.com?
Sometimes, but not often. The lion’s share of the design work that goes into Tor.com is handled by the amazing Jamie Stafford-Hill, who’s real day job is designing hardcover books for Tor Books. I really can’t stress this enough: Jamie’s a badass. An incredibly professional, competent, talented, thoughtful and sensible designer who consistently surprises me in wonderful ways. As for art direction duties (which is the flipside to the designer question), we’re incredibly lucky to be able to count on Irene Gallo, who is one of the most accomplished and respected art directors in the field, not to mention the genre. She’s got an almost preternatural sensibility for finding just the right artist for a project, and she brings that to each one of the stories that PNH acquires for Tor.com. The beautiful illustrations that you see accompanying Tor.com’s stories are all her fault. Both Jamie and Irene know that I’m a designer (I’d like to think they know I’m at least a competent and relatively good one, at that), and have worked with me in that capacity in the past, so there’s always some back and forth, and I like to think that they take my opinions seriously. But (to my disappointment sometimes) there’s little time for me to really dive into design issues as deeply as they require, so I usually defer to Jamie and Irene, and trust them to do the jobs they’re so good at.
How did you become Tor Books' Mass Market Designer?
I filled out a job application, came in for an interview, and showed my portfolio. It really was as simple as that . I had just graduated from Pratt Institute with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, with a major in Graphic Design and a minor in printmaking. Before that I’d worked as an art director in the advertising industry for about six or seven years, so I’d built up a nice book, which apparently impressed someone, because I was offered the job of Junior Mass Market Designer a few days after I interviewed.
What is it that a Mass Market Designer does? What were the challenges in that position? What was the most rewarding experience?
A Mass Market Designer, for the most part—probably about 70% of the time—adapts extant designs from hardcover books (like the ones Jamie designs, for example) into the smaller mass market paperback size. There are also certain considerations with regard to what we call effects (foil stamping, embossing, etc) which may or may not differ from the hardcover design, depending on the marketing and sales strategy for the particular title in question.
The other 30% —and the fun part, for a designer—are original book cover designs, be they for new, direct-to-mass-market title, or for a book for which the hardcover design is not appropriate for mass market (or a design that didn’t work in the hardcover edition and the publisher wants to try a new approach to see if it will improve sales).
What a mass market designer does *not* do, at least at Macmillan, is design the interiors of books. This is handled by a completely separate department (sometimes outsourced altogether to a compositing house) from the group that creates covers, both on the hardcover and the paperback end. As a typographer, and a type geek who can sit in front of a monitor and set type for hours and be entertained by the slightest minutiae of the space between two letters on a given block of text, this actually came as a surprise and a bit of a disappointment when I first took the job.
What advice do you have for aspiring designers?
Never take anything for granted; there is always someone better than you out there, and no one owes you anything. Be open to criticism, which is a trite, clichéd piece of advice, but one much harder to actually follow than at first blush—a designer must always be open to critiques from others, and to self-criticism, which is even harder still. Think hard before going to art school. The benefits may debatable, but the responsibility for paying back thousands of dollars in crushing student loan debt is not. Don’t take work on spec, or no or low pay in exchange for the so-called exposure (that word should be a red flag); it hurts you, it hurts your industry, and it hurts your colleagues (see www.no-spec.org for more details). Your client doesn’t expect his or her lawyer or plumber to work for free, why should he or she expect that from you?
Advice for aspiring producers?
Be hungry. Be opinionated. Become an expert. Don’t just learn a skill set, learn instead how to learn. In other words, become an autodidact: odds are that the things you’ll be trying to wrap your head around in a year’s time aren’t even a blip on the horizon, and you’ll have to figure them out on your own, without a the help of a mentor, a teacher, or a curriculum. Don’t complain, but don’t let people walk all over you, either. Be solution-oriented: try to be the person people think of when they have a problem, and they need an answer, or at the very least a shove in the right direction.
Anything else you want to plug?
World peace. Universal healthcare. Atheism. Robot rights. A manned mission to Mars, followed by a robust colonization and terraforming program, preferably within my lifetime.
Monday, October 05, 2009
October 5, 2009 Links and Plugs
Happy mooncake festival!
In terms of self-promotion, The World SF News Blog has migrated to Wordpress (update your bookmarks and feeds!). They're also available on Twitter.
In local news, Dean Francis Alfar and Joseph Nacino just released a virtual anthology of Philippine secondary-world fiction: The Farthest Shore.
Paper Tigers is also focusing on Philippine children's literature this month.
And if you happen to be in CA, Megan Kurashige is holding a book club at Kepler's bookstore on October 13, 2009 featuring Coraline.
Interviews
In terms of self-promotion, The World SF News Blog has migrated to Wordpress (update your bookmarks and feeds!). They're also available on Twitter.
In local news, Dean Francis Alfar and Joseph Nacino just released a virtual anthology of Philippine secondary-world fiction: The Farthest Shore.
Paper Tigers is also focusing on Philippine children's literature this month.
And if you happen to be in CA, Megan Kurashige is holding a book club at Kepler's bookstore on October 13, 2009 featuring Coraline.
Interviews
- Mary Robinette Kowal interviews Dr. Michio Kaku.
- Aguarras has a bilingual interview with Steve Berman.
- Only the Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy interviews David Gunn.
- Innsmouth Free Press has a "mininterview" (coined by Conrad Williams) with Mary Robinette Kowal.
- Tim O'Shea interviews Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
- Odyssey Podcasts has a lecture from Catherine Asaro.
- Sanford Allen interviews Hank Schwaeble.
- The Sofanauts with Jeremiah Tolbert and Jeff VanderMeer (stone them to death).
- Another mininterview with Mindy Klasky.
- Lynn Price on Where are all the “good” books?
- The Nine Circles of MMO Hell.
- Jim C Hines on Bad Book Publicity and DAW’s Zombie Rabbit Cover of Doom.
- Victoria Strauss on The Perils of Searching For Publishers on the Internet.
- Elisabeth Vonarburg's Worldcon 2009 speech.
- Jaymee Goh on The Post-Modernity of Steampunk.
- Cherie Priest on Hello and Good Morning (Technically. Here in West Coast Time).
- Keith McGowan on Letters from Abroad: READ THAT BOOK, OR ELSE?
- Rachel Aaron on Side-by-sidelines: Writing Income.
- Vonda N. McIntyre on Pitfalls of Writing SF & Fantasy #14: Everything’s in the right place!
- Michael Stelzner on More Great Blogs for Writers!
- Robin Agnew on Finding that Sweet Spot.
- Mike Brotherton on Life as Story and Science Fiction Words in the Mainstream.
- Kay Kenyon on Hateful Heroes.
- Diana Pharaoh Francis on Of Beds and Writing.
- Nicola Morgan on Response to a Deluded Idiot.
- 2009 Nominations are now open for the Cybils Awards.
- Paul Di Filippo reviews The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics.
- Congrats to the Honorable Mentions for Best Horror of the Year Volume One.
- Even Dan Brown can't break the e-book 5% rule.
Book/Magazine Review: Wilde Stories 2009 edited by Steve Berman
Every Monday, I'll be doing bite-sized book/magazine reviews.
There's actually a lot of gay writers in the genre but the question in forming an anthology such as Wilde Stories is whether there's enough strong, gay speculative short stories to merit such a publication. It's a field that's more viable these days, with publications like Icarus Magazine and Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, as opposed to a decade ago. But then again, editor Steve Berman draws a couple of his stories--and what I consider the more powerful pieces in this anthology--from venues that aren't necessarily dedicated to gay literature. And honestly, from the perspective of a heterosexual, that's what's surprising: I've encountered stories like "Firooz and His Brother" by Alex Jeffers and "AKA St. Mark's Place" by Richard Bowes before but I never pegged them as distinctly queer stories. Encountering them in this anthology places them in a new light, and makes one realize how wide-open the category of "gay speculative fiction" can be.
But let's go back to the initial dilemma of Wilde Stories 2009. Are there enough powerful stories to merit such an anthology? Well, to a certain extent, it's not: this book isn't as thick as a Robert Jordan novel (but then again, what anthology is?) and if quantity was your only metric (mine isn't) for a successful book, you might consider this slim pickings with only eleven stories. It doesn't help that of those eleven stories, three of them are quite short (and of those three, I was only satisfied with "Behind the Curtain" by Joel Lane). Despite those complaints, what remains is a selection of well-written stories. Are they comparable to, say, the award-winners and stories featured in other "Best Of" anthologies? In some cases, yes. For example, "The Bloomsbury Nudes" by Jameson Currier is a haunting story wherein the characters come to life and each one has a distinct personality. It's not easily classifiable as a ghost story but it produces the same impact and features all the tropes of what one would expect from such a tale. "AKA St. Mark's Place" by Richard Bowes conjures a certain era and tone of America and successfully juggles elements of the fantastic along with the horrific. And then there were stories which I felt were good enough or fun, but weren't necessarily the best of the best: "I'm Your Violence" by Lee Thomas, "A Troll on a Mountain with A Girl" by Steve Berman, "Firooz and His Brother" by Alex Jeffers, and "The Behold of the Eye" by Hal Duncan (and the last one is also going to be reprinted in Rich Horton's "best of online fiction" anthology).
One pattern among the stories in this book is that while the term speculative fiction is broad enough, most (if not all) of the stories here fall under the fantasy and horror bracket, instead of, say, science fiction. Tragedy and loss is also a recurring theme, which should set expectations at to what kind of mood Wild Stories 2009 sets. As far as themed, reprint anthologies go, Berman succeeds in forming an anthology with some solid and noteworthy stories given the hand he's dealt with.
There's actually a lot of gay writers in the genre but the question in forming an anthology such as Wilde Stories is whether there's enough strong, gay speculative short stories to merit such a publication. It's a field that's more viable these days, with publications like Icarus Magazine and Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, as opposed to a decade ago. But then again, editor Steve Berman draws a couple of his stories--and what I consider the more powerful pieces in this anthology--from venues that aren't necessarily dedicated to gay literature. And honestly, from the perspective of a heterosexual, that's what's surprising: I've encountered stories like "Firooz and His Brother" by Alex Jeffers and "AKA St. Mark's Place" by Richard Bowes before but I never pegged them as distinctly queer stories. Encountering them in this anthology places them in a new light, and makes one realize how wide-open the category of "gay speculative fiction" can be.But let's go back to the initial dilemma of Wilde Stories 2009. Are there enough powerful stories to merit such an anthology? Well, to a certain extent, it's not: this book isn't as thick as a Robert Jordan novel (but then again, what anthology is?) and if quantity was your only metric (mine isn't) for a successful book, you might consider this slim pickings with only eleven stories. It doesn't help that of those eleven stories, three of them are quite short (and of those three, I was only satisfied with "Behind the Curtain" by Joel Lane). Despite those complaints, what remains is a selection of well-written stories. Are they comparable to, say, the award-winners and stories featured in other "Best Of" anthologies? In some cases, yes. For example, "The Bloomsbury Nudes" by Jameson Currier is a haunting story wherein the characters come to life and each one has a distinct personality. It's not easily classifiable as a ghost story but it produces the same impact and features all the tropes of what one would expect from such a tale. "AKA St. Mark's Place" by Richard Bowes conjures a certain era and tone of America and successfully juggles elements of the fantastic along with the horrific. And then there were stories which I felt were good enough or fun, but weren't necessarily the best of the best: "I'm Your Violence" by Lee Thomas, "A Troll on a Mountain with A Girl" by Steve Berman, "Firooz and His Brother" by Alex Jeffers, and "The Behold of the Eye" by Hal Duncan (and the last one is also going to be reprinted in Rich Horton's "best of online fiction" anthology).
One pattern among the stories in this book is that while the term speculative fiction is broad enough, most (if not all) of the stories here fall under the fantasy and horror bracket, instead of, say, science fiction. Tragedy and loss is also a recurring theme, which should set expectations at to what kind of mood Wild Stories 2009 sets. As far as themed, reprint anthologies go, Berman succeeds in forming an anthology with some solid and noteworthy stories given the hand he's dealt with.
Book/Magazine Review: The Farthest Shore: Fantasy from the Philippines edited by Dean Francis Alfar and Joseph Nacino
Every Monday, I'll be doing bite-sized book/magazine reviews.
When the announcement for the table of contents for the book first came out, it was honestly underwhelming. There were originally ten stories, two of which were reprints from Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1. To bolster the roster, the editors each contributed a story. Not that I felt this was necessary, considering this was an electronic imprint and there are no word count quotas, but there is nonetheless an expectation than an anthology should deliver a variety of stories. In the introduction, Nacino mentions that the theme of the book is secondary-world fantasy, although whether it should be a story free from distinct Filipino qualities ("...we wanted to create worlds without any recognizable sign of anything Filipino on the horizon") or not ("...we should also write about our own Filipino world") is a bit confusing. Judging from the selections, both types apply.
Given my low expectations, a couple of the stories were pleasant surprises. I expected the anthology to be filled with sword-and-sorcery narratives along the lines of your D&D campaign and while there are those types of fiction here, I'm impressed at how some of the writers make the most of what they consider secondary-world fiction. "The Just World of Helena Jimenez" by Eliza Victoria, for example, juxtaposes the real world with the fantastical, alternating between one to give context to the other, although admittedly it's the form that impresses me more than the story. A noteworthy piece is "Spelling Normal" by Mia Tijam, which has a cyberpunk feel and is this weird mix of Terry Bisson's mastery of dialogue combined with Ysabeau Wilce's esoteric language. If I weren't aware of the anthology's parameters, I easily could have considered this science fiction but it nonetheless works as a secondary world piece and is easily the most daring of all the stories here.
Strangely enough, what I felt were the strongest stories in the anthology were the straight-up sword-and-sorcery narratives, although the authors subvert your expectations. While some might contend the practice of the editor including their own work in an anthology, "Strange Weather" by Dean Francis Alfar leaves no doubt as to the merits of its inclusion. It's the first and one of the longest stories but manages to elicit a lot of emotions ranging from insight, wonder, laughter, suspense, to romance. Another lengthy but wonderful piece is "Light" by Kate Aton-Osias which utilizes a unique perspective when it comes to your RPG spellcasters and is rooted with powerful characterization.
There's a couple of other good stories such as "Wildwater" by Crystal Koo and the Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1 reprints. Interestingly enough, these are the stories that successfully combine Philippine culture into their secondary world settings. The others, while not horrible per se, failed to transcend competency. "Rite of Passage" by Dominique Gerald Cimafranca, for example, was too short and not surprisingly had little pay-off. "Siege of Silence" by Paolo V. Chikiamco is the opposite as it falls into the trap of a short story wanting to be a novel, and the best example of this weakness is his large cast of characters who produce no emotional attachment, and the larger focus of the narrative on the plot. And "Brothers in Arms" by Joseph Nacino, while one of his better-written works, is simply mediocre and lacks a certain gravitas.
Overall, The Farthest Shore: Fantasy from the Philippines is a welcome influx of new stories. All but one of the contributors are veteran writers in the genre and while there are stories that remain lackluster, there's enough gems to redeem the anthology.
When the announcement for the table of contents for the book first came out, it was honestly underwhelming. There were originally ten stories, two of which were reprints from Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1. To bolster the roster, the editors each contributed a story. Not that I felt this was necessary, considering this was an electronic imprint and there are no word count quotas, but there is nonetheless an expectation than an anthology should deliver a variety of stories. In the introduction, Nacino mentions that the theme of the book is secondary-world fantasy, although whether it should be a story free from distinct Filipino qualities ("...we wanted to create worlds without any recognizable sign of anything Filipino on the horizon") or not ("...we should also write about our own Filipino world") is a bit confusing. Judging from the selections, both types apply.Given my low expectations, a couple of the stories were pleasant surprises. I expected the anthology to be filled with sword-and-sorcery narratives along the lines of your D&D campaign and while there are those types of fiction here, I'm impressed at how some of the writers make the most of what they consider secondary-world fiction. "The Just World of Helena Jimenez" by Eliza Victoria, for example, juxtaposes the real world with the fantastical, alternating between one to give context to the other, although admittedly it's the form that impresses me more than the story. A noteworthy piece is "Spelling Normal" by Mia Tijam, which has a cyberpunk feel and is this weird mix of Terry Bisson's mastery of dialogue combined with Ysabeau Wilce's esoteric language. If I weren't aware of the anthology's parameters, I easily could have considered this science fiction but it nonetheless works as a secondary world piece and is easily the most daring of all the stories here.
Strangely enough, what I felt were the strongest stories in the anthology were the straight-up sword-and-sorcery narratives, although the authors subvert your expectations. While some might contend the practice of the editor including their own work in an anthology, "Strange Weather" by Dean Francis Alfar leaves no doubt as to the merits of its inclusion. It's the first and one of the longest stories but manages to elicit a lot of emotions ranging from insight, wonder, laughter, suspense, to romance. Another lengthy but wonderful piece is "Light" by Kate Aton-Osias which utilizes a unique perspective when it comes to your RPG spellcasters and is rooted with powerful characterization.
There's a couple of other good stories such as "Wildwater" by Crystal Koo and the Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1 reprints. Interestingly enough, these are the stories that successfully combine Philippine culture into their secondary world settings. The others, while not horrible per se, failed to transcend competency. "Rite of Passage" by Dominique Gerald Cimafranca, for example, was too short and not surprisingly had little pay-off. "Siege of Silence" by Paolo V. Chikiamco is the opposite as it falls into the trap of a short story wanting to be a novel, and the best example of this weakness is his large cast of characters who produce no emotional attachment, and the larger focus of the narrative on the plot. And "Brothers in Arms" by Joseph Nacino, while one of his better-written works, is simply mediocre and lacks a certain gravitas.
Overall, The Farthest Shore: Fantasy from the Philippines is a welcome influx of new stories. All but one of the contributors are veteran writers in the genre and while there are stories that remain lackluster, there's enough gems to redeem the anthology.
Book/Magazine Review: The Lost Language by Marianne Villanueva
Every Monday, I'll be doing bite-sized book/magazine reviews.
In a certain way, Marianne Villanueva's short stories feel like Joy Dayrit's in the sense that she invokes elements of speculative fiction without intending to write for the genre--although one of the stories in this collection has been reprinted in Philippine Speculative Fiction and another undoubtedly has mythical elements to it. In terms of sensibilities, on one hand, The Lost Language features stories that have a literary bent, whether it's the focus on the characters, their domesticity, and the ambiguous ending that provide little sense of closure. Compounding this is the fact that the protagonist is usually an elderly female with the conflict revolving around loss of some sort. In this, there's a sense of formula to Villanueva's writing, a faithfulness to what is expected by the academia rather than surrendering herself to her muse.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have fiction which is liberating as Villanueva successfully experiments and lets the narrative flow naturally. The best example of this is "Alex" where the protagonist imagines the life of his co-worker, the Alex of the title. Villanueva seamlessly jumps from perspective to perspective, building on the mythology that is established early on. This isn't a piece that jumps out as horror, but there's something terrifying at how the protagonist's obsession with Alex grows, especially by the time we reach the end. And then there is the titular piece, "The Lost Language", which is composed of seemingly disparate accounts but form a unified whole to create a story that's not easily categorized--and that's a good thing.
Overall, The Lost Language is a mix of hits-and-misses. There's no outright unlikable story, and it's clear that Villanueva is talented when it comes to the craft of writing, but there are pieces where her fiction is constrained by what is considered literary writing. Still, when she does break out of that mold and gets into her groove, Villanueva astounds and amazes.
In a certain way, Marianne Villanueva's short stories feel like Joy Dayrit's in the sense that she invokes elements of speculative fiction without intending to write for the genre--although one of the stories in this collection has been reprinted in Philippine Speculative Fiction and another undoubtedly has mythical elements to it. In terms of sensibilities, on one hand, The Lost Language features stories that have a literary bent, whether it's the focus on the characters, their domesticity, and the ambiguous ending that provide little sense of closure. Compounding this is the fact that the protagonist is usually an elderly female with the conflict revolving around loss of some sort. In this, there's a sense of formula to Villanueva's writing, a faithfulness to what is expected by the academia rather than surrendering herself to her muse.On the other end of the spectrum, we have fiction which is liberating as Villanueva successfully experiments and lets the narrative flow naturally. The best example of this is "Alex" where the protagonist imagines the life of his co-worker, the Alex of the title. Villanueva seamlessly jumps from perspective to perspective, building on the mythology that is established early on. This isn't a piece that jumps out as horror, but there's something terrifying at how the protagonist's obsession with Alex grows, especially by the time we reach the end. And then there is the titular piece, "The Lost Language", which is composed of seemingly disparate accounts but form a unified whole to create a story that's not easily categorized--and that's a good thing.
Overall, The Lost Language is a mix of hits-and-misses. There's no outright unlikable story, and it's clear that Villanueva is talented when it comes to the craft of writing, but there are pieces where her fiction is constrained by what is considered literary writing. Still, when she does break out of that mold and gets into her groove, Villanueva astounds and amazes.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Support Our 'Zines Day
Here's a couple of 'Zines that I enjoyed over the past year:- Clarkesworld Magazine
- Lone Star Stories *sniff* *sniff*
- Cabinet Des Fees
- Mythic Delirium
- Great Uncommon Denominator Magazine
- Sybil's Garage
- Postscripts
- New Genre
- Icarus Magazine
October 2, 2009 Links and Plugs
Thanks to Jeff and Jeff (and everyone else who tweeted, emailed, etc.) for linking to my post on Typhoon Ondoy and how you can help. There's lots of grass-roots efforts and it warms the heart that fandom and the speculative fiction community is being socially active in this instance.
And *sniff* *sniff* it's the last issue of Farrago's Wainscot. Innsmouth Free Press also released their Fall 2009 Fiction Issue. Since it's Support Our 'Zines Day, you might want to donate/purchase StarShipSofa Stories.
Interviews
And *sniff* *sniff* it's the last issue of Farrago's Wainscot. Innsmouth Free Press also released their Fall 2009 Fiction Issue. Since it's Support Our 'Zines Day, you might want to donate/purchase StarShipSofa Stories.
Interviews
- Dead Robots Society interviews Juliet Ulman (podcast).
- Annalee Newitz interviews Cory Doctorow.
- Writing Raw interviews Lavie Tidhar (PDF).
- Stargazer's World interviews Robin D. Laws.
- Jocelynn Drake interviews Vicki Pettersson.
- Jason Henninger interviews Steamcon Vice Chair Diana Vick.
- Tor/Forge Blog interviews Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson (video).
- Morning Media Menu interviews Brandon Sanderson (podcast).
- Bitten by Books interviews Lynsay Sands.
- SF Site interviews Mark Chadbourn.
- Jeff VanderMeer interviews David Anthony Durham.
- Stomping on Yeti interviews Tim Pratt.
- Audio Visual Podcast interviews Cory Doctorow.
- Warren Ellis on SF MAGAZINES: It’s Not My Fault.
- CroSF on Ivana, the “Croatian Tolkien”.
- Victoria Strauss on Google Book Search Settlement Fairness Hearing Adjourned.
- Spontaneous Derivation on A Brief Drunken Comment on the Cost of Making Ebooks.
- Annalee Newitz on Jonathan Lethem's Crazy Friendship With Philip K. Dick.
- William Kates on 50 Years Later, 'Twilight Zone' Still Intrigues.
- Josh Jasper on It's That Special Month For Horror Fiction.
- Hal Duncan on Notes from New Sodom: To the Water-Fountains.
- L Jagi Lamplighter on Evoking the Desired Response.
- Margaret Ronald on Laughing at the Magic.
- NK Jemisin on Sidelines.
- Sharon Wheeler on Awards kerfuffle.
- Megan Kurashige on why yes, Virginia, there really is still censorship.
- Justine Larbalestier on The Advantages of Being a White Writer.
- Kristine Kathryn Rusch on The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: When to Return to Your Day Job.
- Matt Mikalatos on Embracing Your Inner Weird.
- The Book Publicity Blog on Book tours for the 21st century.
- Janice Hardy on Re-Write Wednesday: Arc Enemy.
- Nicola Morgan on The Survival of the Fittest.
- Nathan Bransford on Previously Published Authors.
- Pimp My Novel on Going Rogue & the New York Bubble.
- The Rejectionist on Rachel Zoe Wants to Help You Write A Novel.
- Kassia Krozser on That’s When I Reach for My Revolver.
- Danielle Steel, the PA and the missing $2.7m no one noticed.
- Leslie What nominated for Oregon Book Award.
- Steampunk Month on Tor.com.
Top 10 Best-Sellers as of 2009/9/27
From USA Today's best-seller list (you can find out their basis here):
- The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
- Arguing With Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government by Glenn Beck
- An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
- True Compass by Edward M. Kennedy
- The Associate by John Grisham
- The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
- Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
- Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Thursday, October 01, 2009
October 1, 2009 Links and Plugs
It's Support Our 'Zines Day!
And every gamer should read Matthew Baldwin's Adventure Capital.
In real-life news, hopefully people affected by either the typhoon or earthquake are safe.
Interviews
And from Sarah Langan:
And every gamer should read Matthew Baldwin's Adventure Capital.
In real-life news, hopefully people affected by either the typhoon or earthquake are safe.
Interviews
- Small Beer Press interviews Vincent McCaffrey.
- Ranobe Cafe interviews Nick Mamatas.
- Marshall Payne interviews Catherine J. Gardner.
- Lev Grossman interviews Iain Banks.
- John Preston interviews Terry Pratchett.
- Seriously Sarah on The Price of Fandom [Singapore Writers Festival] (and lots of photos!).
- Amanda Palmer on Why I am Not Afraid to Take Your Money.
- James A. Owen on Things That Are True.
- SF Signal Mind Meld: Behind the Scenes...How the Hottest Short Fiction Anthologies Are Created (Part 2, Part 3).
- Chris Eldin guest blogs at Editorial Ass.
- Lynne Patrick on How Hard Can It Be?
- Rachelle Gardner on It's All About Collaboration.
- Andrew Wheeler on Stop Saying That!
- John Scalzi On Being the Stargate Universe Creative Consultant: Answers!
- Pimp My Novel on In the Year 2029.
And from Sarah Langan:
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