Good News, Vision #2

News On the Shelves, Vision #2

Forward Motion Good Fortune! 

 

The Forward Motion Writers' Community had a plethora of great writing-related notices in the last few weeks!

 

 

 

FM Moderator Sarah Jane Elliot's story , "To Soothe the Savage Beast", received an Honourable Mention in The Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. The Award is sponsored by "Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" and the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA). Each year, out of hundreds of submissions, five stories are chosen. The winners fly to Ft. Lauderdale to attend the International Conference on the Fantastic in March, where the award will be presented. 

 

At this year's conference, she will meet three fellow finalists and last year's winner (FM Moderator Beth Adele Long), as well as Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, James Morrow, Sean Stewart, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, John Kessel, Joe Haldeman, TOR editor David Hartwell, and many many more.
For more information on the International Conference on the Fantastic (including the conference schedule), visit the IAFA website.
 

 

 

 

 FM ModeratorBeth Adele Long has been accepted to this year's Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop , an intense six-week workshop held at Michigan State University.  From the Clarion website  (http://www.msu.edu/~clarion) :  "Each week a different professional writer conducts the workshop. The resident writer also lives on campus and is continuously available. Mornings are devoted to critiquing manuscripts in a workshop setting; afternoons and evenings are devoted to individual writing, conferences with the writer-in-residence, and completing class assignments. Tom Disch once said that the 'six weeks of Clarion are the literary equivalent of boot camp.' It is indeed an intensive experience." 

 

This year's instructors are Steve Barnes, Kelly Link, James Patrick Kelly, Pat Murphy, Geoffrey Landis and Mary Turzillo, with guest editor Shawna McCarthy.  Needless to say, Beth won't be very active in the community during those six weeks, but she does promise frequent updates from the wilds of East Lansing, Michigan!

 

 

 

Community member Caroline Allard has placed three short shorts with ShadowKeep.

 

 

 

FM Moderator Jennifer St. Clair Bush has sold her first novel! 

 

Second Coming, a fantasy about King Arthur, Mordred, and the end of the world, will be published in mid-2001 by FictionWorks  as an original paperback. (http://www.fictionworks.com/ )

 

(Note: graphic is not the cover art.)

 

  

 

The soundtrack CD for Robin Catesby's world premiere production of The Velveteen Rabbit is now available at MAH Records, the record company of composer Michael Allen Harrison.

 

 (http://www.mahrecords.com/new_items.htm).  The new musical adaptation played Dec 21 through 24 in Portland Oregon.  For more information about the production, the script and the music (including the original cast recording CD), visit www.velveteen-rabbit.com .

 

 

 

When FM Moderator Justin Stanchfield was asked if he has any publishing news, this was the reply:

 

 Ummm…. I've got one up on ShadowKeep this week, and the one on Ideomancer will probably be rotated out next week, but I'm not sure. I think they'll both be in archives for a while, though. And my contributor copy of Indigenous fiction came Saturday.

Upcoming I've got stories in the next issues of Foxfire, Colonies, and Hadrasaur Tales. The ones I've placed with Alternate Realities and XOddity haven't been scheduled yet, and I'm not sure about the release dates on any of the anthologies I'm in yet.

 

 

FM Moderator Lazette Gifford's short story, A Fate Cast In Stone, found a home at http://www.ideomancer.com.  She also sold A Warrior's Work is Never Done to Dragonlaugh (http://dragonlaugh.freeyellow.com/)for both electronic and a print anthology, and her first published story, Epilogue for a Lost Tale, was chosen to be included in Jackhammer Ezine's (http://www.eggplant-productions.com/jackhammer/) "Best of" Anthology. 

 

 

 

Lazette's first novel, Silky, is also available beginning March 1st from Embiid Publishing. (http://www.embiid.net)  The publishers have also created a web page where tee-shirts, cups and mouse pads can be purchased featuring the e-book's cover art. (http://www.cafepress.com/zette/ )  

 

 

 

Years of slavery have robbed Silky of his magical abilities, and left him with no expectations of a better life, until his act of unselfish bravery delivers him into the hands of a powerful Lord of the land.  Adapting to the new household, he struggles to recover the magic that can help him protect Lord Reed from his dangerous enemies.

 

 

 

Exciting, complex and richly textured, with a world you'll believe and a protagonist you have to cheer for -- Silky is wonderful. 
--Holly Lisle, author of Courage of Falcons

 

 

 

Holly Lisle's current book -- on the stands now!

 

Courage of FalconsTo defeat the Dragons, Kait and Ry must destroy the source of the sorcerers' power -- the Mirror of Souls. But if they succeed, they will lose the only weapon that can stop Luercas from becoming a demonic god who will enslave the entire world . . . forever.
Book III of THE SECRET TEXTS
 Read the preview chapters | Read the reviews | View the cover | Order the book 
 

 

 

Great Resource Award For 
HollyLisle.com -- given by Writers-Exchange

 

Award text reads:

 

25 February 2001: Holly Lisle: Published author Holly Lisle has built a great set of resources and informative articles on this site. She covers all aspects of writing, from constructing a novel to getting a little fitness into a sedentary writer's life. On the front page of the site are cheers for people who have achieved goals with their writing. Her articles are filled with honesty about the industry and motivation for the new author, giving readers a true picture of the rollercoaster life most authors lead. There are links to literally dozens of different articles as well as other terrific resources. Be prepared to spend a couple of hours here, just poking around and learning.

 

 

 

What else is happening on line at the Forward Motion Writers' Community? 

 

The first Writing Dare of 2001 is over, but the second one will start on April 1, 2001.  There are several categories for this dare, which includes master and apprentice, novel, short story, and rewrite sections. Check out the information on the Games and Contests page.

 

 

The site also features a daily writing exercise.  These range from "Write an Interesting first sentence" to "Have a conversation with one of your characters."  In March we will be starting a free-for-all round-robin type of exercise, in which members get to add to story posts all week.  This is going to be a lot of fun! Workshops and Exercises Boards

 

This round of the novel swap is filled up, but you can sign up for the next one!  If you have a completed novel that you think is ready for the submission process, you might consider sending it through this group first.  These are not line-edit critiques, but searches for holes, dropped characters, dangling plot twists, or other problems. Think of it more like a detailed review.  You can find the sign up on the General Fiction Board.