Planetside Full Archives
Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
SFWA Presents: Get to Know Our Showcase Series
Ink Stains on Fingers and the Smell of Coffee: A Guide to Writing Elsewhere
Translating Speculative Fiction into a Language with Many Dialects
Poetry in Print: Shaping Your Own Chapbook
Using Pop Culture as Poetic Inspiration
by Gwynne Garfinkle Pop culture such as movies, TV shows, music, and graphic novels can be a great source for poetic inspiration. A poet can critique, explore, and riff on a pop-culture work they love (or hate!) or even use…
How Many Poems Does It Take to Make You a Poet?
by Brenda Gates Spielman When my first book was published in 1979, I had no difficulty describing myself as an author. I even won an argument with a friend about whether it took more than one book for such a…
Moral Rights: What Writers Need to Know
by Victoria Strauss of WRITER BEWARE® What Are Moral Rights? In addition to various economic rights, such as the ability to license and profit from the use of their original work, the Berne Convention (the international source for copyright law)…
Introducing Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
by Roxana Arama, Lead Editor For nearly 30 years, The SFWA Blog has been an essential resource for speculative fiction creators. Our editorial team is excited to begin a new chapter on July 1, 2025, by reintroducing our publication with…
Awards in Speculative Poetry: Ways (and Reasons) to Celebrate Excellent Writing
by Brian U. Garrison A poem doesn’t need an award to have impact. But the process of celebrating builds community, excitement, and audience. With the Hugo and Nebula Awards preparing space in their victory gardens for poetry, new gateways are…
What Should I Pitch to Planetside?
by the Planetside Crew In recent years, Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA has undergone many changes and refinements to serve its community better. Where we once had a single editor, we’re now a team that reviews pitches collectively and looks…
The SFWA Blog
A Brief History of SFWA: The Beginning (Part 1)
by Michael Capobianco Editor’s note: This piece is the first in a two-part overview of the first year of SFWA, curated by a member of the organization’s History Committee. Part 2 is available here. On January 15, 1965, Damon Knight,…
Whoops, I Wrote a Story: How to Make App Addictions Work for Your Writing
by Marie Croke Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series titled Writing by Other Means, where authors share personal experiences and industry intel around different production contexts and writing tools. From phones and tablets to computers, we all…
Discovery Writing Through Gaming
by Austin Conrad How do you move forward when stuck on telling a story? Sometimes the best way is to play your story at the gaming table. A roleplaying game’s collaborative creativity is a fun and effective method of discovery…
Phoning It In: Finding Time to Write in Unexpected Places
by Priya Chand Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series titled Writing by Other Means, where authors share personal experiences and industry intel around different production contexts and writing tools. This piece was drafted in pieces, first on…
The Ballad of the Slush Reader: What I’ve Learned (And What I Want to Know) about Reading Slush
by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas Introduction – In Which I Rant a Little First, let me get this off my chest; I don’t believe that reading slush can make anyone a better writer. I say this because anytime a magazine opens…
The Poet’s Toolbox: Three Strategies for a Vivid Prose Voice
By Ursula Whitcher Writing poetry allows for rapid experimentation with language on a fine scale. Though there’s lots of mystique around being a poet, the key genre expectation is close attention: poetry rewards readers for noticing what’s happening at the…
Gamifying Your Writing Goals
By Gideon P. Smith We all have writing dreams, but they often remain dreams without solid productivity goals to turn them into reality. Unfortunately, as with adhering to the Prime Directive or making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs,…
Top Tips from THE INDIE FILES
by SFWA Publications Crew Independent publishing can feel as daunting as it is empowering. Monthly at the SFWA Blog, THE INDIE FILES has offered tips and insights to help authors taking this route to share their writing with the world….
How to Rewrite a Story for a Different Call
By Dannye Chase So you’ve got a solid story and a perfect publication. The problem? They don’t quite match up. Have no fear! If you wrote it, you can unwrite it, and then rewrite it for that sweet new market. …
Culture: Moving Beyond Set Dressing
by Kanishk Tantia The first story I ever wrote was unabashedly my own: written with unfiltered childlike enthusiasm, completed within a single draft and, to my eyes, perfect upon completion. Two donkeys killed each other because one was purple and…
Perceiving the Wind: Finding Magic in the Mundane
by Austin Conrad As advice, “write what you know” is nearly as hackneyed as “show, don’t tell.” Both pieces of advice are essentially correct, but writers hear them so often we don’t really process either recommendation. This is doubly true…
Character Development Lessons From Video Games
By Samantha Garner When you think of video games, do you think of rich character development? Unfortunately, many people believe video game characters are either implausibly indestructible, or worse: boring. As a fan of fantasy and action role-playing video games,…
How to Pitch Your Book to Libraries So They See You as an Easy Win to Please Their Patrons
by Kelly McClymer Most writers grew up reading books checked out from the library. There is a special place in our hearts for those library shelves full of books, so naturally, we want our books to be there. For indie…
Inspiration Point: How Can Narrative-Driven RPGs Help Write Better Fiction?
by L. E. Torres One day in 1986, after concluding an exciting Dungeons & Dragons campaign with my high school friends, I decided to write a novel telling their exploits. The game had been a roaring success, all non-stop action…
New to Your Public Persona? Handling the Non-Writing Parts of Being an Author
By Noah Sturdevant Who are you? No, not in a “name, rank, and serial number” kind of way or the physical parts on display. Not the broad character traits you associate with yourself, either. It’s a complicated question, right?…
Yes, We Need Diverse Books, But We Also Need Diverse Reviewers–Still*
by Erika Hardison Ever since Black YA Fantasy author L.L. McKinney set Twitter (now known as X) ablaze with her hashtag #PublishingPaidMe in 2021, the traditional publishing industry has been scrambling to give the appearance that they are truly committed…
Tie Up the Loose Ends: A Writer’s Guide to Sailor’s Knots
by May Haddad Knot tying (“nodology” in Latin, “kompology” in Greek) is a time-honored skill honed in seafaring for millennia. Its history intertwines with maritime exploration, naval warfare, and the development of trade routes all over the world. Even as…
Writing SFF With Paper and Pen Spurs Memory and Creativity
By R.J. Huneke I recently went back to something for the first time in many years: I wrote the entire first draft of two SFF works, a short story, and a novel, in longhand. There was an ease of flow…
Continuous Marketing and Selling Costs
by William C. Tracy Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series from William C. Tracy. Part 1 focused on publishing and release costs, comparing traditional and indie publishing. Part 2 will present marketing resources, including a Google…
Trusting Your Voice as an ESL Writer
By Gunnar De Winter Much has been said and—obviously—written about the writer’s voice. But what if that voice speaks in a language that is not your native one? While a writer’s voice is, by definition, hard to define, it lives…
Working with Your Career’s “Track Changes”: Advice from One BIPOC Editor
by Diana M. Pho Introduction The role of an editor in book publishing is shrouded in mystery. Perhaps it’s because our job faces dualistic scrutiny by writers. Editors are creative guides but also gatekeepers preventing you from getting published. Editors…
SFWA Publishing Taught Me Anthology Announces Full Roster of Contributors!
We are pleased to announce that our online anthology Publishing Taught Me now has a full roster of contributors! In addition to currently published essays by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and James Beamon (which are available here–http://sfwa.org/sfwa-publications/publishing-taught-me-a-sfwa-anthology-project/), we have essays upcoming from Diana…
What Is Sensitivity Reading?
by Georgina Kamsika Have you ever read something that you knew was incorrect? Sometimes, research has fallen short of convincing people who know better, even though other readers might not notice anything wrong. For those who know, it can be…
SFWA Matching Donations Up to 10K for Locus Magazine
Locus magazine has a long history in our field; from a one-page zine founded to support a Worldcon bid, it has grown to become the premier industry magazine for science fiction and fantasy publishing. For decades, they’ve covered the news…