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For years, the fact that the "big three" science fiction magazines don't accept electronic fiction submissions has been a source of bafflement among SF writers. But Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine editor Sheila Williams announced she'll be taking e-subs starting today. More »
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Last night, the Food Network's "Sugar Impossible" challenge involved making a four-foot-tall sculpture illustrating a science-fiction theme out of pure sugar. And it had to have moving parts. Sugar robots, aliens and weird mutants competed for a $10,000 prize. More »
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A new writing workshop organized by the Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction will provide three stories to the magazine per year, according to F&SF. And editor Gordon Van Gelder tells io9 it may actually boost unpublished authors' chances otherwise. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5305621&view=rss&microfeed=true The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has established a new writing workshop with former Asimov's Magazine editor Gardner Dozois, and F&SF editor Gordon Van Gelder says the workshop will supply stories to F&SF in future. Although it's great for experienced editors like Dozois and Van Gelder to share their hard-won wisdom with aspiring writers, the implication that a "pay-to-play" workshop is going to be the main entry point for new writers to F&SF is causing some consternation. Prime Books editor Sean Wallace blogs: "Um, there are so many kinds of wrong with this I don't know where to start . . ." and one of his commenters suggests the catch phrase "ethics fail." (It's not an internet controversy unless there's word or phrase ending in "fail.") More »
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Here's what passes for good news in the world of print science-fiction magazines: the "big three" magazines only saw circulation declines in the low single digits in 2008, compared with double-digit declines in recent years. More »
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It's apparently time for our semi-annual discussion of whether the pulp SF mags are dying. Locus reports that Asimov's has seen its circulation drop 5.2 percent, to 17,581. Even worse, Fantasy & Science Fiction has seen an 11.2 percent drop, to 16,489. (Wondering if those numbers include pass-around.) Compare that with 2004's rough numbers, which people were describing as horrendously low. PBS asked John Scalzi and two magazine editors what's up, and they say it's not just the Internet, it's distribution and changing audience tastes, among other things. (Plus, it's the Internet.) [PBS via BoingBoing] More »
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An Italian tailor has a crush on the daughter of his late patron, so he builds a time machine to impress her. The resulting story, Eugene Mirabelli's "The Only Known Jump Across Time," is lovely and lyrical and just a bit of a tease. Set in 1928, Mirabelli's time-travel romance sort of uses the idea of jumping into the future as a metaphor for escaping class-based romantic constraints. And it's free online, for a while. More »
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To celebrate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's nomination as vice president, the Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction has posted its 2004 story, "Nine Whispered Opinions Regarding the Alaskan Secession" by George Guthridge. It's a collection of nine vignettes about a future Alaska where genetically modified fish and environmental devastation have combined with politics to make an already unforgiving landscape even bleaker than ever. More details below. More »
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