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by Corrine A. Kumar

Fight scenes aren’t just about fighting. While writing technically accurate and action-packed fight scenes is important, if we don’t keep the focus on our characters and our worlds, readers will just skim past them. Fight scenes are a powerful opportunity to show the reader who your character is, where they come from, and the type of world they live in.

Status and Expertise

A character’s weapon choice tells us about their social status. In Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, spears are wielded by lower classes, while powerful Shardblades are reserved for high-ranking nobles. Additionally, a character’s word choice can demonstrate their expertise. A character with less training would use general terms such as “sword” or “punch.” Conversely,  a more experienced character would use more specific jargon, such as “arming sword” or “rear hook.”

Culture

Even in our world, variations on the sword have arisen across the globe. The Egyptian khopesh, the Japanese katana, and the Filipino barong are just three examples. By showing two characters facing off with different blades, we can immediately communicate the different cultures they come from.

The techniques and names of the techniques a character uses can also reflect their culture. While some martial arts may use more poetic, visually evocative terms, such as “Heron Wading in the Rushes” from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, other arts may use more utilitarian terms such as “back-fist” and “push-kick.” In some settings, an honor code may restrict fighters to using “respectable” techniques, while others may resort to “underhanded” tactics like biting or pinching. 

Magic and Technology

Integrating magic and technology into fight scenes can be a fantastic method of introducing your world. In her Greenbone Saga series, Fonda Lee does this masterfully by having her characters utilize all six jade-based powers in single duels. This teaches readers how the magic system works in an organic way that also makes her fight scenes feel unique to her world.

This is easier to remember with powers that are clearly useful in combat, such as enhanced strength and speed. However, even subtle powers can be useful. For example, if all a character can do is make their hands glow, this slight magic could be used to distract an opponent at a critical moment. In a fight, even a single small opportunity can be all it takes to win. 

Moreover, it is important to consider how a character’s strategy should change based on their powers or those of their opponents. If a character has the power to shock others on contact, they would be best served by using close-quarters techniques. Conversely, this character’s opponents should utilize techniques that keep them at a distance.

Mindset

When trying to convey a character’s mindset, first focus on the character’s emotional experience. Do they feel anger, fear, sadness, or a combination? Do they push their feelings away or embrace them? In Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane trilogy, he emphasizes the different emotions that Jedi and Sith rely on in combat to create a distinct feel for each character’s perspective.

Next, focus on their physical sensations. Do they feel their hearts racing, fatigue, or pain from a wound? Or are they aware of these sensations only after the battle? Adjusting the level of detail you use to delve into these sensations is a powerful way to make different viewpoint characters feel distinct.

Stakes

Think about what will happen to the character, depending on the outcome of the fight. How much does your character focus on these stakes during combat? Do they focus on what they have to gain or fear what they might lose? Showing the character’s perception of the stakes is the key to creating tension. In Christopher Ruocchio’s Howling Dark, Hadrian begins a fight believing his opponent’s goal is simply to humiliate him. However, partway through, he realizes his opponent means to kill him—resulting in a massive spike of tension as the stakes become steeper.

Morals

Different fighting techniques have different levels of harm they can do, ranging from bruising to death. The techniques and weapons characters choose show us what they are and are not willing to do. Would your character stab someone over an insult to their honor? Would they only use lethal force if their life was threatened? Or, like Batman, would they refrain from killing no matter what?

Goals

A character’s goals affect not only their mindset but the weapons and techniques they use. For example, even a single martial arts system may have dozens of punch defenses. Some require fighters to retreat, while others involve stepping past the opponent. If a character’s goal is to escape, stepping past their opponent may be the best option. In contrast, if their goal is to protect a bystander behind them, stepping past their opponent would not be the right choice, as it would leave the bystander more vulnerable to the attacker. If a character’s goal is not to kill during a fight, they would utilize stun weapons rather than lethal ones.

A character can also have multiple goals in a fight scene. These goals can often be divided into 1) immediate goals and 2) overarching goals. An assassin’s immediate goal may be to kill the guard who has confronted them to achieve their overarching goal of killing the king. In Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, there are fight scenes that span multiple chapters. While it would be easy for these scenes to feel boring, Brown keeps them engaging by giving his characters a combination of immediate and overarching goals. While having a series of immediate goals gives us a sense of progress, the overarching goal gives the sequence a sense of direction.

We often think of conveying character and world-building through description or dialogue, but fight scenes too can do this same heavy-lifting. Whether you utilize them while writing the first draft or during final revisions, these strategies will make your fight scenes richer, more engaging, and unique while also grounding your reader more deeply in your story as a whole. 

Corrine A. Kumar is a science fiction and fantasy writer with a love of martial arts. She has been a student and apprentice instructor of Hapkido, Jeet Kune Do, and Kali. Her greatest writing influences are Brandon Sanderson, Fonda Lee, Pierce Brown, and Christopher Ruocchio. She studied Chemistry and Neuroscience at Indiana University—Bloomington, graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine, and is now a Pediatrics Resident at Riley Hospital for Children. She is an alumnus of the Futurescapes Writers’ Workshop, and her articles Active Reading to Step Up Your Writing and It’s All About Momentum: Writing Effectively and Productively Amidst a Busy Life were previously published by The SFWA Blog. Corrine can be found on Twitter @Corrine_A_Kumar.

 

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by Albert Zhang

Science fiction is often much more concerned about the physical than the organizational reality of a setting (and that’s understandable). But a good fundamental economic story can facilitate plot development and lend realism to a setting. To that end, I hope to share some tips for incorporating economic events into your own writing. 

My goal is to move beyond the what and into the why of economic history. Consider the following questions:

1. What is the payoff?
2. What is the cost, and who is paying it?
3. What are the main externalities?

As with many things in economics, the concepts are simple and the implementation is…less so. Let’s consider an introductory example below.

The Gold Rush

The asteroid 16 Psyche holds an estimated USD 100 quintillion in gold. And there are 1.1 to 1.9 million other large asteroids in just the local asteroid belt. If humanity gained access, how might the ensuing scramble be portrayed?

The California Gold Rush (CGR) springs to mind as a comparable event. The temptation might be to lift a few details from the period and call it a day: poor prospectors, boomtowns, maybe a splash of frontier justice. But let’s see if we can’t “mine” this scenario deeper for worldbuilding purposes.

Payoffs: Scale and Usage

When thinking about payoffs, consider scale and usage. In this case, miners find gold or other mineral wealth. But it’s only valuable if someone wants it! This provides our first major complication: Who needs a bajillion tons of gold?

In general, payoffs tend to decline in resource shocks. Either the supply depletes (as in the CGR), or the demand depletes (as in the infinity-gold-mining scenario). But that also gives you an opportunity. This difference of demand can inspire any number of potential solutions:

• Payoffs decline, and the rush is to get there first, while demand exists.
• There is adequate demand but for unexpected minerals. Miners switch to tungsten because of new demand from megaprojects.
• There is limited supply. Asteroid mining is constrained by some third thing, like a rare component for ship engines
• There simply is unconstrained demand for gold. A cult builds on Earth, intent on creating The Sphere, a golden moon for the mega-wealthy.

In this way, even when we can’t copy history, it can still point us to worldbuilding details that might be more satisfying than “someone buys the gold, don’t think about it.”

Costs: Dynamism and Competition

Costs are often easy to overlook, especially because they tend to evolve in the opposite direction of payoffs. In general, there is a tendency for the cost of incremental production to increase after a shock.

Low cost was a big part of what made the CGR possible. For the initial prospectors, cost was largely confined to travel. While the journey across the California Trail could be arduous, costs were borne completely by the miners. 

But these costs did not stay low. As the news spread, more sophisticated prospectors began to arrive. They brought in more expensive technology, even diverting rivers to mine riverbeds. What started as a simple grab for gold evolved into a complex system of claims, violent disputes, company investments, and larger-scale operations. By 1868, railroads had arrived in California, attracted by increasing populations and the availability of natural resources.

Think about our own space mining scenario. We can apply these lessons in any number of ways:

• Who is bearing the costs of mining the asteroids, and why? 
• If individuals: How do they bear that cost, and why are they doing it? Is space travel/housing very cheap? Is it a penal colony scenario?
• If corporations and governments: What does that look like? Who is in charge? For example, asteroid mines might work like oil rigs, with only a few people managing large operations.
• How do rising costs and competition cause those entities to evolve and conflict? Is there a “timer” on certain interests before the big boys arrive?

Here the parallels to the real world shine. Historical implementations can be the basis for details that give life to a setting, as well as to potential conflicts or pressures that motivate a narrative. 

Externalities: No Action Has One Effect

Externalities are the tangled patterns of cause and effect that spring from singular events, and they can be arbitrarily complex. Thankfully, history can provide some indication of the overall picture. Let us ask a few questions:

Who else is benefiting, and why? Perhaps the most visible changes to California came from a rapidly expanding population that funded boomtowns and cities. Economic stimulus spread as far as Chile and Australia through trade for grain. The transcontinental railroad was financed in part by CGR money and constructed in part to service a growing western populace. The US government itself had a vested interest in the settlement of the West Coast.

Consider how political or economic interests might view the colonization of the asteroid belt:

• What new constructions and economies emerge? Are there new businesses and services? Are certain goods more or less valuable on the frontier?
• How does the Rush benefit people economically? For example, housing might become substantially cheaper on Earth as the steel supply becomes near-infinite.
• What larger interests have an indirect stake in the success of our mines? Do they have a permanent presence? Might there be proxy conflicts to secure those interests?

Who is losing out, and what happens to them? The influx of settlers accelerated the California genocide of Indigenous peoples, with the backing of the US government. Extensive mining operations led to widespread deforestation, mercury contamination, and sediment pollution. These impacts can be long-lasting; hydraulic mine sites are hotspots for bioaccumulated mercury in fish even today.

We might consider some of the negative repercussions of establishing space mines:

• What existing residents might be displaced by larger interests? Researchers? Settlers? Outlaws?
• What potential environmental effects might asteroid mining create? Space travel, for example, might become more dangerous as asteroids are split apart for resources.
• Some earthbound industries would doubtlessly be thrown into chaos. Mines on Earth might be less profitable, for one.

Who isn’t involved, and why? What are the repercussions of that difference from “normal” society? There were no laws or enforcement mechanisms in California following the Mexican-American War. This environment of lawlessness is thought to have shaped the beginnings of San Francisco’s prominent queer history.

• If asteroid mines are a Wild West, why is the government not involved? What informal systems of law emerge? What unique cultures form?
• If asteroid mines are not a Wild West, how does the influence of government entities change the status of miners, create factions, or influence exploration? If the miners are independent entities, how do they stay independent?

In all of these cases, externalities provide a link between individual events and the overall setting. 

In Summary

Economic events create a rich and evolving tapestry of competing interests. By picking these out, we can find unique dynamics that can inform realistic worldbuilding. I hope that this article has provided a place to start when reading through economic history and that you can incorporate it into your own settings and narratives.

A professional economist in his less important life, Albert Zhang otherwise enjoys spending too much time thinking about the minutiae of science fiction and fantasy worlds. His debut novel First Contact was released on October 14, 2024. You can find him consuming potentially unhealthy quantities of coffee and haunting various restaurants around Boston and New York. Find out more about his book as well as worldbuilding blog posts on his website: https://www.albertzhangbooks.com/

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George Zebrowski (28 December 1945–20 December 2024) was a prolific writer and anthologist. He edited three Nebula anthologies and headed SFWA’s committee that oversaw the selection of editors for Nebula Awards anthologies from 1983-95. His collection of Bulletins and Forums now makes up the majority of SFWA’s archives at Northern Illinois University. He was editor of the SFWA Bulletin during 1970 to 1975, and then, jointly with his long-time partner Pamela Sargent from 1983 to 1991. Together they won the Service to SFWA Award in 2000.

Born in Austria, Zebrowski moved to the US at age five. He attended one of the first Clarion Writers’ Workshops in 1968 at age 22, and, notably, rose quickly to publication, in collaboration with Jack Dann in 1970 with “Traps” and “Dark, Dark, the Dead Star” and his own “The Water Sculptor of Station 233.” Two years later, his first novel, Omega Point, was published with Ace Books. He went on to write more than a hundred published short stories and essays, along with twenty-one novels, including Star Trek tie-in works. He also edited more than a dozen anthologies, including five volumes of Synergy: New Science Fiction. Zebrowski won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1999 with his book Brutal Orbits, and he served on the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award jury from 2005-2013. Three of his short stories, “Heathen God,” “The Eichmann Variations,” and “Wound the Wind,” were Nebula Award nominees. 

Paul Levinson, former SFWA President, says, “George Zebrowski was a science fiction writer’s science fiction writer. What I mean by that is he was as passionate and committed to loving science fiction—thinking about it, writing about it, and of course, writing it—as he was when he first encountered it. When George called me, or when we met at a convention, I truly felt like I was 12 years old again, consumed by and beaming with that sense of wonder.  I guess it never leaves most teenage fans of the genre, but it more than didn’t leave George—he constantly contributed to it with his electric and eclectic imagination. It was truly a privilege to know him, and wherever he is now, he’s also permanently somewhere in my brain, and no doubt the minds of many lucky others.”

Writer and editor James Morrow recalls, “Before I knew George Zebrowski, I knew about him. The connection remains vivid in my memory. Sometime in the early 1980’s, I was hanging out with a filmmaker friend in his Boston apartment, where we were eventually joined by an accomplished book critic (his name escapes me) who specialized in science fiction. I had recently published my first novel, a dystopian satire called The Wine of Violence, that owed its existence primarily to Swift and Voltaire. At the time I was largely ignorant of contemporary SF, and I felt ambivalent about continuing to write in that genre. The critic told me that, if I wanted to appreciate the stylistic, intellectual, and sociopolitical feats of which SF was capable, I should read two recent novels without delay: In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford and Macrolife by George Zebrowski. I had heard of neither book (and neither writer), but I followed the critic’s advice. And so it was that, by dazzling me with the intensity of their imaginations and the range of their philosophic and scientific passions, Benford and Zebrowski inadvertently convinced me to remain in the SF field. Eventually I got to know George in person, and he quickly proved an admirable colleague, tirelessly working behind the scenes in SFWA politics and SF publishing (often to my personal benefit). Thank you, dear George. Ave atque vale. I owe you more than I can say.”

Writer Jack Dann says, in summary of a lifelong friendship, “George was one of the most ethical and moral people I’ve ever known. He simply could not embrace cynicism. He persisted in doing good deeds for people he did not even know because it was the right thing to do. For example: after discovering that a publisher was not paying proper royalties, he spent months negotiating until the writers involved received ‘windfall’ royalties amounting to thousands of dollars. George Zebrowski the writer…? His intellectual contemporaries were Arthur C. Clarke and Stanislaw Lem—Clarke was a longtime friend and correspondent. Like Clarke and Lem, George was interested in rigorously extrapolating ideas into plausible, possible future realities. He turned cold equations into futures that we could imagine living in. Quintessential thought experiments. If you would like to experience his excoriating insights and genius, take a look at what I consider his magnum opus: Macrolife: a Mobile Utopia. To sum up. George: brilliant, cranky, generous, loveable, and passionate about everything that interested him. A fiercely devoted friend. An argument ready to happen. Someone who did not—could not—suffer fools gladly. Well, perhaps he did because he suffered through our friendship for almost sixty years! Vale, my brother…”

George Zebrowski lived 78 years.

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by the SFWA Publications Crew

In recent years, The SFWA Blog has undergone many changes and refinements to serve its community better. Where we once had a single editor, we’re now a team that reviews pitches collectively and looks for ways to bring more voices into the conversation. This past year was an especially exciting time for us because we were able to launch more open calls and elevate the excellent work of committees such as History, Indie, and Game Writing: volunteer-run initiatives here at SFWA that advocate for writers in different fields of the SFF industry.

The SFWA Blog is a free-to-read service—no membership necessary!—and our mission in 2025 is to continue growing conversations of value to professional and professionalizing writers in SFF.

Going forward, we’re partnering with more SFWA advocacy groups to bring their expertise to The Blog, and we’re developing conversations we began this year through our open calls. On our Highlights page, you can currently explore articles in our “Writing from History,” “Writing by Other Means,” and “Perspectives in Translation” conversations, along with limited series like “Playtesting Game Narratives” and long-term committee offerings from History, Indie, Romance, and Safety. We’ll be growing our list to include special topics, like articles about action-writing and worldbuilding, and seeking more roundtable and interview opportunities.

More details are available on our Submission Guidelines page for these open calls:

• Lessons Learned
• Perspectives in Translation
• Volunteer Networks: The Heart of SFF
• Writing by Other Means
• Writing from History

What Do We Want at The SFWA Blog?

Despite the range of highlights you can read to get a sense of the publication and the thorough guidelines available to would-be Blog writers, many still struggle at the pitch stage.

If you’re considering submitting an article pitch to The Blog, we’d love to read it! Here are some tips to help you create a successful pitch:

1. We love work that addresses writers at all stages of their careers, but we most often receive pitches that address an audience of complete novices. We would love to see more pitches that go past a basic introduction to a topic and more work that addresses the needs of a mid-career writer/creator in SFF.
2. We love work that explores lesser-known experiences. Although every topic can do with a refresher piece occasionally, we have a range of creators in SFF who rarely get a platform to discuss what makes their niche special. Let’s change that together.
3. We prioritize work that doesn’t simply promote a single author, organization, or professional service. (And that includes self-promotion: the best self-promotion, for us, is an author who demonstrates their talent for writing through their mastery of other article topics.) We’re more interested in exploring a concept holistically, so give us collective histories or technical discussions that include a wider range of product options.
4. We love work that uplifts rather than tearing down. Sometimes, well-meaning writers will pitch us articles that focus on how [X] text got [Y] representation wrong. These don’t tend to make it past the pitch phase. The author’s heart is in the right place, but stronger pitches will center work that gets [Y] representation right. This is also important because writers from [Y] demographic sometimes simply don’t know about the wonderful work already being done by other members of their demographic.
5. Relatedly, we love it when writers don’t feel that they have to carry a whole demographic on their own. Everyone has a distinct and wonderful voice. No group is a hivemind, so please pitch us work based on your experience in [Y] demographic rather than feeling pressured to represent The One True Experience for the whole.
6. Although we avoid blatant self-promotion, we welcome your singular, first-person experiences—so please feel free to use personal anecdotes to frame the professional core of your piece. Conversely, though, you do not have to include any personal details if you don’t want to. It’s only in pitches discussing technical topics (e.g., scientific subfields, medical know-how, or martial arts) that relevant experience in either the pitch or author’s bio will help us evaluate the submission.
7. Lastly, we love work that challenges our expectations. This doesn’t mean being controversial for the sake of controversy, but we sometimes see pitches that advocate for methodologies we disagree with—and then we ask ourselves if there’s a body of writers who might benefit from the perspective all the same. No two writers are alike, and having a team of editors allows us to signal-boost a range of perspectives. So don’t ever feel like you have to submit something based on the professional preferences of our editors! Write with a demonstrated level of authority about your point of view instead.

The Nitty Gritty of Your Submission

The SFWA Blog editorial team meets monthly to consider your submissions. While we discourage flooding our inbox with too many pitches, if you’ve sent one and haven’t heard back yet, feel free to send another along in the same window if inspiration strikes again.

In your pitch, give us a clear sense of what the article will cover so we can better evaluate your proposal. If you want to approach a subject from many different angles, please let us know. If you want to bring multiple authors/works into discussion, please list them in the pitch. If you think of structuring your article as an argument, give us a sense of the steps that get you to your conclusion.

If you get a rejection from us, please know that there are many possible reasons for a declined pitch, and you’ll find the most common listed in that email. Read them carefully, consider which ones might explain your situation, and then please feel free to submit anew.

This was a terrific year for getting more open calls and committee series off the ground, but we’re just getting started at The SFWA Blog. There’s always so much more to say and do for this weekly conversation among professional and professionalizing writers in SFF.

We hope you’ll engage with us next year by reading The SFWA Blog, commenting on or sharing articles, and submitting your own pitches. We on the editorial team very much look forward to the work that lies ahead. Join us!

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by Ira Nayman

Early in my short-story writing career, I received a delightful email from an anthology editor who had accepted one of my works. “The hard part is over,” she wrote. “Your story has been accepted. Compared to this, editing will be easy.”

What did this editor mean? If a magazine gets 200 submissions per issue and can only accept 10 stories (to make the math easy), they are very likely to receive more than enough stories that are structurally sound, allowing them to accept only stories that do not require basic story or character reworking. Creating a story that will beat 1-in-20 odds of acceptance takes a lot of work; compared to that, rewriting as part of the editorial process is easy.

Years later, having worked as an editor, it occurred to me that the email contained a certain… defensiveness. I now find it easy to believe that, having dealt with writers who fought every editorial decision, the editor was trying to preempt protracted battles over relatively minor details.

The Writer’s Perspective

Many writers resist the editorial process for a variety of reasons. It takes a lot of time, thought and, ultimately, work to craft effective prose fiction; it can be galling to allow a stranger to come along and tell you that it has to be changed. In addition, it can be hard to accept that what you have put so much of yourself into is not perfect exactly as you wrote it. These issues can be overcome with experience. All you need is one great editor to help you see the flaws in a story and guide you through the process of correcting them to see the value in the process.

I suspect that part of the reason many writers resist the input of editors is because they find rewriting a chore. However, as Ernest Hemingway said, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” When I come to rewrite, I usually approach it as another opportunity to exercise my creativity, to have fun with the process, and surprise myself with solutions to creative problems. In this way, I don’t get verklempt at the prospect of rewriting.

Many writers feel/fear that their relationship with editors has to be adversarial. It cannot be stressed enough that the editor is not your enemy. Quite the opposite. Editors and writers want the same thing: to publish the best version of a story as they can, albeit for slightly different reasons. The author wants to maintain their reputation, while the editor wants to maintain the reputation of the publication in which the story appears. If you ever have the misfortune to have a story published in a magazine or anthology that is not edited, the deficiencies you will subsequently find in it will be a lesson on why you really need an editor.

The Editor’s Contribution

Generally, editors will ask for two types of changes: those based on style or facts, and those based on creative interpretation. Most publications have an in-house style that they expect all stories to conform to (for instance, I think italics are overused in modern publishing, so the style of my publications is to give italics a break and use bold type for emphasis; be forewarned that I am also on a one-person crusade to bring back the interrobang). These are not debatable questions, so there is no point arguing with an editor about them.

In a similar vein, there is no point arguing if an editor suggests a writer change a factual error. For science fiction, for example, it’s important to get your science right. For all genres, dates of important historical events, the names of real people, actual geography (unless you have a reason for not using the actual facts), an editor is absolutely right to suggest that you do. No matter how obscure the fact, there will always be a reader who knows it and is taken out of the story if a writer gets it wrong.

Changes based on creative interpretation are more complicated. They may be something as simple as word choice: Does one word better convey the author’s intended meaning than another? Clarity is an important consideration: Does a sentence or paragraph convey the information it needs to in a way that will be clear to most readers? Issues of clarity may involve apparent continuity problems (if an object that is introduced as blue is referred to as red later in the story), including characters acting in ways that contradict what has already been established about them. Another issue may involve the order of scenes: Would a scene late in the story have more impact if it appeared earlier in the story?

This sort of editorial input is vital to creating the world of the story in the mind of the reader; it is often the most hotly contested by writers.

Working Together

My practice as an editor is to couch interpretive input as either a suggestion (“You might want to try…”) or a question (“This is unclear. Might it be better as…?”). If the writer makes a reasonable argument for why the change isn’t necessary, I’m usually willing to accept it (although it is also true that 90% or more of the changes I ask for are accepted by authors). I try to keep in mind that, in matters of artistic interpretation, there aren’t always clear-cut right or wrong answers. While my input makes sense to me given my understanding of how stories work, it is always possible that the writer is in a better position to judge what works for their specific story.

Until they have built the trust that comes with working together, it helps writers and editors to approach their relationship with a little humility. Authors need to respect the experience and knowledge the editor has; editors need to respect the fact that the inspiration and drive to write the story makes the author its de facto expert. This kind of mutual respect is the basis of successful creative relationships.

Ira Nayman writes humorous speculative fiction. He is the author of eight published novels and thirty-five published short stories. He was the editor of Amazing Stories magazine for three years. The Dance, his first anthology as editor, was published in 2024.

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Barry N. Malzberg (24 July 1939–19 December 2024), also writing as Mel Johnson, K.M. O’Donnell, Nathan Herbert, Mike Barry, Claudine Dumas, Lee W. Mason, and Gerrold Watkins, was a prolific and varied writer, anthologist, columnist, critic, satirist, and editor. Malzberg served as SFWA’s Eastern Regional Director from 1980 to 1984.

After originally working toward careers in screenwriting and as a literary agent, Malzberg began writing and publishing short fiction in the mid-1960s. His early publications, such as “The Sense of the Fire,” were in men’s magazines such as Escapade, where he was also an editor. Over the next three decades, he wrote many well-known and award-nominated short stories, later gathered into volumes of collected works, as well as dozens of novels across science-fiction, mystery, thriller, and erotica. His works were often notably pessimistic in tone, including his John W. Campbell Memorial Award winning book Beyond Apollo (1972), the third in a series of negative commentaries on the Apollo astronauts and program, and he was known for melding a bleak perspective on humanity with traps of existence as psychological elements through stories of science-fiction, erotica, and the two combined.

A prolific essayist, Malzberg’s collected non-fiction won the Locus Award twice and covered a broad range of current and historical topics. Malzberg was a notable contributor to the SFWA Bulletin: first, as the magazine’s editor in the late 1960s, until asked to resign after an essay negative to the NASA space program. Then, together with writer Mike Resnik, Malzberg contributed to The Resnick & Malzberg Dialogues, a regular advice column that ran in over fifty issues, ending famously with a discussion on women in editing, which sparked conversation that changed the course of the SFWA organization and influenced the broader genre community.

Author and editor Scott Edelman notes, “My first thoughts go not to his millions of written words—which I have loved and do not intend these memories to diminish—but to the moment when we first met, and I had the opportunity to face to face tell him how sorry I was for how I’d once wronged him. He waved it off and said something like—the world would be a terrible place if we were all judged by the worst thing we ever did. ‘Let it go,’ he said. And we went on to have a true friendship. I will always treasure his graciousness in that moment.”

Author Robert J. Sawyer says, “Barry N. Malzberg was a true mensch. He believed fervently in the power of science fiction and fought for it to transcend being a commercial category of mere escapism. The field has lost not only one of its greatest authors but also one of its fiercest champions. Barry’s published writings were often caustic, but whenever I needed a friend, he was always there with kindness and unflagging support.”

Author Nancy Kress remembers, “Barry Malzberg, my friend for over thirty years, was a mass of contradictions. A self-proclaimed pessimist (he thought of it as realism), he was a funny and entertaining raconteur. Holding a low opinion of humanity in the aggregate, he was kind, loyal, and generous to individuals. Believing he had fallen short of his own literary hopes for his writing, he nonetheless was justly proud of his best work and enormously pleased when his impressive oeuvre was brought back into print. I relished his company, and I will miss him.”

Barry N. Malzberg lived 85 years.

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While many stories are born of conflict, sorrow, and tragedy, the act of storytelling requires some measure of peace. Writers must have homes, they must have food, and they must have the freedom to express themselves without fear.

In too many places around the world, writers do not know this peace.

We have members who live in, bear citizenship of, and travel to countries whose governments increasingly scrutinize personal speech and professional membership. Further, we have members and friends who are living and dying in conflicted areas and war zones. Their stories are powerful, they are many, and we must hear them.

As writers, our values shine forth in our writing; speculative fiction has a unique ability to undermine prejudices and upturn assumptions. We also have the power to challenge fascism and imagine better futures. Our voices reverberate around the world and throughout time, and we must use them.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in education, SFWA is restricted from political campaign intervention in particular forms. At the same time, our mission is to inform, support, promote, defend, and advocate for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and related genres.

We must not look away as our colleagues and readers—present and future—are killed, injured, or driven from their homes.

With that in mind, SFWA will continue to actively support speculative fiction writers under threat and in crisis.

Direct actions SFWA will take from this point forward include:

• SFWA will continue to provide Emergency Medical Fund and Legal Fund support to all qualifying authors, including those impacted authors in conflict zones.
• SFWA will provide free Virtual Nebula access for any author impacted by war or conflict.
• SFWA will waive membership fees for authors living in or displaced from areas impacted by war or conflict.

In addition, SFWA Givers Fund grants are available to:

• revitalize recovering science fiction and fantasy communities,
• fund writing scholarships targeted at affected authors,
• help to rebuild lost and destroyed SFF and related genre collections in affected libraries or educational institutions, and
• assist in the creation of safe writing spaces.

We are also here to support our community by pointing writers toward resources and opportunities they need. It is our mission to support writers, and we will not lose sight of those impacted by crises. If you or another writer need support, please contact crisis@sfwa.org.

Signed,

The SFWA Board of Directors

The post Statement from the SFWA Board: Writers in Crisis appeared first on SFWA.

Thomas Jackson King, Jr., (24 May 1948–3 December 2024) was an archeologist, an activist, a prolific writer of science-fiction, horror, and urban fantasy, and an award-winning journalist. He wrote articles for The SFWA Bulletin and SFWA Handbook, and served as the SFWA Election Committee Chair. 

King was a well-traveled archeologist who started his writing career as an anti-war journalist, publishing the first English-language underground newspaper in Japan, and organizing protests against the US War in Vietnam in Japan, Tennessee, and Washington, DC. A lifelong sci-fi reader, and compelled by a need to write the stories in his head, he began to write fiction at 38, with his first novel, Retread Shop, published at age 40. He went on to write dozens of adventure novels, contemporary fantasies, and short stories across science-fiction, fantasy, and horror, focused on explorations of culture, adaptation, archetypes, and individual choice, many from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1996, King was the chair of the Philip K. Dick Award jury. He continued to write until the last weeks of his life.

King was the creator and moderator for Shoptalk, a group of new and established science-fiction and fantasy authors that shared their contracts and royalty statements in the early to mid-nineties. Of Shoptalk, past SFWA President Michael Capobianco says, “As a newly published writer, Shoptalk was instrumental to my education in the business of writing. To see other writers’ actual contracts and royalty statements was a revelation, and T. Jackson King was the perfect moderator to keep things on an even keel.”

Writer Kevin J. Anderson recollects, “Early in my career Tom King was a great friend and information resource. He published his first novel, Retread Shop, the same year I published mine, and we learned a lot of the business together and shared what we learned. He was indefatigable at conventions promoting his novel. He always believed in his work, but with the vagaries of the publishing world, he dropped out of sight for quite a while. I was very happy to receive a surprise email from him a decade ago to let me know he was back and happily (and successfully) publishing his own work as an indie author. Tom never stopped writing. Even with a recent spate of health issues, he was determined to get his next novel out in early 2025. Alas, we’ll never get to read it now.”

T. Jackson King lived 76 years.

The post In Memoriam: T. Jackson King appeared first on SFWA.

by Aaron H. Arm

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose.

There’s an adage that people like to bring up when discussing current events: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”* It’s a fair assessment, actually. Everything is confined to the context of its time, after all, and no two events are identical, no matter how thematically similar they may feel. And yet, we often do feel common themes transpire across the ages. So the distinction holds true: We shouldn’t expect history to repeat itself exactly, though we can look at past trends to inform the future.

But we are writers, not historians. Novelists and poets are hardly constrained to the rigidity of the real world, and as such, how we include or draw upon history is entirely our prerogative. Could you choose to retell a historical event so as to repeat it exactly? Could you, like history itself, instead create a facsimile of the event—to “rhyme” with it? Or could you take a more subtle approach, merely referencing events so that they are echoes of history for discerning readers? As with any writing-related question about what you “could” do, the answer is “yes.” The more important question is how that inclusion of real-world history serves the story.

Repeat

In terms of repeating historical events in writing, can a work of speculative fiction genuinely do so without becoming a veritable history book? Even placing parallel events in a different setting can change their context enough to feel divergent. On the other hand, some writers might opt to visit the past through time travel, supernatural visions, or a narrative structure that traverses time. Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred arguably repeats history by throwing its protagonist 100 years into the past, then skipping across time from there to weave a poignant narrative about generational trauma and the lasting damage of slavery in America. In this way, history is repeated so that it can be directly experienced and, therefore, more cogently linked to the present.

Rhyme

Once a writer begins to frame history differently, however, they’ve entered “rhyming” territory. To me, this is more in line with alternative history or allegory, which might recontextualize events while still maintaining the essential mood or zeitgeist of a given setting. But to what end? The reimagining might simply be an end unto itself—it’s fun to ask what could have been or paint an entire city in a different color, proverbially or literally. Just as often, though, these alternative portrayals of history hit upon an overarching idea or deliver a message.

As Jeremy Zentner discussed in The Many Alt-Histories of WW2, Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle offers an alt-history perspective of a world in which Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany won World War II. This provides a clear and dramatic conflict for the oppressed characters—or anyone sympathetic to their plight—but it also explores the competing roles of power, prejudice, and free will in a way that might not be as effective in a traditional setting. As the story continues and hints at competing timelines, it also raises the question of what is authentic or true in a world people have taken for granted.

Historical allegories follow a similar recipe of reimagining real-world events, but just by virtue of being an allegory, the setting tends to look altogether different. If alt-history is a rhyme, then allegory is an off-rhyme. Take George Orwell’s Animal Farm, for instance. The ingredients of the Russian Revolution are all there: We have Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky in pig form, the farmer Mr. Jones as soon-to-be-overthrown Tsar Nicholas II, and a whole cast of animals to serve as varying sections of the proletariat (the sheep are, unsurprisingly, sheep). But transforming the historical figures and setting doesn’t just make them more fanciful; it satirizes the history and delivers a scathing critique of political power and autocracy.

Echo

How might writers echo history if writers repeat history by retelling it and rhyme with history by repackaging it? Echoes, I posit, are allusions that do not comprise the plot itself but simply supplement it along the way. Virtually any story, regardless of genre, can sprinkle in historical allusions to connect with readers’ prior knowledge and add layers of meaning. But in speculative fiction, where writers want readers to get lost in another world, it can be especially effective to include these brief reminders that we—and our worlds—are ultimately products of our history.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons contains multiple echoes of history (and literature and philosophy and mythos) to great effect. One character even fights in a simulated Battle of Agincourt as a matter of character and plot development. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins features its titular plot device as an echo of Roman gladiatorial combat, combined with the lived trauma of the Vietnam War, as expressed by her father. Dune by Frank Herbert is peppered with historical allusions throughout, as family lineage and multi-generational schemes are integral to the story—let alone the overtly Muslim- and Arab-coded Fremen people. Each of these examples, however, is confined to the story’s context and its world, with the historical echo serving more as a literary device than a whole message.

History at Your Discretion

Please note that the above categories are not prescriptive but a convenient way to see how some authors leverage history to enrich their writing. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how you incorporate it yourself or whether you do it at all. Nevertheless, we are all children of history. If you subscribe to the idea that all writing is at least somewhat autobiographical, as I do, then our history will inform our writing in some fashion. It is simply how we wish to include or reference it that matters.

* The attribution to this quote is—perhaps appropriately—lost to time. It is often attributed to Mark Twain, but it would be painfully ironic to repeat hearsay as truth in a blog post concerning history and historicity.

Aaron H. Arm is a speculative fiction writer from central New York. His first novel, The Artifice of Eternity, was published in 2023 by Cosmic Egg Books. He was also published in Dragon Soul Press’s Reign of Fire anthology. In addition to writing, Aaron has edited several novels, memoirs, and anthologies.

Aaron has professional experience in technical writing, communications, copywriting, editing, and teaching. He holds an MA in adolescent education from Ithaca College, where he also received a BA in English literature.

The post History in Speculative Fiction: Repeat, Rhyme, or Echo? appeared first on SFWA.

Welcome to the December edition of the SFWA Market Report.

Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay our recommended minimum professional rate. Additionally, SFWA adheres to our DEI Policy when making selections for this report. We strongly encourage writers to closely review all contracts and consult our resources on best contract practices.

New Markets

Future States of Stars

Markets Currently Open for Submissions

Analog Science Fiction & Fact
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Baffling Magazine (Recently Opened)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld Magazine
Crepuscular Magazine
Escape Pod
Factor Four Magazine
Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter
Frivolous Comma (Recently Opened)
Infinite Worlds
Issues in Earth Science
Latin American Shared Stories
Nature: Futures
Our Dust Earth
Planet Black Joy
Reckoning
Samovar
Shatter the Sun: Queer Tales of Untold Adventure
Silent Nightmares Anthology: Stories to be Told on the Longest Night of the Year (Recently Opened)
Small Wonders
The Cosmic Background
The Deadlands
Uncharted Magazine
Utopia Science Fiction

Markets Recently Closed for Submissions

AE Presents: Unréal (Permanent)
Apex Magazine
Aphrodite (Permanent)
Augur
Book XI
Fever Dreams (Permanent)
khoréo magazine (khoreo)
Loki (Permanent)
Never Whistle At Night Anthology Series (Permanent)
Out There (Permanent)
PodCastle
Stop Copaganda (Permanent)
Tales & Feathers
The Daily Tomorrow
The Orange & Bee

Upcoming Market Changes

100-Foot Crow‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Baffling Magazine‘s Submission window ends soon.
Book XI‘s “Things” theme begins soon.
Future States of Stars‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Latin American Shared Stories permanently closes soon.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Mysterion‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Our Dust Earth‘s Submission window ends soon.
Planet Black Joy‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved and Insane: Nostalgic Terrors‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Silent Nightmares Anthology: Stories to be Told on the Longest Night of the Year‘s Submission Window ends soon.
The Deadlands‘s Submission Window ends soon.

The SFWA Market Report is compiled by David Steffen, editor of Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology series, and administrator and co-founder of the Submission Grinder.  You can support Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder on PayPal or Patreon or by buying books or merch.

The post SFWA Market Report For December appeared first on SFWA.

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series called Perspectives in Translation, where creators discuss the many facets and challenges of translating fiction. The terms “source language” and “target language” will be used throughout this series.

Translation is always a challenging process and can become even more complicated when audiovisual materials are involved. Here, SFWA member and Japanese-to-English translator Kristin Osani answers questions from SFWA Publications Crew member Misha Grifka Wander about translating for video games.

Misha Grifka Wander: Thanks for virtually sitting down with me today!  What is your background in translation?

Kristin Osani: I’ve been a freelance Japanese-to-English translator and editor since 2015. I’ve worked on games such as The Kids We Were, Voice of Cards, and Triangle Strategy, and I’ve also done a smidge of manga editing for Kodansha USA.

How did you get involved in translation work?

I kind of fell into translation as a career. Funny thing is, I translated Japanese folktales into English for my undergrad thesis, and my conclusion after all that was “Eh, translation’s not for me.” Fast forward a few years to spring 2015, and my partner (who got into video game translation half a year or so prior) and I are at a game localization jam in Tokyo. There, a bunch of folks got together for a day to translate a small indie mobile game, and I’m on the editing team and really enjoying it. At the same event just happens to be a representative from a well-established translation agency, who gives me her card and tells me that they don’t hire freelance editors, but I should take their translation test anyway. So I do, even though I’m certain I’m going to fail it. I pass.

What are some unique considerations that video games require from translators?

You may be working on the words, but you have to take any visual and audio elements of the game into account as well. Line limitations can be a headache because you only have so much space to work with in any given text field. Especially with Japanese as the source language, it can often get across much more information more compactly than English. There’s also text that is part of the graphics, which either can’t be changed (depending on budget) or needs to be fixed early in the process so the graphics team has time to make those changes to the assets. If you’re working on a game that is going to be voiced and the character mouths are animated to match the Japanese, you need to take those lip flaps into consideration and try to recreate the pace and timing as closely as possible.

What is the most challenging aspect of translating for games? Do you have a story about a particularly tricky or interesting translation?

Unfortunately, NDAs restrict me from talking about anything specific, but to speak generally, we often don’t get a build of the game to reference and can end up needing to work without critical context in some cases. We can ask questions, of course, but we may not get answers in time—or at all. I mentioned above needing to match the English pace and timing to source language lip flaps. Sometimes the English translation happens before the source language voice-over is even recorded, which means there’s no official reference, and you just have to give it your best guess. When a game gets translated while being under development in its source language, the process is pretty tricky because things such as character names, terminology, and plot are constantly in flux.

Is there something that other people might be surprised to know about translating (for video games or otherwise)?

At least for the type of translation that I do, creative writing ability in the target language (English, in my case) is just as important as competency in the source. And a lot of your time is spent researching to try and hunt down the meaning/nuance of a slang term or expression, or a niche pop culture reference, or a specific historical event, or any number of random things. Another thing that might be surprising is that we are often not credited, and even when we are, we can’t talk publicly about our work because of NDAs.

Is there any conversation about changing how credits work so translators can be acknowledged?

Oh, absolutely. Getting proper credit (and even being able to talk about your involvement in a project—thanks NDAs!) has been a problem, especially among freelancers, for as long as I’ve been in the industry. It’s an especially big issue when you’re working with certain middleman translation agencies, which either don’t care to advocate for translator names to be included in the credits, or will only allow the agency’s name, and won’t give the client the translators’ names even if the client asks. The agencies that don’t credit will claim it’s to protect their translators, but it’s more likely a way for them to maintain their middleman position. If the client doesn’t know who the translator is, they can’t hire them directly, and if the translator can’t build a public portfolio, they can’t search around for work on their own, becoming reliant on agencies to find projects. Personally, I think these agencies wouldn’t need to resort to such underhanded tactics if they treated/paid their freelance translators better, but that’s a whole different can of worms…

What else should people know about the process of video game translation?

It varies by project, of course, but often there are so many layers that translations have to go through to make it into the final product. Initial translation, edits, iterations, client feedback, to say nothing of possible motion capture or voice recording… Because it’s collaborative, the best projects—in my opinion—aren’t the flashiest, most famous ones (though those are nice to brag about, assuming you’re allowed to), but the ones where you’re part of a team of awesome people all working together to make the most awesome thing they can.

What kind of tools are available to translators for their work?

The tools we use vary depending on the project. Excel is common, as are Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools such as MemoQ and Trados. Some larger companies even have their own proprietary tools. Other than that, online dictionaries (for both your source language and your target language) and search engines are your best friends.

Are there communities for translators, and do they involve resource sharing? Or is translation a solitary endeavor?

Since freelancers can be so spread out around the globe, a lot of our community seems to be online via platforms like Bluesky and Discord. I think there are Facebook groups as well, though I haven’t used Facebook in years. There are in-person meet-ups I’m aware of in Osaka and Tokyo, though again I haven’t been to any since before 2020. I imagine there are likely similar meet-ups in other cities, especially ones that are home to companies with in-house translation departments.

Slightly unrelated, but friend and colleague Jennifer O’Donnell has a fantastic blog that I always recommend to people interested in joining the field: J-En Translations.

Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us!

Kristin Osani (she/her) is a queer fantasy writer who lives with her husband in northeastern Japan, where she works as a freelance Japanese-to-English translator when she’s not wordsmithing, working on nerdy cross-stitching, or cuddling her two cats. She has translated games such as The Kids We Were, Voice of Cards, and Triangle Strategy, and has also edited manga for Kodansha USA. Her debut novella The Extravaganza Eternia was published with Ghost Orchid Press in July 2024. You can find her on Bluesky @kristinosani.bsky.social, Instagram @Kristin.Osani, or kristinosani.com.

The post Translation for Video Games: An Interview with Kristin Osani appeared first on SFWA.

by Elena Kovalenko

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series called Perspectives in Translation, where creators discuss the many facets and challenges of translating fiction. The terms “source language” and “target language” will be used throughout this series.

If you’re a writer, translating your work into a different language may seem straightforward. After all, writing the thing was the hardest part, so now all you need is someone with good command of the language, a reasonable deadline, and that’s that! And it may just work that way, especially if you’re aiming for a market that’s linguistically and culturally close to yours. If not, well, as a translator, let me invite you to consider your work from a different perspective.

Names

This one is easy—just transliterate them and be done with it! But wait: Have you, the writer, given your protagonist or some other characters a name that, shall we say, speaks for itself? Or perhaps it sounds funny in English, lends itself well to puns, and is a perpetual source of in-universe jokes? Then it can become much trickier, because it’s increasingly strange for a foreign reader to see conversations that clearly hint at something or look like a set-up for a joke, only to have the hint never crystallize and the punchline never come.

In short, if the name is the backbone of your story, some parts may require significant adaptation and perhaps even creative rewriting. In other cases, best practice would be to just leave it as is—trust me, I’ve seen enough variations of poor Bilbo and Frodo’s last name based on different possible translations of the word “bag” than I ever cared to. To give another example, transforming Severus Snape’s name into what was essentially “Evillus Evull” (true story) didn’t exactly pan out in the end, did it?

In-Universe Terminology

Needless to say, its consistency and coherence are crucial for SFF—fantasy probably even more so than science fiction—as the terminology is one of the main things that make your universe come to life. Usually, the in-universe magic/science/combination thereof has a key concept that, once translated, makes it easier to weave that semantic web in a different language. But if, say, the prophecy you mentioned in book one of your series will turn out to be completely misunderstood in book three, the wording used in translation really needs to be ambiguous enough and yet fitting from the very beginning for the plot twist to work.

Another possible snag a translator might hit is if your in-universe terminology is actually based on another language, perhaps even the target language. With the former, what becomes lost in translation will likely be a case-by-case thing, depending on whether you just used the existing foreign words or got creative with meanings and word formation. In the latter case, the magic system will inevitably lose some of its original air of mystery. I mean, “We call this mark in the shape of a lightning bolt a molnija” just hits differently from “We call this mark in the shape of a lightning bolt a lightning bolt.” Usually, though, minor rewording will be enough to keep everything clear and consistent.

Cultural and/or Religious References

These kinds of references could become a problem for your narrative if they are both too subtle and too alien for your new target audience. To be fair, the opposite has also been known to happen. The funniest example of such a disconnect is probably Christian symbolism in Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime mecha series that originally borrowed some references…for the aesthetic. And sure enough, the Japanese audience appreciated the aesthetic for what it was, but among European viewers, it inspired a hot debate about hidden meanings and connections to actual religious concepts.

As for cultural aspects, think Taco Bell being the only restaurant chain in the movie Demolition Man. While immediately recognizable to an American, for someone from a different country “Taco Bell” might at best be “an American fast food chain” or actually mean nothing at all. It might be clear from the context—and your reader can google this stuff, of course—but it might not quite land regardless. Worse still is when a plot point hinges on such a detail: for instance, a book series where teenage protagonists arrive too late to stop an evil scheme because the plans they had stolen had “military time” on them, and it turned out that none of the leads really knew what “normal time” it corresponded to. For someone like me, in whose culture you use “7 p.m.” and “19” interchangeably, this was beyond baffling. I remember going back and rereading that part of the book several times, trying to figure out what I was missing. Similar comprehension challenges tend to occur when there is a lot of focus on popular culture. Sometimes a work just turns out to be too local for an international reader.

Footnotes and Long-Winded Explanations

After reading all this, you might feel that it’s absolutely necessary to provide your foreign reader with ALL the context by adding footnotes, explanations in parentheses, or tediously long prefaces. As commendable as that is, please consider that overloading your text with comments and notes to make sure the audience gets the full picture could turn reading your book into something not unlike continuously consulting a dictionary—useful and informative, but maybe not exactly enjoyable. While it might make sense to add some explanations here and there or outline some crucial aspects in a preface, it would probably be best to keep it reasonable. You and your reader both want your story to flow, not trip over the building blocks of the narrative.

In Conclusion

This little overview cannot possibly cover all the aspects that go into translating something as complex as a story. Every story is unique, and so every translation experience is unique. You may find that none of these things are relevant to your manuscript, or maybe all of them are. Ultimately, translation is just another tool for you to do what you’ve always wanted: reach your audience and show them your world. And a tool it may be, but it’s a sophisticated one, and there is definitely more to it than just taking the words you’ve written and replacing them with the same words in a different language, hoping to create the same impact. Writing stories is magic, and coupled with considerate and well-researched translation, it’s magic that can reach far and wide.

Elena Kovalenko has been a translator/interpreter for 15 years, working on a range of topics from current events to thriller movie scripts, and an avid SFF reader for most of her life. When not holed up somewhere with a book or trying to bridge the gap between cultures via relaying ideas into a different language in speaking or writing, she enjoys long walks, baking, and learning random new skills.

The post Translation vs. Adaptation: The Continuous Struggle for Optimal Ratio appeared first on SFWA.

by Libby Schultz

The future of digital currencies offers science fiction writers a unique opportunity to enhance their worlds. As a fintech founder and entrepreneur in the crypto industry, I navigate these topics daily alongside regulators, innovators, and organizations. Related challenges impact every level of society, from the people struggling to make ends meet, to the rarified oligarchs.

Here are five ways to explore how digital currencies create and solve problems in your fictional universe. Please note that my words are intended solely for worldbuilding and are not legal or financial advice.

Gold Makes the Rules

Those in power rule, and in modern societies, whoever has the gold has the power. Digital gold is no exception. The powerful create systems of governance to keep that power, operating from ideals and values that vary as much as their methods.

So how can this be used to enhance a story?

When starting off, it helps to establish the goals of the governing system, then decide how digital currencies might be used to create rules, incentives, and punishments. Identify conflicts that might naturally arise between the people in control, those fighting to take control, and those being controlled, along with everyone else who might be dragged along for the ride.

The United States controls the flow of money through its reserve currency, influencing global trade and alliances. While it’s important to protect a nation and its citizens, red tape often exists to make intermediaries rich. Decentralized currencies disrupt these fiefdoms, allowing people to coordinate and move money from anywhere in the world through a borderless peer-to-peer system. 

Some digital currencies are used to hedge against inflation and currency debasing, but a pure independent system does not exist. Furthermore, dollars are usually needed for rent, food, property, and tax, and the US controls who can convert digital currencies into dollars. It can also punish bad actors who never touch dollars with fines, arrests, asset seizure, and imprisonment. Since people often fight through money, a battle between opposing monetary systems can season conflicts between people, factions, and nations in your story.

The Consequences of a Public Ledger

Many blockchain ledgers are public and permanent. This is great for transparency and proving where money is—no one could pretend they were rich by renting a fancy car, for example—but now think about how an autocratic surveillance state might use them to monitor their citizens. Public records would report every move as citizens spy and gossip about each other’s spending habits and compete for the most “correct” financial trail. Someone might try to hide by coercing another person to transact on their behalf.

There is also plenty of inspiration from real-world events. Tech-savvy people track and critique how money is spent from ICOs. Internet bots publish the trading activity of whale crypto investors. Permanent ledgers can uncover crime from a single connection, as was the case for a now infamous hacker Jimmy Zhong. He walked free for nearly a decade until a single transaction helped the IRS trace him to a Silk Road hack, uncovering 51,680 BTC (~$3.4 billion at the time).

The Key Is in the Hand of the Beholder

There’s an industry proverb: “not your keys, not your crypto,” which references a feature of many digital currencies called the private key. A private key authorizes actions such as voting, moving currency, or signing a contract. For purposes of worldbuilding, the key can be a digital signature for whatever the writer imagines. It could control currency, security, vehicles, voting rights, declare wedding vows, or even be a signal of identity. Additionally, the key could be digital, physical, or anything in between.

Unlike a bank, which moves money on behalf of a client, a private key holder acts on their own behalf at all times. This safeguards them from a bank run, government asset seizure, and mishandling of funds, such as when FTX used billions of dollars in customer funds to fund its sister company Alameda Research. 

However, there’s no protection from mistakes or misfortune. Money phished, hacked, or sent to the wrong place? Lost the key? Too bad, it’s gone forever. This also means that institutions and criminals will come for you directly. Getting kidnapped for ransom or blackmailed is nothing new, but with private keys, once someone steals a key, they control everything it touches. The more powerful the key, the more its holder becomes a target.

When worldbuilding, consider what access keys should have, how people and institutions might be forced to surrender a key, and how they might protect themselves.

Not all digital currencies use private keys, though. A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is controlled by a governing organization and may have complete surveillance and control over the currency. Due to how CBDCs are presented, people sometimes can’t tell the difference. Some fun plot ideas might include a government that pretends to let its citizens have control, only to later reveal that it controlled everything all along, or a criminal organization that creates fake digital currency under the guise of helping the poor.

Integrate the Familiar with the New

Just as it helps to learn about the trials of space exploration when writing a futuristic space opera, digital currencies can be more deeply explored by studying the history of money. Digital currencies inspire familiar virtues and vices, such as greed, avarice, scams, taxation, and philanthropy. This common thread can be used to make the story more relatable and timeless.

For example, a common crypto scam involves a fake token posing as a real token in order to steal money. The scammers convince unsuspecting victims to buy it, perhaps selling it at an attractive discount. This is quite similar to how people made fake gold, and later, counterfeit bills. Though the method is different, counterfeiting is still possible in your crypto-driven world.

Tie It into Your World

In some cases, a heuristic approach is easier than deciding on what technology to include. Here are some questions to help you explore:

• What kind of government is in power, and what are their goals? How might digital currencies enforce its rules?
• What might characters need digital currencies for? Is there anything they can’t buy?
• How does the government enforce and protect its monetary system? How do people protect themselves and their assets?
• Are monetary records public? Why or why not?
• What are legitimate (and illegitimate) ways people acquire money?
• What happens if someone doesn’t have money?

It probably seems strange that something created out of thin air is worth trillions, but it’s been a long time since the dollar and other nations fully collateralized their currencies. Even when this was the case, shiny metal couldn’t feed a starving person, give shelter or protection, unless someone believed it had value. Like religion, money is a shared experience that’s as real as we believe it to be. In 2010, 10,000 BTC bought two pizzas, and now belief makes those same tokens worth over half a billion dollars. Even fictitious monetary concepts, such as in the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, can be a foundation for culture and beliefs. 

Though it might appear dry on the surface, money can be a window into intrigue and character motivation. By exploring economics and financial systems, you will learn why digital currencies exist and get a glimpse into a future that could spark your next big idea.  

Have fun, take risks, and find those great narrative returns.

Libby Schultz is a fintech founder, technologist, CEO, educator, and thought leader in the crypto and gaming space. Her professional writing career spans over a decade in Web3 and gaming. Her 2024 5-star debut novel and BookLife Editor’s Pick, Win Condition, is a science fiction cautionary tale about crypto and gaming, inspired by her work in both industries. She studied data science at Carnegie Mellon and is a crypto subject matter expert for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. When not living as a digital nomad, she trains as a circus performer and studies everything about Shiba Inus. You can get her book and find out more about her at https://lib.life/.

The post Enriching Characters and Sociopolitics with Digital Currencies appeared first on SFWA.

by Jeremy Zentner

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose.

Fifty million dead, continents in ashes, and the emergence of a global struggle between two superpowers: World War II changed the path of history forever. It’s only natural that it would be a hot topic for historical fiction, especially the niche genre of alt-history. However, there are many approaches to writing alternate realities for World War II and its aftermath. Writers might benefit from exploring existing work in this subgenre when crafting their own.

Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962) is probably the most well-known alt-history involving World War II. It’s also a work that explores the concept of alt-history within the narrative itself. In this timeline, Axis powers conquered the world, splitting the United States between Germany and Japan. Within the American Underground is a subversive book that tells the tale of the Allies winning the war, though not the same way as in our timeline. This provides a layer of irony for readers of Dick’s novel. The Man in the High Castle focuses on slice-of-life vignettes involving characters sometimes pretending to be someone they’re not, amid major plot intrigues like Germany’s plans to annihilate Japan. By the end, facades are lifted, exposing people to harsh realities in an unstable world. Dick’s approach requires a certain amount of narrative ambition, because it goes well beyond the scope of historical knowledge and hints at a larger, more psychedelic approach to the multiverse. 

Some writers have drawn from Dick’s example to blend other science-fiction aesthetics with alt-history. Like Dick’s novel, Peter Tieyaras’s The United States of Japan involves a contraband story that imagines a world without fascism, in a US divided between Germany and Japan; only, instead of a book, a video game is the forbidden medium. The narrative priorities are different, though. This novel depicts a 1980s Japanese pop culture that rebels against the status quo, so we get more of a pulpy escapade that follows investigative tropes and uses oodles of cyberpunk technology. Tieyaras was clearly inspired by Dick, but his writing is  also reminiscent of William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984). The result is a work that honors its predecessors by creating a new world in the long shadow of genre classics.

Writers do not have to reach for dramatic science-fictional elements to create a thrilling alt-history novel, though. In Robert Harris’s Fatherland, a Kripo officer, Xavier March, investigates a plot that unravels the most horrendous cover-up of all time: the Holocaust. In a 1960s world where the Nazis dominate Europe, an aging Hitler wishes to open friendlier relations with the US and perhaps enlist US support against the Soviet Union. This is a pulpy novel that doesn’t dwell too much on hidden philosophies or fantastical technology. All that’s needed is a sure hand with police-procedurals and mystery plotting; the tragic horror of uncovering atrocity will provide the bulk of the narrative’s alt-history weight.

A writer might also choose a more intimate approach, as many authors with closer cultural ties to World War II atrocities have done. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007) is another investigative story, but Michael Chabon’s book is more interested in questions of ethnic destiny and survival on a philosophical level. In this world, the US takes in Jewish refugees before the end of World War II, and Germany is defeated by 1946 instead of 1945. The state of Israel is later defeated in the Arab-Israeli War, pushing the rest of the Jewish population to Sitka, Alaska, where the US government offers a lease on federal territory until the early 2000s. The story progresses with one of the top Yiddish detectives investigating a murder that is eventually connected to a terrorist plot. Our protagonist finds himself without a homeland, as do his people, but a counterfactual like this one serves to highlight ongoing resilience across timelines, a key theme for many writers of alt-history. 

Harry Turtledove, the master of alt-history to many, also framed work around Jewish characters, but within a more expansive career in the sub-genre. From writing about the American Civil War to the Byzantium, Turtledove’s range of historical what-ifs allowed him to craft a broad counterfactual lore. For some writers, the intricacy of their alt-history worlds is a strong part of market appeal. Still, Turtledove’s In the Presence of Mine Enemies (2003) is more of a family drama, which studies the impact of Jewish parents disclosing to their 10-year-old daughter the truth about their secret heritage, in a Nazi-dominated world. By the end, there is a major political shift in Germany that takes inspiration from Soviet history, especially the events that led to the collapse of the USSR. This approach allows Turtledove to write unique alt-history plots using a variety of historical events as source material. 

Another family drama is Philip Roth’s coming-of-age story, The Plot Against America (2004). Roth is a titan in the literary world and brings his own experiences of antisemitism in America to the work. Narrated as a faux autobiography, The Plot Against America describes how Charles Lindbergh (a suspected antisemite in real life) runs against FDR’s third presidential term on an anti-war platform. When elected, Lindbergh begins to disenfranchise the Jewish population by implementing gentrification and youth work programs. For this novel, Roth documented historical accounts of antisemitism in the thirties and forties through research and personal exposure. One scene, involving our narrator encountering a pro-Nazi German-American group at a beer hall, draws from a childhood account. Crafting stories like this takes a certain degree of personal authority, more than the average commercial fiction, but doing so can bring forgotten and undesirable social histories to light.

Even if writing about World War II is not your preferred counterfactual, studying the range of stories available within alt-history might inspire you to tackle your own historical era. The goal is always to match the form of your story with your aims as a storyteller. Whether you focus on the historiography of another timeline, individual reactions to extreme circumstances, or flawed characters in a gritty whodunnit, the possibilities for crafting a distinct tale are endless.

Jeremy Zentner is a librarian and a sci-fi addict. He has published short stories in sci-fi and supernatural fiction and was a finalist for the STBF Illinois Author Project. He lives in rural Illinois, USA.

The post The Many Alt-Histories of World War II appeared first on SFWA.

by Carrie Finch

Editor’s note: This piece is part of an occasional series titled Writing by Other Means, in which authors share personal experiences and industry intel around different production contexts and writing tools.

Painters have brush and canvas. Dancers have mirrors and marley floors. Musicians have their instruments and the loving maintenance they require. Artists and craftspeople have beautiful tools with storied pasts that ground them in their history. There’s an easy access to the romance of the craft, a tantalizing indulgence that can feed the love and lift the passion when the grind of the work makes energy wane.

Writers type. A lot. It’s tough to be a writer in this era and not spend the bulk of our time typing. In the recent SFWA Blog article (Temporarily) Computer-Free Writing, N. R. M. Roshak wrote about alternative methods of getting our words onto the page, mentioning first the historic standard of pen on paper. Personally, I’ve found a lot of joy in writing by hand, especially using fountain pens. There’s a quiet pleasure in putting pen to paper, a sort of reaching back through time, thinking of the writers who–with similar tools–were able to create my favorite stories.

Why Use Fountain Pens

As writers, we’re cautioned against being too attached to any part of how we do our work. At every turn, we’re told “kill your darlings,” not just in prose but in process as well. And there is wisdom in this. There is a fine line between being particular and being precious. Don’t get too attached to your seat at the library, lest you find someone else sitting in it. Don’t get too attached to your corner café, lest it close, and suddenly you’re incapable of working at the pace you once could. Flexibility allows us to get our work done, even when the conditions aren’t right.

But there is something to be said for indulgence. There is something to be said for a routine that allows your mind to turn away from worries about the real world, the house that needs cleaning, the family that needs caring for, the boss that emails after hours, and turn toward the work of writing. Making that cup of tea. Turning on that specific playlist (or sometimes, that single song on repeat for hours). Adjusting the lamp to have the light just so.

Fountain pens can be part of that indulgence. The weight of the pen in your hand, the drag of it across a sheet of paper, can be such a satisfying tactile experience. Depending on your preferences, some pens will make noise as they scratch along the page. Others glide smoothly and silently. It can be such a delight to discover your preferred set of tools and to have that delight carry into your next writing session when you bring them out.

There are also practical reasons to use fountain pens. Earlier this year, R.J. Huneke wrote in his article Writing SFF With Paper and Pen Spurs Memory and Creativity about the benefits of using pen and paper, the way it can change our cognitive processes, allowing us to be creative in ways that typing might not. If you were inspired to try writing by hand, I highly recommend fountain pens. Unlike most pens, they require absolutely no pressure to deposit ink onto the paper, other than the weight of the pen itself. You no longer have to grip the pen or press down on the page, which can prevent fatigue and even injury.

Recently, I went to the San Francisco International Pen Show, three days dedicated to the world of fountain pens. And if there’s one thing I’ve seen to be consistent among fountain pen fans, it’s how excited we are to talk to anyone about pens. Show us the slightest bit of curiosity, and we’ll happily talk your ear off, offering our opinions on the ideal starter pen on the way.

Where to Start

And what is the ideal starter pen? The popular recommendations are the Lamy Safari and the Pilot Metropolitan, and whichever you pick I recommend starting with a fine nib. They come with ink cartridges, so all you have to do is click one into place and wait for the ink to start flowing. But if you want to use bottled ink, most pens will also come with a converter, a device that draws up ink into the pen. There’s a slight learning curve with a fountain pen, as the angle with which you hold the pen does matter. Prepare to play around with this a little bit until you find what’s comfortable for you.

Perhaps you’re asking: What about left-handed writers? The richly flowing ink can take a moment to dry, and most lefties will say this is just long enough for it to smear across the page and stain the side of their hand. But there are solutions available. Faster-drying inks, more absorptive paper, and finer nibs can all help avoid some common issues encountered by those who write left-handed.

There’s a wide world of pens, each settling in the hand differently. There’s also a wide world of nib styles. Not just the flexion in the metal, but also the grind of the nib, which can be fine-tuned for your hand by a professional. There are a multitude of inks available, and each one will feel slightly different as you write with it. 

And don’t forget the paper, each with a different texture, thickness, and rate of absorption, each giving a different writing experience. You don’t have to start anywhere special; your run-of-the-mill spiral notebook is just fine. But once you decide to explore further, there are plenty of videos and blog posts demonstrating how various papers soak up ink and whether they bleed or ghost (differing ways in which the ink is visible on the other side of the page). There are also paper sample packs available, so you can work with several papers before you commit to one. Some people prefer a smooth glide, others enjoy coarse feedback. Some people are fine with a bit of ghosting, others are repulsed by the thought. Just like with pens, you get to discover your own personal fit here.

I hope this inspires you to consider starting your own fountain pen journey or perhaps reignites an old hobby. Whatever you’re looking for in your handwriting experience, there’s a combination of tools that will feel just right for you. And like all things in life, the journey is part of the experience. Happy writing!

Carrie Finch is a writer in San Francisco, California. Her published fiction includes fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She goes by “geardrops” on every social media imaginable and would love to talk to you about fountain pens. carriefinch.com

The post Only as Good as Our Tools: Drafting by Hand and Fountain Pens appeared first on SFWA.

by Samuel Poots

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose.

In 2009, I met my hero. I was eighteen, painted blue, and wearing a borrowed kilt, a brave choice for November in Ireland. At the other end of a line of eager fans sat a man with a white beard and black hat. Terry Pratchett’s work had gotten me through plenty of hard times, and I had already decided to become a writer, like he was. So, when my time came to hand over Folklore of the Discworld for signing, I asked The Question. The question all budding writers ask their literary idols.

Got any tips?

You can watch the moment here; some kind soul uploaded it so the world can see me standing half-naked before my favorite author. I came away in a star-struck daze, but two pieces of advice stuck with me:

1. Read history like crazy.
2. Avoid other new writers; they don’t know enough to help you yet.

The second point did not work for me, but the first I took to heart. Soon, I was stumbling into historical moments in almost every fantasy work I read. In Pratchett’s Night Watch alone, we encounter the Peterloo Massacre, the June Rebellion, and the Battle of Cable Street (that last one’s in name only)—all recontextualised to fit Ankh-Morpork’s grimy streets.

When writing fantasy, authors often look to history. Sometimes, it even provides a script to follow. For example, R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War follows 21st-century Chinese history through its fantasy world. Such practices often lead critics to dismiss fantasy as “backwards-looking.” And this is true. We love diving into imagined pasts, histories that never were, timelines that dance back and forth across reality’s rails. It is also true this has trended toward the conservative. “Righteous” monarchies, good wars, nostalgia-infused depictions of a homogenous European history are considered genre hallmarks. However, far from making fantasy inherently conservative, this drawing from history can be the genre’s greatest radical strength.

In 1998, Dianna Wynne Jones’s Dark Lord of Derkholm flipped Eurocentric fantasy on its head. Suddenly, all those familiar tropes became subject to colonialism, their resources and culture subsumed to the desires of tourist parties made up of wealthy fantasy fans. Jones took colonial history’s script and applied it to the fantasy worlds it had itself helped spawn, showing her Western audience their place within it.

In An Introduction to Fantasy, Matthew Sangster describes fantasy as being self-consciously iterative, building upon the histories and folk traditions it grew from. The genre is “obsessed” with the past, re-imagining it to find new outcomes. Doing so often reveals gaps in the histories, places where people—queer people, women, people faced with colonization and racial oppression—had their stories overlooked and suppressed. Stories like The Traitor Baru Cormorant, The Unbroken, and Fireheart Tiger hold a post-colonial, queer lens to the history of empire. By focusing on these overlooked histories, writers tap into the true revolutionary potential of fantasy’s obsession with the past.

Yet fantasy is not alone in this obsession. According to historians Keith Michael Baker and Dan Edelstein, those who dismiss fantasy as conservative may be surprised to find referencing the past is a hallmark of another project: revolution.

Revolutions are extremely self-conscious of how previous revolutions unfolded. These revolutionary scripts offer frameworks for political action. Whether they serve as models or counterexamples, they provide the outlines on which revolutionary actors can improvise. And revolutionaries, in turn, can transform the scripts they inherit. (Baker and Edelstein, Scripting Revolutions, Stanford University Press, 2015, p. 2)

In much the same way a fantasy author may look to the past to imagine new outcomes, revolutionaries define themselves in response to previous revolutions. This in turn fits with fantasy’s love of building layered histories and folk traditions for its characters to navigate, so it’s unsurprising to find many modern fantasy stories centering on revolution.

There can be a sense of wish fulfillment here, a wistful “If only…” we may feel when looking back at history. Revolutions take that sentiment and use it to evoke action, whereas fantasy takes history’s script and uses it to analyze the present it led us to. We are seeing fantasy’s revolutionary potential in more than just imaginary spaces.

2020 was a difficult year. The pandemic was in full swing, leaving us to gaze out through the portholes of our screens. What we saw was terrifying. Fear. Panic. Military uprisings. Anti-vaccine extremists. And, in the midst of it all, George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police. As protests met with police brutality, quotes started appearing across social media. Quotes from Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch. Pratchett biographer Mark Burrows noted, “It was hard to watch the riots and protests…and not think of this book.” (The Novels of Sir Terry Pratchett, 2020). As people watched injustices unfold, some turned to Pratchett’s words to voice their outrage, using fantasy to explain reality.

Pratchett is far from the only author whose work is used in such a way. Earlier that same year, Thai protesters used The Hunger Games’s three-fingered salute, which Thailand had banned in 2014. The salute appeared again in Myanmar, as protestors marched against the 2021 military coup d’etat. Even Tolkien, perhaps the greatest example of apparently conservative fantasy, inspired the 1970s counter-culture slogan “Frodo Lives.”

Fantasy, revolutionary activity, and history form three spokes in a wheel. More fantasy writers are focusing their stories on revolution. More people turn to the fantastic to express their experiences with social upheaval. Reality and narrative intertwine, each one shaping the other.

I believe this is something writers are really starting to grapple with. Revolution stories are now rarely about one plucky farm boy and his sidekicks taking down the dark lord. Premee Mohamed’s Siege of Burning Grass dives into the struggle between the individual and the movement; Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga explores the generational impact of a post-revolution society; China Miéville’s Iron Council shouts its class struggles to the rooftops. Fantasy’s mirror is set firmly before real-world revolution. As each reflects upon the other, we find in that glass new ways to understand ourselves and the histories we shape.

Samuel Poots is a Creative Writing PhD researcher who communicates primarily through Pratchett quotes, and writer-in-residence at Ulster University. A writer of both fiction and tabletop games, his work has appeared in Dark Matter Magazine, Cast of Wonders, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: The Adventure Game, among others. When not writing or procrastinating, he can usually be seen wandering the Antrim coast muttering about dragons. If found, please give him a cup of tea and send him home via the nearest post office. Follow Sam across social media as @pootsidoodle.

The post The Revolution Will Be Fantasized appeared first on SFWA.

Welcome to the November edition of the SFWA Market Report.

Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay our recommended minimum professional rate. Additionally, SFWA adheres to our DEI Policy when making selections for this report. We strongly encourage writers to closely review all contracts and consult our resources on best contract practices.

New Markets

Aphrodite
Fever Dreams
Latin American Shared Stories
Loki
Out There
Shatter the Sun: Queer Tales of Untold Adventure
The Daily Tomorrow

Markets Currently Open for Submissions

AE Presents: Unréal
Analog Science Fiction & Fact
Apex Magazine
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Augur (Recently Opened)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Book XI
Clarkesworld Magazine
Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores (Recently Opened)
Crepuscular Magazine
Escape Pod
Factor Four Magazine
Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter
Infinite Worlds
Issues in Earth Science
khoréo magazine (khoreo) (Recently Opened)
Nature: Futures
Never Whistle At Night Anthology Series
Our Dust Earth (Recently Opened)
Planet Black Joy
PodCastle (Recently Opened)
Reckoning
Samovar
Small Wonders
Stop Copaganda
Tales & Feathers (Recently Opened)
The Cosmic Background
The Deadlands (Recently Opened)
The Orange & Bee (Recently Opened)
Uncharted Magazine
Utopia Science Fiction (Recently Opened)

Markets Recently Closed for Submissions

Afrofuturism Short Stories (Permanent)
Aliens Among Us (SpeKulative Stories Anthology Series) (Permanent)
Cast of Wonders
Dust & Dark
Flash Fiction Online (FFO) (Originals)
Gamut Magazine
Metastellar (Originals)
Solarpunk Magazine
Strange Horizons
This Way Lies Madness (Permanent)
Train Tales (Permanent)

Other Opportunities

Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest

Upcoming Market Changes

AE Presents: Unréal‘s Submission window ends soon.
Apex Magazine‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Aphrodite permanently closes soon.
Augur‘s Limited Demographic Submission Window: BIPOC, trans, and/or disabled and Canadian citizens/permanent residents and/or those who are living on the land colonially known as Canada ends soon.
Baffling Magazine‘s Submission window begins soon.
Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Fever Dreams permanently closes soon.
khoréo magazine (khoreo)‘s “Symbiosis” Theme ends soon.
Loki permanently closes soon.
Never Whistle At Night Anthology Series‘s Submission Window ends soon.
PodCastle‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Silent Nightmares Anthology: Stories to be Told on the Longest Night of the Year‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Stop Copaganda‘s Submission window ends soon.
Tales & Feathers‘s Limited Demographic Submission Window: BIPOC, trans, and/or disabled ends soon.
The Orange & Bee‘s Submission window ends soon.
Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest temporarily closes soon.

The SFWA Market Report is compiled by David Steffen, editor of Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology series, and administrator and co-founder of the Submission Grinder.  You can support Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder on PayPal or Patreon or by buying books or merch.

The post SFWA Market Report For November appeared first on SFWA.

The SFWA Board and Elections Committee would like to announce the results of the 2024 special election. Thank you to all our members who took the time to vote.

Kate Ristau has been elected SFWA President and Steven D Brewer has been voted in as SFWA Secretary.

The newly elected officers will serve on the SFWA Board from November 1st, 2024, through June 30th, 2025.

Kate Ristau – President
Anthony Eichenlaub – Vice President
Jonathan Brazee – CFO
Steven D Brewer – Secretary
Christine Taylor-Butler – Director-at-Large
Phoebe Barton – Director-at-Large
Noah Sturdevant – Director-at-Large
Alton Kremer – Director-at-Large

The SFWA Board and staff would like to thank the candidates who volunteered their time and expertise to run for office and those who continue to serve the organization in various ways. Most of our programs, services, committees, and the Board of Directors are run by volunteers.

 

The post 2024 SFWA Special Election Results appeared first on SFWA.

by Marie Croke

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose.

As speculative fiction authors, we twist and remake reality. Yet, when it comes to retelling events or using fiction to manipulate a real-life person’s biography, those places we’re remaking were someone’s home, those events were often the worst days of someone’s life, and those people were someone’s grandmother, cousin, child, whose memories could still be very much alive.

No one is exempt from the pain of having someone shove their hands in your memories, in your home, your life. No one. Not even you.

As an example, during high school I had an English teacher, Ms. Lake, who assigned her students a creative exercise: make an etching of a gravestone, then write a story about the deceased. 

After school, I stopped at a local graveyard. There, I paid respect to a particular grave that shares my last name. Then I sought out the oldest grave, one with a name I suspected would be as unknown to my peers as it was to me, and made my etching. When Ms. Lake asked for volunteers to read their creative exercises out loud, I, terrified of public speaking, was not a volunteer.

Then I went about my day normally, completely ignorant of what happened two periods after.

You see, another student had gone to that same graveyard. Had made her etching less than thirty meters from where I’d made mine. And she was not afraid of public speaking. Not at all. She stood in front of twenty-five of my peers and told a story. About a little girl buried just the year before. A sister. A younger sister. Of mine. Four years old. Died of leukemia.

I finished my day. Stepped outside school. And was promptly pulled aside by Ms. Lake, who asked me: “Did you have a sister die last year?”

No warning. No lead-up. Nothing but an abrupt, dismissive comment on a cold field. Put on the spot, I managed to whisper, No. She’d been my niece.

“Oh, did she die of leukemia?”

I choked out another No. But I didn’t go on.

I didn’t tell her my niece had cerebral palsy, that her lack of coordination had caused her to fall, that she’d been rushed to the emergency room when it became apparent she was more uncoordinated than normal, that she’d had a blood clot that reached her brain. That there was nothing the doctors could do. That my family was wrecked.

I didn’t tell her because it wasn’t any of her business.

Ms. Lake laughed. Said that the other student had gotten it all wrong. Then she walked away, leaving me to wonder how many people had been privy to a false narrative about someone I loved.

As if she’d been a game, a plaything to steal, to twist, to remake.

Sometimes events and people will call you to write about them, but if or when that occurs, consider the following steps to approach your fiction writing respectfully. This approach will allow you to do what you do best—creatively play—but within the parameters of human empathy.

1) Seek out interviews. Speak to the people associated. Show the depth of your care. The passion you have is precious if coming from a fascinated and loving space. Your attention to detail and your questions can create a bond rather than a schism. Human beings crave connection and understanding. Give people those, and they are far more likely to be open to your ideas.

2) Request permission. Just as you would ask to photograph someone on the street, ask to write about their pain and then respect their decision. Some events aren’t meant for you to write about, especially in the cases of situations outside your culture or home. Some people aren’t yours to take liberties with.

Many authors will use others’ stories as inspiration for their own tales, changing names and locations to ease themselves around the “all persons fictitious” disclaimer that many works use to protect themselves from libel. Others will consider their everyday acquaintances as free-game character fodder, believing that those acquaintances will never know and that ignorance suffices.

If you’re too afraid to ask, then maybe the story percolating in your mind isn’t for you to write.

3) Respect boundaries. If you are given permission, the next step is to be sure you’re listening to the limits. And there will be limits. Compare this type of fictitious writing to narrative nonfiction, where journalists respect anonymity or refrain from sharing more intimate parts of stories relayed to them. Don’t give in to the presumption that because you can, you should.

4) Consider the effect of your creative decisions. Not just on your story’s plot or on the characters you’re borrowing, but on readers. It’s easier to write about people who have long ago died; it’s a much more dangerous endeavor to dive into stories concerning more recent situations.

We’re often told to write without editors in mind, but in this specific case, I believe in bending that rule. Think about how the changes you enact will affect others. When crafting a story about an event that impacted a multitude of people, it’ll be far more difficult to consider everyone’s view, but by checking ourselves, making sure we’re coming at the situation with the kindest hearts and respectful words, we’re likely to craft a story that is far more meaningful. Given the fact that tragic events tend to be more attractive to write about than happier ones, this advice is particularly important.

I know that you will use your daily life as inspiration, and that includes both painful, awful situations all around the world and the minutia closer to home. All I ask is that you remember respect. Don’t stand up in front of your peers and readers and write creative lies about someone else’s grief. Don’t presume you know someone else’s family or culture or home. Don’t perpetuate pain when you can immortalize kindness.

Marie Croke is a fantasy & science-fiction writer with over 40 stories in publication. She is a graduate of the Odyssey workshop, first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest, and her work has been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, Diabolical Plots, Fireside, Flash Fiction Online, and Cast of Wonders among many other fine magazines and anthologies. She has worked as a slush editor for multiple magazines, including khōréō, and has written reviews for Apex Magazine. She is now an Acquisitions Editor at Dark Matter INK. She lives in Maryland with her family and enjoys crocheting, kayaking, and aerial dancing in her free time.

The post The Dangers of Writing on Someone Else’s Heartstrings appeared first on SFWA.

On 10/27/2024, the Board met to discuss multiple ethics complaints regarding Director-at-Large Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki after hearing statements from various parties involved. Mr. Ekpeki was also given a chance to speak to the Board regarding these complaints. After due consideration, and in compliance with Article V(5)(iii) of the SFWA Bylaws, the Board voted unanimously to remove Director-at-Large Ekpeki from his position on the SFWA Board of Directors for good and sufficient cause, effective immediately.

The Board will not be answering questions on this matter to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

The post SFWA Board Statement on Removal of a Director-at-Large appeared first on SFWA.