SFWA’s special interest email group focused on professional middle grade and young adult publishing is now open to all SFWA members. Requirements are an up-to-date membership in SFWA at any level and an interest in the MG and YA fields.
Author A. C. Crispin (b.1950) died on September 6 after a year-long battle with cancer. Crispin began publishing in 1983 with the Star Trek novel Yesterday’s Son. She continued writing media tie-in novels, including for the television show V and the films Star Wars, Alien, and The Pirates of the Caribbean. In 1989, she published her first original novel, Starbridge, and co-wrote six sequels to it. In 2005, […]
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
Ann Crispin, best-selling author, Writer Beware co-founder, fearless fighter in the scam wars, beloved wife and mother, my friend, died this morning after a two-year struggle with cancer.
I’ll write a mem…
I’ve been hesitant to make this post, but it’s time. I want to thank you all for your good wishes and prayers. I fear my condition is deteriorating. I am doing the best I can to be positive but I probably don’t have an awful lot of time left.
Polymath and former SFWA President Frederik Pohl (b.1919) died on September 2 after entering the hospital in repiratory distress earlier in the day. Pohl joined science fiction fandom in the 1930s and quickly became an integral part of the New York science fiction scene. He was denied entry to the first Worldcon in 1939 as part of the “Exclusion Act.” By that time, he had begun to publish, with his poem “Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna,” appearing in 1937 and his first story, the collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth “Before the Universe” in 1940 (as S.D. Gottesman, one of several pseudonyms Pohl used, either singularly or in collaboration).
Early in their careers, writers sometimes sign away valuable rights under less than favorable terms. This article discusses the important right of termination under US copyright law, which allows writers to reclaim such rights in their works and to try to make a better deal.
While many SFWA members are at WorldCon in San Antonio this weekend, some of us are bucking the trend and going to Dragon*Con.
A roundup of recent publisher troubles and closures that have come across my desk…
Starting last February, I began hearing from Iconic authors reporting a variety of similar problems, including production delays, poor copy editing (books were printed full of errors), poor communication, and broken marketing promises. I’ve also seen several Iconic contracts, and they’re pretty bad, with a sweeping claim on subsidiary rights (even though there’s no evidence Iconic is capable of exploiting them), unacceptably vague reversion language, royalties paid on net profit, and a Right of First refusal clause that could be interpreted to require the authors to submit to the publisher any subsequent book they ever produced.
After reviewing the performance of Brutarian Magazine and corresponding with its publisher, SFWA’s board has voted to delist Brutarian as a qualifying market as of August 30, 2013, due to the magazine’s inconsistent publishing schedule over the past three years and questions about its ability to maintain a regular publication schedule in the near future.
Journey to lost pasts and possible futures with the Accidental Time Travelers Collective, volume 3. The latest installment in the Accidental Time Travelers Collective series features 12 time-travel short stories by an international group of authors.
