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by J. D. Harlock

Due to the influence of One Thousand and One Nights’ early translations, depictions of premodern Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) in speculative fiction tend to be inaccurate. Dr. Jack Shaheen referred to this reductionist stereotype as “Arab Land,” an amalgamation of Eastern and North African cultures presented as the “Middle East.” This article will clarify certain misconceptions about the region to promote authentic representation. 

Imperial, Royal, and Noble Ranks 

Arab-esque monarchies are somehow an “emirate” headed by a “vizier” under a “sultan” referred to with the honorific “sheik.” Although no standardization exists, some choices stand out as inaccurate. Governance structures have used these terms in various ways, with modern usage having different meanings. Still, they have formed a loose hierarchy in the region.

The Khalīfah is comparable to the Catholic Pope if he also possessed his own sovereign with political and military authority, ruling over the Khilāfah as the theocratic leader in historical eras in which the title had been acknowledged by the Ummah (Islamic world). Akin to an emperor, a Sulṭān rules over a Sultānīyah. A king, or a Malik (m) / Malika (f), rules over a Mamlakah. Under them, you might find a prince, or an Amīr (m) / Amīra (f), who rules over an Imārah, a smaller province in the vein of a principality. Any of these people might have an advisor with varying delegated powers, often called a vizier. A vazīr is the Turkish form of Wazīr (m) / Wazīra (f), with the Grand Vizier referred to as al-Wazīr al-Aʿẓam (m) / al-Wazīra al-Aʿẓam (f). Shaykh (m) / Shaykha (f) could be a title for a tribal leader, which may be inherited. It can also be used as an honorific for a respected figure within the community or a religious figure, in which case it must be earned. 

The -Stans of Southwest Asia and North Africa

When fictional countries’ names end in “stan,” it’s often a reference to the “stans” of Central Asia. The -stan suffix is used for Arab nations where Islam is a prominent feature of the setting, such as in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)’s Urzikstan or The Black List: Redemption’s Kyrkistan, or Six Underground’s Turgistan. No country in Southwestern Asia or North Africa has ever used it because the suffix is derived from the Persian language, meaning “land of,” and is restricted to the Indo-Iranian world or the Turkic world as a borrowed term. 

Romanization

Romanization has an understated impact on worldbuilding when crafting authentic settings. Traditional practices haven’t succeeded in mimicking accurate pronunciations. For example, due to the lack of a letter ح (ḥ) in English, the closest approximation in English is the letter h. Yet, you tend to find names transliterated into “Ahmad,” spelled “Achmed” (Achmed Saves America). The same applies to the letter ج, which sounds like a rougher j, but you end up with “djinn” when writing it as “jinn” is closer.

Furthermore, romanization in other languages, such as French, has led to even further confusion in English. For example, the sh sound is not native to French, and is often approximated with ch. As a result, former French colonies or countries that were under the French mandate used Francophone transliterations, such as Bachir, pronounced closer to “Bashir,” and Chihab, pronounced closer to “Shihab.” This is why it’s important to check that you are using the romanizations closest to the Arabic pronunciation.

Traditional romanization practices have created another issue regarding made-up words meant to sound Arabic. For example, in the romanization of Arabic script, the letter ق (kāf), which has a heavier sound, is often translated as q since another letter, ك (kāf), exists, which has the sounds of a lighter k. To mimic this convention, there’s a tendency for made-up locale names meant to mimic Arabic to pepper in Qs, such as the infamous Qurac (Iraq), Syraq (Syria), and Kahndaq (Egypt) from the DC Universe or Aqiria from the Marvel Universe. This extends to other romanizations of sounds that are indicative of Arabic to the English-speakers’ ears, such as خ or kh for Khemed from Tintin or the suffix  يا or -iyā, which is used in a variety of cases, such as Trucial Abysmia in G.I. Joe. It would be more appropriate for writers to derive names from Arabic words, such as “Bahrain” (Two Seas) or Arabizations of words from indigenous languages, such as Lebanon.

Arabic Dialects

Due to the influence of other languages and local cultures, Arabic dialects vary to the extent that some are nigh-incomprehensible to speakers in other regions. In turn, having Arabs from different areas automatically understand each other without trying to communicate in MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), the formal lingua franca rarely spoken day-to-day, or the need to clarify slang comes off as a bit of a stretch, as is the case with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022). Depictions of Arabic speakers using MSA for no reason, with no discernible accents or the wrong accent, are also problematic—how Ardeth Bay speaks in The Mummy (1999) is unrealistic, as even talking in MSA all the time will have signs of the original dialect’s accent. 

Conclusion

It’s unfortunate that for a region with such diversity, there’s a homogenized depiction of the Arab world that contains no multitudes, coexists with nothing, and possesses no local lineages. Hopefully, this article will be one step in offering tangible solutions for speculative fiction writers worldwide to write authentic Arab-esque settings. Then we can finally put an end to speculative fiction’s history of harmful stereotypes that continue to harm SWANA communities in the West, and promote an accurate version of the region that represents it properly. 

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J. D. Harlock is an Eisner-nominated American writer, researcher, editor, and academic pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of St. Andrews, whose writing has been featured in Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, The Griffith Review, Queen’s Quarterly, and New York University’s Library of Arabic Literature. You can find him on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The post Avoiding “Arab Land” Stereotypes when Depicting the Premodern Arab World appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the recipients of its 2025 scholarships.

The Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) has announced the 2025 winners of its annual book awards.

MILESTONES THOMAS HA is now repre­sented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. AWARDS KRIS NEVILLE is the winner of the 2025 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, intended to bring attention to lesser-known SF and fantasy authors, an­nounced at Readercon 34, held July 17-20, 2025 in Quincy MA. The jurors are Ann VanderMeer, Steven H Silver, and Rich Horton. MARLON JAMES is the win­ner of the 2025 Best in

Longlists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. Categories, authors, and books of genre interest include Fiction, Nonfiction, Young People's Literature, and Translated Literature. Finalists will be announced October 7, 2025 and winners will be honored at the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony on November 19, 2025.

SFWA President Kate Ristau:
Tasting Notes from Recent Advocacy, Education, and Outreach

Some days, the publishing industry is like a nice cup of tea: warm, supportive and just the right amount of comforting. Other days, it burns your tongue and scalds your hands. It’s overly sweet or way too bitter. 

Let’s take the metaphor one step further and spill the tea, shall we?

This week, the judge in the Anthropic case ripped apart the proposed settlement in the class action lawsuit. When his reasoning came through, I saw echoes of Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine. Sanford discussed how the settlement works off minimal definitions for which books to include in the class. 

The class leaves some authors with an empty cup. 

I am personally one of those authors, holding traditionally published books in my hands that were never copyrighted by my publisher. (If you’ve been wondering about copyright and how it works, you’ll want to check out the latest piece by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Presents, Protecting Your Intellectual Property, which covers the basics, the myths, the scams, and more.)

Sanford and Strauss are concerned about copyright and liabilities, and so are we. The judge read those same tea leaves, and he argued that the settlement is being “forced down the throat of authors.”

That is tough to swallow. 

I want to assure you that, at SFWA, we hear that complaint, that frustration, and that gross tea. We are meeting with our own counsel to discuss the gaps in the class definition, while also working on informing eligible class members about their eligibility. We don’t want any authors to miss out on being compensated for the use of their work.

While all this shakes out, we’re also heading to Washington, D.C., where Isis and I will be meeting with congressional staff and lawmakers to discuss how these cases impact authors, in addition to other concerns such as book bans and the future of publishing.

When we are there, we invite you to join us for Tea in D.C. this Monday, September 15, from 5-6PM at Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse, 201 F St NE, Washington, D.C.

I’ll pour your first cup. We’ll chat about copyrights and claims. And importantly, we will talk about the work you are doing and how SFWA can help you!

It’s going to be a great weekend on the East Coast. Make sure you check out the full lineup of SFWA events at the Baltimore Book Festival.

I’ll leave the tea metaphor to steep for a bit and just say that this situation is complicated. We think your work never should have been stolen. We know this is impacting thousands of SFWA members. We want you to be paid for your work. 

So, for now, make sure you fill out the contact form if eligible for the class action, and join us in D.C. if you can. Some tempests can’t be contained in their teapots, but we’re here for you in any storm.

Keep writing – and we’ll keep putting the kettle on.

Kate Ristau

SFWA President

The post Press Release – September 12, 2025 appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

Gen Con Writers Symposium was held July 30 – August 3, 2025 at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown as part of the larger Gen Con gaming convention. John Scalzi was the guest of honor, Nilah Magruder was a special guest, and Naomi Novik was a featured guest. Organized by Maurice Broaddus, along with project manager Olivia Sailor, head of operations Matt Jarchow, head of communications Gini Koch, and others, the event ...Read More

By Phoenix Alexander The organism is relentless

Calorie demanding, perpetually in need of hydration, oxygen, and a cocktail of other vitamins and minerals, requiring 4-8 hours sleep a night to repair itself from the ravages of the day, day after day. A lifetime’s worth of consumption. 

This unkind—some might say anti humanist—characterization is famously articulated by the nefarious Agent Smith in The Matrix, where he attempts to psychologically break a human rebel leader, Morpheus, by telling him: 

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. (The Wachowskis, 1999)

The accusation, while effective for cinema, is not quite true. Smith implies that this “consumption” is a species-specific act, and not one located within a complex and interrelated ecosystem of both human and non-human life. If anything, plants should be the focus of his anger: they are the enablers of this “surviving,” this “spreading,” being masterful spreaders and survivors themselves. More radically: even drawing the lines between species may be a spurious rhetorical move. “A leaf is the only thing in our known world that can manufacture sugar out of materials—light and air—that have never been alive,” Zoë Schlanger reminds us in her recent book The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth (Schlanger, 2024). “All the rest of us are secondary users, recycling the stuff the plant has made… Think about it: every animal organ was built with sugar from plants” (Schlanger, 2024, pp. 27-28). Her (admittedly simplified) description is useful in exculpating the human organism specifically from the charge of excessive consumption. It is not our fault; we are enabled, built literally by component organisms and their byproducts, both visible and invisible. 

Nevertheless, the human body and its source/s of sustenance tends to take on the nature of a problem to be solved in many science fictional narratives. From the replicators of Star Trek to the hideous ‘pigoons’ of Margaret Atwood’s Mad Addam series to the equally hideous ‘sligs’ of Frank Herbert’s Dune universe to the more mundane efforts of potato-growing in Andy Weir’s The Martian, authors and film-makers offer the gamut of appealing to radically unethical means of keeping the human organism alive in conditions that, even without the lack of food, threaten to kill it. (I am reminded here of the opening crawl to the movie Gravity: “Life in space is impossible”) (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013). 

Of course, food does more than simply keep us alive. It is a living repository of history, culture, and ancestry; it is the passing on of skills down generations, a special sauce, a secret ingredient. One whiff of a particular dish makes time travelers of us, taking us back to our childhoods or other precious memories; the sight of a baker kneading bread can resurrect the dead, conjuring forth the image of our grandfather’s doing the same thing. Foodways (their ingredients, their technologies, and the cultural rituals around them) render tangible histories of colonialism, exploration, and hybridity. “Cuisines reveal and shape social relations and connect the past with present concerns and future possibilities” (Jane Dusselier, 2009). 

So why is food so often a problem in science fiction? From a writer’s perspective, of course, you have to keep your characters alive. But what else? How does food and foodways contribute to the sketching of a wider fictional universe, and what can it say about economics, social organization, and planetary ecosystems?

Moving away from the unkindness of Agent Smith’s prognosis (and neatly sidestepping the current political issues of ageing populations and hysterical fears of falling birthrates, even as late capitalism, at least in the West, tightens its grip on the human organism, demanding more: consumption, waste, acquisition…) I turn to an unlikely source for a more hopeful solution to food production. 

Arthur C. Clarke’s The Deep Range, published in 1957, relatively early in his career, is a poignant character study as well as an early example of ‘cli-fi’ and/or ecological utopia. The novel is set on a near-future Earth organized on a global scale—”a truly democratic government” whereby every person is able to cast their votes for policies electronically—with various ‘Bureaus’ handling different aspects of world affairs. Protagonist and former astronaut Walter Franklin suffers PTSD in the form of “astrophobia,” resulting in his never being able to go into space again. As the novel opens, Franklin and his friend Don Burley, both working for the Bureau of Whales, seek to uncover the cause of an increasing number of whale deaths: a huge problem, given that the animals yield a formidable amount of food products for the world’s populace. Alongside the whale products, Clarke also offers an alternative food source in the novel in the form of processed plankton, a plentiful and efficient source of protein: “the great plankton farms harvested their millions of tons of protein… [and humanity] would never be hungry again…” (Clarke, 314). 

Arthur C. Clarke, The Deep Range (Signet: 1957)

If the problem of food scarcity is solved from the novel’s beginning—where, then, is there left for Clarke to go in the plot? Interestingly, he makes a moral-religious turn, emphasizing the spiritual and moral ‘health’ of homo sapiens as opposed to (merely) the generational continuation of the organism. This collective enlightenment is paralleled with the moving trajectory of Franklin’s own story. In one upsetting early sequence, the character attempts to kill himself by taking a submersible down into the depths of the ocean; upon being rescued, he reforges a new relationship with the ocean as a kind of rehabilitative space. Eventually becoming the Director of the Bureau of Whales, he is inspired by a Buddhist religious leader, Maha Thero, to abolish the fatal farming of whales entirely given their importance as “higher” (aka intelligent) animals (Clarke, 434). Recognizing the necessity for some killing of non-human life, Maha Thero makes the argument that given the state of technological progress, a kind of species maturation is ready to come about: 

The production of all types of synthetic protein from purely vegetable sources is now an economic possibility—or it will be if the effort is made to activate it. Within a generation, we can shed the burden of guilt which… must at some time or other have haunted all thinking men as they look at the world of life which shares their planet (Clarke, 434). 

The less spiritually-inclined Franklin interprets this lack of “guilt” as also readying mankind to present a best possible face to intelligent life beyond the planet: “man might someday come into contact with alien life forms that might judge him by his conduct towards the rest of the animal kingdom” (Clarke, 435). Again: the solving of the problem of global hunger brings with it physical and spiritual health to the species, in Clarke’s novel. 

The contributors to this issue wrestle with similarly intertwined questions of food and/in science fiction. From religious practices and eating in space to the generation of such synthetic proteins; from zombie-killing video games as critiques of consumption to Daoist notions of immortality, the material and immaterial aspects of the human organism alike are considered. It is a feeling-forward and, in my opinion, a satisfying offering of utopian possibilities that sidestep the arguably too-neat utopia of Clarke’s vision in The Deep Range. Not only is his world fully democratic, as mentioned ( a democracy brought about through technological innovation), the global populace as rendered in the novel is described as rarely voting against their interests, excepting the odd particularly emotive issue. That such a populace may be concerned with presenting an image of philosophical decency, of unified, peaceful, and sophisticated planetary culture, to extraterrestrial life runs in startling reverse to Maggie Nelson’s bravura analysis of cruelty in her 2013 book in which she argues that making such a claim assumes that “shame, guilt, and even simple embarrassment are still operative principles” in American cultural life specifically, when the reality is that most people “are not ashamed, and they are not going to become so” (Maggie Nelson, The Art of Cruelty: a Reckoning, 2012, 32). 

Maybe Nelson is right. Alternatively, maybe to extrapolate universal human truths from the sample group of one particular nation, at one particular time, is a bad idea. And yet, even if we are relentless, if we do insist on life—as surely we must, always—it must not be indiscriminately. Good eating, like good art, can emancipate us in ways we cannot even fully articulate but will, undoubtedly, recognize when it happens. “The door,” as Nelson insists, “has to stay open.” 

Warmth and light,

Phoenix

§

The Sunburst Award Society has announced Nalo Hopkinson, author of Blackheart Man (Saga), as the winner of this year’s Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Other shortlisted works include: Mood Swings, Frankie Barnet (McClelland & Stewart) Bird Suit, Sydney Hegele (Invisible) Code Noir, Canisia Lubrin (Knopf Canada) A Seal of Salvage, Clayton B. Smith (Breakwater) Hopkinson, who also won the Award in 2003 and 2008, receives

ActuSF has announced the winners for the 2025 Prix de l’Uchronie. The prize is awarded to works of alternate history, written or translated into French and published between March 15, 2024 and March 14, 2025. Prix Littéraire WINNER: Kid Wolf et Kraken Boy [Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy], Sam J. Miller, translated by Michel Pagel (Le Bélial) Halcyon, Elliot Ackerman, translated by Janique Jouin-de Laurens (Gallmeister) La Croisière bleue, Laurent

The New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA) has announced the winners for the 2025 New England Book Awards. Titles and authors of genre interest include: Fiction WINNER: The Road to Tender Hearts, Annie Hartnett (Ballantine) Young Adult WINNER: The Forbidden Book, Sacha Lamb (Levine Querido) Spells to Forget Us, Aislinn Brophy (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers) A Spell to Wake the Dead, Nicole Lesperance (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books

The shortlist for the seventh annual Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award has been announced. Authors and titles of genre interest include: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands, Sarah Brooks (W&N) James, Percival Everett (Picador) There Are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak (Viking) The winning title will be announced later this year, and the author will receive a handmade glass bell and a cash prize of £2,000. For more

by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware®

Copyright is a complex subject about which there are many misconceptions.

I was reminded of that this week, thanks to an email from an author who discovered that several of their books were included in one of the databases of pirated works used by the AI company Anthropic for AI training. The author wanted to know whether they were eligible to be part of the gigantic $1.5 billion settlement Anthropic has agreed to pay to compensate writers for its misuse of their intellectual property. (You can read more about the lawsuit, and the settlement, here.)

One of the criteria for eligibility, set by the court, is that copyrights to the pirated works must have been properly registered with the US Copyright Office before Anthropic downloaded the databases. And indeed, the author’s books were all registered in a timely manner…but not with the Copyright Office. Instead, the author used a website called Copyrighted.com, which offers a kind of faux registration using timestamps and its own certificates.

I had to tell the author that no, they weren’t eligible for compensation for their pirated books. In the United States, there’s no equivalent or substitute for the US Copyright Office’s official registration process. The author couldn’t even use the materials they’d gotten from Coprighted.com as prima facie evidence of copyright ownership. Again, only official registration provides that.

In this article, I’m going to cover the basics of copyright, offer some warnings, and dispel some myths. I know that much of what follows will be familiar to a lot of readers—but as the example above shows, knowledge gaps not only exist, but can be damaging…and as always in the writing biz, knowledge is your greatest ally and your best defense. I hope even the most copyright-savvy readers will find something useful here.

Copyright Basics

Copyright, literally, is “the right to copy.” It guarantees the authors of creative works—including books, stories, artworks, films, recordings, and photographs—the exclusive right to copy and distribute the works, or authorize others to do so, by whatever means and in whatever media currently exist. It also ensures that works can’t be copied or distributed without the author’s permission.

The international source for copyright law is the Berne Convention, adopted in 1886 and revised and amended several times since. In the 181 countries that are currently signatory to Berne, including the US, copyright ownership is automatic the instant work is fixed in tangible form—the paint applied to canvas, the musical notes recorded, the words written down. Creators don’t have to do anything else to make that happen.

Contained within copyright is the entire bundle of rights that creators can utilize themselves or license to others. For writers, this includes the right to publish in print and digital formats, to make translations and audio recordings and dramatic adaptations, to create derivative works, and much more—a list that continues to expand as technology makes different forms of publication and distribution possible.

When you sign a publishing contract or agree to the Terms of Service of a self-publishing platform, you grant the publisher or platform permission to publish, sell, and distribute your work for profit, in exchange for a share of the income. Because you own the copyright, granting rights doesn’t mean you lose or abandon those rights: merely that you authorize someone else to exploit them for a time. Eventually, once the contract term expires or the publisher takes the work “out of print” or you terminate the contract yourself, those claims on your rights lapse, leaving you free to re-grant them or to use them yourself, as you choose.

You can’t lose your copyright unless you specifically agree to give it up (as in work-for-hire contracts), and no transfer of copyright is valid unless it’s in writing and signed by the copyright owner. But copyright does expire eventually. For written works, the Berne Convention sets the duration of copyright for individual creators as a minimum of the creator’s lifetime plus 50 years, ensuring that copyright can be passed down to descendants like any other form of property, but also that works will eventually enter the public domain. Many of the countries that have adopted Berne have extended that term: in the US, the UK, and most of Europe, it’s the creator’s lifetime plus 70 years.

In addition to the economic rights described above, Berne invests creators with moral rights, intended to protect authorship by ensuring that works are published with the creator’s name (the right of attribution) and can’t be amended or altered in ways that would damage the reputation of the creator or the work (the right of integrity).

Most Berne signatory countries recognize moral rights. The US is an exception, at least for written works, having decided when it adopted Berne in 1988 that other laws provided equivalent protection. Moral rights really only become significant for US writers when contracts demand that they be waived—a decision that shouldn’t be entered into lightly. (I’ve written in much more detail about moral rights, and the implications of waiving them, here.)

Registration

The Berne Convention ensures copyright protection without requiring creators to take any additional steps, such as registering their copyrights. As a result, many Berne countries have no official registration process.

Others, such as Canada, offer voluntary registration schemes, with registration providing prima facie evidence of copyright ownership—important for legal purposes, because you don’t have to waste time proving ownership if you ever go to court. 

The US is unique in making copyright registration a prerequisite for any kind of copyright-related court action (there’s a complex history on why this is the case, despite the stipulations of Berne). Registering, which must be done via the US Copyright Office, doesn’t increase your protection—by law, you have that already—but you can’t defend your copyright in court unless you’ve previously registered.

If you’re a US author, when should registration happen? Contrary to much misinformed belief, there’s no need to register at the submission stage. Theft really is extremely unlikely at that point. A good agent or publisher won’t want to risk their reputation by stealing, and anyway, it’s a whole lot more trouble to steal your manuscript and pretend someone else wrote it than it is just to work with you. As for a scam agent or publisher, they aren’t interested in your writing at all, only in your money.

It’s not until your work is published—and exposed to a wide audience—that theft becomes a concern. At that point, registration is important.

Contracts from larger US publishers require the publisher to register copyright on the author’s behalf, at the publisher’s expense (though you should always double-check; see the Resources section below). For self-publishers and writers with smaller presses that often leave registration to the author, registration is easy to do online and costs $45 to $65. If you register before the infringement begins or within three months of first publication, whichever is less, you can recover the full range of statutory damages (up to $150,000, depending on the circumstances). Registration also provides prima facie evidence of copyright ownership, as long as it’s done within five years of first publication.

Writers from countries other than the United States can also register with the US Copyright Office. If your work will be sold and distributed in the US, registering is a good idea.

What about authors of short works—stories, articles, blog posts, and the like? The US Copyright Office offers a handy group registration option that allows you to register up to 50 published works at a time, for a single fee of $65. Registration makes sense even if the works are published as part of anthologies or periodicals. Such publications register collective copyrights that protect the publications as a whole but aren’t necessarily adequate to protect individual works.

An Alternative for US Creators: The Copyright Claims Board

Bringing a copyright suit in the event of infringement can be ruinously expensive and is far beyond the capacity of many creators (the Authors Guild estimates the average cost at $400,000). In the US, there’s a recently established low-cost alternative: the Copyright Claims Board.

Approved by Congress in 2020, the CCB allows creators to bring lower-dollar infringement claims (monetary damages are capped at $30,000) without having to hire an attorney or make a court appearance (proceedings are conducted entirely online). Fees are modest—just $100 for a basic claim, only $40 of which must be paid upfront—and as with any US copyright-related legal action, you must at least have applied to register your copyright.

Given that it’s such a new resource, Writer Beware has been keeping a close eye on CCB proceedings since it started accepting cases in 2022 (you can see our collection of posts about the CCB here). So far, and somewhat to our surprise, literary claims are very much in the minority.

Schemes and Scams

In countries without an official registration scheme, how do you prove authorship?

In addition to drafts, notes, outlines, contracts, correspondence, and the like, there are online services that provide timestamps and certificates or other documents that may help to prove authorship. They can be pricey though, and some try to bamboozle you with claims of super-sekrit encryption to prevent tampering or hype about registering on the blockchain. Mostly, they just boil down to the same timestamps and self-issued certificates you can get from websites that use fewer buzzwords.

Unfortunately, there are also many “bewares” in this area: from self-publishing service providers that submit US copyright registration applications as an add-on at a much greater cost than you’d incur if you registered on your own; to faux registration services like the Copyrighted.com site mentioned above, which don’t make false claims but use vague language to obfuscate the fact that what they provide isn’t equivalent to official registration schemes; to scams that falsely present as if they actually are official registration schemes, such as the IP Rights Office and its claim to be “the Copyright Registration Service for the United States.” Not only are these a waste of money, but what you get for your cash may not be anything you can actually use.

Be aware also that there’s no such thing as “international copyright registration” or an “international copyright seal” or an “international book seal”. Scammy publishing/marketing companies (especially those from overseas) want you to believe there is, so they can charge you thousands to supposedly obtain it for you—but it is a completely fictional product whose sole purpose is to drain writers’ wallets. It’s also unnecessary. Per Berne, your US copyright is fully recognized by all other Berne signatories, and vice versa.

Here’s what one of these fake registrations looks like. It’s modeled on real registration certificates from the US Copyright Office, with a bogus International Copyright Office seal and fake signature.  

Copyright Myths

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned misconceptions. Here are a few that I often encounter in my work with Writer Beware.

You don’t have copyright protection until you’ve registered with the US Copyright Office. False. As noted above, you own copyright from the moment you write down the words. Registration is an extra step that gives you additional legal benefits.

You own copyright on your ideas. Also false. Ideas are not protected by copyright law, only their expression. Ideas are part of the public domain, and no one has a monopoly on them. Five novelists may come up with a similar idea, but they will produce five different books.

Manuscripts have to include a copyright notice or symbol for copyright to be effective. At one time, the US did require this, but that became obsolete in 1989 when the US joined the Berne Convention (Berne does not require either a notice or registration to effectuate copyright). A copyright notice can sometimes be useful: for example, including a copyright notice with work published online makes it harder for infringers to weasel out of damages by claiming innocent infringement. But it’s not needed for copyright protection. 

When submitting work to agents or publishers, it’s smart to deter theft by including a copyright notice. This is an instance in which a copyright notice is not useful. As mentioned above, theft at the submission stage is highly unlikely. Reputable agents and publishers don’t want to risk their reputations that way. Just as important, agents and publishers assume you know this. A copyright notice on a submitted manuscript marks you as an unreasonably paranoid amateur.

Poor man’s copyright is a substitute for copyright registration. According to this theory, placing your manuscript in an envelope, sealing it, and mailing it to yourself is equivalent to formally registering your copyright, as long as there’s a postmark or delivery receipt and you retain the envelope unopened. But not only is that not the case—only registration counts as registration—poor man’s copyright probably wouldn’t be useful even as a secondary way of proving authorship, since it’s easy to fake. You could mail the envelope empty—and fill and seal it later.

Resources

The Berne Convention: the international source of copyright law.

US Copyright Office: the only genuine source for US copyright registration.

Copyright Claims Board: a low-cost small claims court for copyright actions that offers an alternative to expensive copyright lawsuits.

US Copyright registration portal. A single work can be registered online for between $45 and $65, and on paper for $125. There’s also a group registration option for short works, for $65.

Copyright Basics. This circular from the US Copyright Office explains the basics of copyright, including what’s protected, the rights of copyright owners, the benefits of registration, and more.

US copyright public records system. Here you can look up works to find out if they’ve been registered…including your own. Part of the unwelcome fallout of the Bartz v Anthropic lawsuit has been authors’ discovery that many publishers failed to register their works, even though their contracts required it. It’s always wise to double-check.

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Victoria Strauss, co-founder of Writer Beware®, is the author of nine novels for adults and young adults, including the Way of Arata epic fantasy duology (The Burning Land and The Awakened City), and a pair of historical novels for teens, Passion Blue and Color Song. She has written hundreds of book reviews for publications such as SF Site, and her articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and elsewhere. 

She received the 2009 SFWA® Service Award for her work with Writer Beware, and in 2012 was honored with an Independent Book Blogger Award for the Writer Beware blog. She’s webmistress of the Writer Beware website, which she also created, and maintains the Writer Beware database, blog, and Facebook page.

The post Protecting Your Intellectual Property: What You Need to Know About Copyright appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

Prominent fan, writer, editor, and convention organizer Guy Lillian, 75, died August 23, 2025 after a series of health issues including Parkinson’s, two strokes, and a fall earlier this year. Guy H. Lillian III was born July 20, 1949 in Kern County CA. He received an English degree from UC Berkeley and an MFA at the University of North Carolina. He later worked as a public defender in Louisiana and

Curtis Brown Heritage has officially announced that the agency will represent The Tolkien Estate, to “preserve and celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien’s extraordinary literary legacy, and to help to bring in new readers,” according to agency head Norah Perkins. Curtis Brown Heritage currently represents the estates of several 20th century writers, including Douglas Adams and Iain M. Banks. The Tolkien Estate said: As a family, we remain deeply conscious of the responsibility of

Welcome to the September 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

Otherside (Upcoming)

Markets Currently Open for Submissions

Africanfuturism Anthology (Flame Tree Publishing)
Anomaly (Recently Opened)
Asimov Press
Augur (Recently Opened)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Book Worms (Recently Opened)
Book XI (Recently Opened)
Cast of Wonders (Recently Opened)
Clarkesworld Magazine
Crepuscular Magazine
Factor Four Magazine
Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter
Infinite Worlds
Nature: Futures
Night Shades (Recently Opened)
Planet Scumm (Recently Opened)
Plott Hound Magazine (Recently Opened)
Protocolized
Reckoning
Samovar
Small Wonders
Tales & Feathers (Recently Opened)
The Daily Tomorrow
These Dreaming Hills (Recently Opened)
Three-Lobed Burning Eye (Recently Opened)
Torch Literary Arts
Tractor Beam
Uncanny (Recently Opened)
Uncharted Magazine
Utopia Science Fiction

Markets Recently Closed for Submissions

Common Bonds Anthology Series (Permanent)
Dreams Divine (Permanent)
Escape Pod
Haven Spec Magazine
Mmeory
Odysseus (Permanent)
Of Swords and Roses (Permanent)
Old Moon
Orion’s Belt
PseudoPod
The Cosmic Background
The Valkyries (Flame Tree Publishing) (Permanent)

Other Opportunities

The Tomorrow Prize

Upcoming Market Changes

Anomaly‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Anomaly‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Augur‘s Limited demographic submission window: trans, disabled, and/or BIPOC creators and creators residing in Canada/Turtle Island ends soon.
Book Worms temporarily closes soon.
Book XI‘s Submission window ends soon.
Cast of Wonders‘s Submission window ends soon.
Escape Pod‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Flash Fiction Online (FFO) (Originals)‘s Submission window begins soon.
Haven Spec Magazine‘s Limited demographic submission window: authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups begins soon.
Metastellar (Originals)‘s Submission window begins soon.
Plott Hound Magazine‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Tales & Feathers‘s Limited demographic submission window: trans, disabled, and/or BIPOC creators ends soon.
The Orange & Bee‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Three-Lobed Burning Eye‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Tractor Beam temporarily closes soon.
Uncanny‘s Submission window ends soon.
Write Before Midnight permanently 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.  The Long List Anthology Volume 9 ebook is now available! You can order it now at Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and others! You can support Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder on PayPal or Patreon or by buying books or merch.

Wondering about some missing publications? Check out our July 23 update on Must Read, the publisher of Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF. Our partner, Submission Grinder, is currently not listing these magazines, the first two of which are open for submissions and the latter of which is rebuilding its workflow.

SFWA remains in open dialog with Must Read to support the ongoing development of best practices for contract language, and to serve as an ally to all creators striving to improve the writing ecosystem for authors.

If you have questions about the contracts you receive from any SFF publications, please write to the Contracts Committee to learn more about what is and is not common/ethical practice in our industry.

The post SFWA Market Report For September appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

Updated 9/9/25: According to a Bloomberg report and other coverage, Judge Alsup has officially postponed the approval of the deal to seek further information about what works will be covered and how the class members will be notified. Alsup urged the parties to give “very good notice” to class members due to his concerns that they might otherwise be unable to opt in or out, and that more parties might

Bouchercon has announced the winners of the 2025 Anthony Awards, honoring the best in crime fiction. Categories of genre interest include:

Best Hardcover Novel

• WINNER: The God of the Woods, Liz Moore (Riverhead)

• Alter Ego, Alex Segura (Flatiron)
• California Bear, Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

Best Paperback Novel

• WINNER: Echo, Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Last Few Miles of Road, Eric Beetner (Level Best)
• Late Checkout

...Read More

Jennifer Roberson, SFWA member and DAW author, is one of the two lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Apple for pirating books to train its OpenELM language models.

Filed on September 5, 2025, the initial complaint claims that Apple used Books3, “a database of pirated copyrighted books that includes the published works of Plaintiffs and the Class,” to train its OpenELM language models and possibly its Foundation Language Models, ...Read More

by Guy Windsor

All the best stories end with a sword fight, and there are usually many sword fights leading up to the climactic duel between the hero and the villain. It’s important to get these right because, if you kick your reader out of the world you’ve created for them with a confusing, unbelievable, or just plain wrong bit of fight description, you’ll lose the tension you’ve worked so hard to generate.

My top three tips for fantasy and historical fiction writers are:

1.  Do your research (or use other people’s).

2.  Avoid jargon.

3.  Run through the fight in the real world.

Do Your Research (or Use Other People’s)

Base your characters’ weapons and fighting styles on historical sources. Every culture has produced something sword-like for purposes of combat and status. We have archaeological and historical records of swords made from wood, glass, stone, copper, bronze, iron, and steel. The Aztec macuahuitl is a wooden sword with obsidian glass chips bonded to the edges. The ancient Egyptians fought with hooked bronze swords called khopesh. Australian Indigenous people made sharp-edged wooden swords. There are the Chinese dao and jian, the Japanese katana, the ancient Greek makhaira, the Roman gladius, Indian pata, Viking sword, arming sword, longsword, rapier, sidesword, smallsword, saber, backsword, and on and on.

Guy Windsor with a longsword. Photo by Simply C Photography.

Every culture that made swords had methods of using them that were at least as sophisticated as the weapon itself. We know this from archaeological finds, the historical record of descriptions of fights, and, starting in the 1300s, detailed treatises on sword fighting styles.

There is no need for you to be an expert in any of these weapons. But you can base your characters’ armory on existing weapons (the way the lightsaber is based on the knightly longsword) and find out how their weapons would have been used. There are legions of people figuring it out for you already and publishing their findings (like me and my colleagues).

There are two main approaches for figuring out the systems: reconstructive archaeology and historical research.

Reconstructive archaeology is the process of reconstructing the weapons (or other tools) and figuring out by trial and error how they were likely used. In the case of bronze swords, examining the notches on existing blades and comparing them to notches created on new blades by various cuts, parries, and so on, gives us an idea of how these weapons interacted with each other.

Historical research looks to the written record. From the 1300s onwards, we have manuscripts that go into extraordinary depth and detail about specific combat systems, such as Fiore dei Liberi’s Il Fior di Battaglia (ca. 1400), which tells you everything you could want to know about knightly combat, including the dastardly trick of filling your pollax head with blinding powder.

Image from Getty Manuscript Ludwig XV, folio 37, courtesy of the Getty Museum.

We have hundreds of sources from the 16th century onwards, and fencing masters kept writing new ones until the present day. Many of those sources and masters have students devoted to reconstructing their art. Pick a weapon for your character, modify it to suit your story, then find someone who is practicing with it and ask for advice.

Avoid Jargon

Most readers don’t know a macuahuitl from a makhaira, and they didn’t pick up your novel to be taught a lesson; they picked it up to be entertained. The pitfall of doing your research is that you let too much of it leak out onto the page. Any time your reader comes across a word they don’t know, their mind will skip over it, or they’ll get bogged down. Neither one is good. You have been immersed in this world for thousands of hours, so you know it better than they do. If you do have a special word for something (Lucas’s lightsaber, Tolkien’s Anduril, Bujold’s plasma arc), make it clear from the context what it is and how it works.

Most people know what a rapier is, more or less. But a makhaira? This sword is famous, but nobody has heard of it. Alexander the Great fought at Gaugamela with the makhaira given to him by Kition, King of Cyprus. When the Apostle Peter used a sword to cut the ear off poor Malchus in the Bible (John 18:10), it was, in the original Greek, “μάχαιρα”—“makhaira.” When it is written in the King James version of the Bible that Jesus said, “I came not to send peace, but a sword,” (Matthew 10:34), it is again “makhaira” in the original Greek.

A makhaira or falcata made by JT Pälikkö; a makhaira or kopis in the Deutches Klingenmuseum; and a makhaira in the Etruscan Museum, Villa Giulianni, Rome. Photos by JT Pälikkö.

But put that into a novel, and you are guaranteed to send 99% of readers out of the zone and off to a dictionary, where they will discover that the makhaira was popular from about 400 BCE, and was a forward-curving sword, good for cutting, that Xenophon recommended for use by cavalry in place of the straight-bladed xiphos.

Run Through the Fight in the Real World Guy Windsor with a rapier and dagger. Photo by Simply C Photography.

This does not have to be done at speed with sharp swords. You can do it with a pen in each hand, at your desk. But make sure that the scene you are describing works in practice, not just in your head. If you are avoiding jargon, you will find this easier because you can leave space for the reader to imagine the action.

“The villain attacked with a flurry of thrusts and cuts, beating our hero back against the castle wall” is better than listing the specific actions she used. When the specific action matters (if you want to use a dastardly technique to indicate a villainous character, for instance), then block it out move-by-move to make sure the sword doesn’t magically pass through a body part without hurting it. Be very sparing with this—most readers don’t want to work through the specifics.

It’s Your Book

I hope this advice is useful. Do your research, avoid jargon, and run through the fight in the real world. But it’s your book, not mine, so take my rules with a pinch of salt!

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Consulting Swordsman Dr. Guy Windsor is renowned as a teacher and researcher of medieval and Renaissance martial arts. He has been teaching professionally since founding Swordschool in Helsinki, Finland, in 2001. Awarded a PhD by Edinburgh University for his seminal work recreating historical combat systems, Guy has written numerous books on swordsmanship, such as The Medieval Longsword, The Medieval Dagger, Swordfighting for Writers, Game Designers and Martial Artists, The Duellist’s Companion, and many others.

He has also created a huge range of online courses, covering medieval knightly combat, sword and buckler, rapier, and related topics. Now, Guy splits his time between researching historical martial arts, writing books, and creating online courses, teaching students all over the world. He hosts the popular historical martial arts podcast The Sword Guy, with guests including Steven Pressfield and Neal Stephenson. His latest book is Swordfighting for Writers. You can find him and his work online at swordschool.com.

The post Writing Sword Fights: Three Tips from a Professional Swordsman appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.