Resources
Writers' Organizations
The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) is the nation's leading organization of independent nonfiction writers.
Authors Registry A non-profit organization serving authors
Broad Universe is a professional organization open to anyone with a mission of promoting and celebrating work by women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
The Crime Writers Association of Australia
Horror Writers Association was formed in the 1980s to bring together writers and others professionally interested in horror and dark fantasy, and to foster a greater appreciation of dark fiction among the general public.
International Arthurian Society publishes its journal Arthuriana online.
Literary Arts Allied Collective
National Writers Union The NWU is the trade union for freelance writers (journalists, poets, book, technical, web, academic, & other authors) working in U.S. markets (UAW/AFL-CIO).
Novelists Inc "Dedicated to serving the needs of multi-published writers of popular fiction."
Science Fiction Writers of Japan (SFWJ), established 1963. Their Web page is available in English and Japanese and gives a list of members, Nihon SF Taisho Award winners, a brief history of the organization, Japanese science fiction chronology, an art gallery, a library, and more.
Writers Guild of America, an organization for screenwriters
Agents
SFWA cannot assure that any literary agent (or other resource listed here) is reliable, fair, or even honest. These links are for your information only and constitute no endorsement by SFWA. Please remember any charge made to the author that is payable prior to the sale of the manuscript to a publisher, however characterized by the agent, is a "fee" and represents inappropriate conduct not in the author's best interest. This clarification is in response to several attempts to evade criticism through semantic changes by questionable agents that do not actually represent any improvement in practices--only in the labels on the bills sent to authors. See the Writer Beware section for more information.
SFF Net's literary Agents and Agencies page
Literary Agents on the Net, restricted to those who DO NOT charge reading fees.
Agent Research & Evaluation, Inc. helps (for a fee) writers in search of the best agent to suit their needs. They also offer a free agent verification service.
AAR (Association of Author's Representatives)
General Writers' Resources
Again, these links constitute no endorsement by SFWA, although we do our best to weed out any scams. Some of these sites also offer fiction display services, but if they're linked it's in spite of that fact, not because of it.
Ability Hub is a resource site for people with a disability affecting computer use. This web site will direct you to adaptive equipment and alternative methods available for accessing computers.
The Academy Library is an SCA-based naming resource.
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Home Page Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. Worth a look. The site also includes the text of the infamous Eye of Argon.
The Copyright Website contains some useful practical info about copyright law and issues.
Gryphon Books for Writers: New, Used, and Out-of-Print Reference, Research, and Resource Books for Writers
Health Central is full of information for your personal and fiction research
Holly Lisle's Vision: A Resource For Writers is a bi-monthly e-magazine offered in html, Adobe Acrobat(tm) and Palm OS(tm) versions. The publication offers both genre-related and general writing articles, along with a workshop and links to on-line exercises. See also the Forward Motion collection of articles for writers.
HowStuffWorks.com, a site name that pretty much speaks for itself.
Legal information can be found at our Legal Resources section and in the Reference Section.
MarsDust Online is an online fandom lifestyles magazine with lots of personality.
This name census is a useful list of surnames and of male and female given names ranked by popularity.
Preditors and Editors, "a guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers." Although hosted on the SFWA site, this guide is not affiliated with SFWA; if you have questions about the site content, please contact the appropriate Preditors and Editors department.
Publisher's Lunch is the industry's "daily essential read," now shared with well over 12,000 qualified book trade professionals.
Publishers Marketplace -- the first and only dedicated marketplace for publishing professionals to find each other.
Research-It! Yahoo Internet Life called this the "Swiss army knife of research instruments." Search dictionaries and thesauruses, look up acronyms and quotations, translate English to French or Japanese (and back again), figure out anagrams, word-search Shakespeare or the King James Bible, look at maps, check stocks, find zip codes, track UPS or FedEx packages, and much more.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Resource Links
The Scriptwriter's Network is a an organization whose purpose is to provide access to information about the way the entertainment business works and how you as a writer can make intelligent, career advancing decisions in getting your work out to the people who count.
Shining Stars: These pages are an attempt to locate "success stories" for editors that have dealt better with writers than one might consider reasonable, with the ultimate aim of, well, hoping other markets follow suit
Speculations' Kick Internet Piracy page
Translations: This site translates between English and several other languages. You can paste in text for it to translate, or have it translate and reproduce a web site.Writer Beware is the place to go to learn about literary scams--and how to avoid them.
Writers' Free Reference is a list of free reference sites; enough to tickle any writer's research fancy. (Please note SFWA does not endorse the service-providing sponsor of this site.)
The Writer's Marketplace is the misc.writing newsgroup's marketplace site.
Writers Write™ has many services and links, including the Internet Writing Journal
History
History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Maps
MapBlast! will find almost any location in the US and show a local street map, zip code, etc.
Mapquest Shows a map on almost any scale of almost anywhere in the U.S., from the whole country to a few blocks with labeled streets.
World Atlas--A truly formidable selection of electronic maps available for browsing.
Religion
The Zen Internet Group has much information available, including a running catalog of web sites related to kids.
Software
Alexxes Software: Alexxes Word Tools combines the resources of a dictionary and thesaurus to provide a unique and innovative learning and reference tool for writers and students of English. Other software available on the site.
Download.com is a good source of programs, from freeware to licensed software.
Idea Tracker might come in handy.
SkyGlobe is a very useful DOS shareware program (it runs fine under Windows 3.1, 3.11, and Win95) that shows the heavens at almost any time and place in the world. Find out what an observer in Florence, Italy, would have seen of the moon on Hallowe'en night in 1944, for example: or what stars or constellations an observer in the Yukon might see on the night of 23 February, 2078: or even what you can see in your sky tonight. SkyGlobe is available for download from several sites on the Web. Try an Alta Vista search to find it. Remember to check downloaded files for viruses!
Rough Draft is an excellent little donationware word processor targeting writers. Small and easy to use--it won't replace office packages, but does the trick as a basic fiction werp. Formats in RTF.
Sonar will help writers keep track of short story or article submissions. It will tell you who's got each story, whether a story has been sold or not or whether it's been rejected so you can send it out again. You can view a list of all stories, then filter them in various ways (e.g. only show stories which are available to send out). Freeware. Available at Spacejock along with other reading-oriented programs.
Urban Myths and Virus Info
URBAN MYTHS
About.com Urban Myths & Legends
Computer Virus Myths Read here before you pass on the "Good Times" virus hoax.
F-Secure's Hoax Warnings
SNOPES - Urban Legends' Reference Pages
Stiller's Computer Virus Myths
VIRUS INFO
Housecall's on-line virus scanner
McAfee.com's "Virus Info Library"
Symantec's Antivirus Research Center
Please send comments, suggestions, or corrections to links at sfwa.org