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io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we'll be featuring a story from Lightspeed's current issue. This month's selection is "Her Words Like Hunting Vixens Spring " by Brooke Bolander. Enjoy! More »
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io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we'll be featuring a story from Lightspeed's current issue. Here's our first selection, "How Many Miles to Babylon?" by Megan Arkenberg. Enjoy! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5872095&view=rss&microfeed=true Another sign that electronic publishing is providing a huge boost to short fiction: Orbit Books announced it's expanding its Orbit Short Fiction program, releasing stories simultaneously in the U.S. and the U.K. Says Orbit Vice President and Publisher Tim Holman: More »
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What's the secret to coming in for a good landing on a short story — or a novel? Writer Cat Rambo shares a few secrets to coming up with an ending that satisfies your readers. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5768585&view=rss&microfeed=true Up-and-coming short-story writer Rachel Swirsky talks the joy of short fiction at Amazon's Omnivoracious blog. More »
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Sometimes the best short stories are the ones which hint at a much larger picture, almost as if they're a window onto one person's experience of a grand saga. That's what Sigrid Ellis' "No Return Address" is like. More »
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I have a huge unfair advantage over other struggling fantasy authors, because I've read Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle. Beagle gives a storytelling masterclass, and plants images in your head that you'll carry around for ages. More »
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George R.R. Martin's amazing A Song of Ice and Fire throws in random elements that seem to come out of nowhere... then make perfect sense. So when he introduces a strange drug to his post-apocalyptic story, it's startling but thought-provoking. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5598893&view=rss&microfeed=true Check out #ThursdayTales, a new reader-generated feature at io9 that started yesterday. A group of io9 commenters, led by the formidable Gaudy Mouse Muad'Dib, started a severely cool new practice of sharing links to new short stories they'd written. After just one day of #ThursdayTales, there's already a wealth of incredibly cool short fiction. Can't wait to see what everybody comes up with next week! More »
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For many aspiring science-fiction authors, the first frontier of publication is short fiction. A few stories published in the right markets can launch your career. But it helps if you're prolific. Here are 12 tips on writing more stories faster. More »
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An award-winning editor of genre anthologies, Ellen Datlow started her career at Omni magazine and now edits several books a year, including Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. She told us what short story editors want. More »
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Would you pay more money for items on eBay if they had interesting stories behind them? A group of writers has determined to find out, by selling objects on eBay that come with fictional alternate histories. More »
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The market for short science fiction is as healthy as it's ever been — but it's going electronic, and that means short fiction will be Twitterlated, Facebooked and Bloggered. At least, that's what I'm gleaning from a panel of super-editors and an interview with urban fantasy author Cathrynne M. Valente. More »
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I've always loved Philip K. Dick's short fiction for the jolt of concentrated weirdness it provides. One of his best stories is online for free, plus there are three Kelley Eskridge tales for your perusal. More »
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You've heard about the death of print sf, but could online outlets for stories of the imagination be just as doomed? Fantasy Magazine has a reality check on the future of speculative fiction. More »
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Are magazines no longer going to be the source of the best short science fiction? Maybe. Two pieces of news make me wonder. More »
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Aspiring short story writers — and pretty much anybody who enjoys reading short fiction — should jet over to John Joseph Adams' blog. He's just reposted a roundtable featuring editors of three of the top short fiction magazines (Gordon Van Gelder with Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sheila Williams with Asimovs and Susan Marie Groppi with Strange Horizons) talking about what makes them fall in love with a story. Along the way, they dispense invaluable advice and give some great insights into the state of short fiction today. More »
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Now that Warren Ellis has reopened the perennial debate over the fate of print science fiction magazines, the discussion has mutated a bit. Some observers say it's not just print magazines, but short fiction in general, that's doomed. Eoghann Irving over at Solar Flare says his readers are suggesting the real problem is that most short science fiction, in print and elsewhere, is "simply too literary for many people's tastes." Readers want cracking adventure reads, but most short SF is "cutting edge" and fancy. Wis(s)e Words chimes in that the print SF mags are "incredibly dull." But it's not all bad news: a panel at WorldCon called "Short Fiction: On Its Way Out, Or A Way To Break Into The Market?" ended up concluding that short fiction is not on its way out. More »
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Short fiction is the "garage band" of science fiction, claims Tor Books editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, so it's time to step on that fuzzbox and thrash as hard as you can without knocking over your mom's weed-trimmer. Actually, I think Nielsen Hayden was referring to the fact that you can try more crazy experiments in short SF than in novels, because of the shorter time commitment of both writer and reader. But how can you become a super-master of the challenging form of short fiction? Here are a few suggestions. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=366707&view=rss&microfeed=true Short fiction is returning to Futurismic, one of our favorite SF webzines which frequently publishes Ruth Nestvold, Chris Nakashima-Brown and Jason Stoddard, among others. The site has been fiction-less since last April, but plans to start running monthly free stories again in March. And for those of you who are sick of gloom and doom, new editor-in-chief Paul Raven says he thinks SF should be more optimistic about our future. [Futurismic] More »
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