Recent articles well worth reading for writers – link post

I’ve come across some thoughtful and thought-provoking pieces recently. Sharing them on Twitter is all very well but that’s both a fleeting and a hit-and-miss way of reaching people, so here’s a round up for you to refer to as and when suits you best.

Do Literary Agents Reject Your Submission After Reading One Line? – Mary C Moore, author and literary agent.

I remember being appalled the first time I heard an editor say they can tell if a book’s any good in the first 500 words, and being left speechless when a literary agent said that was generous, they’d say 50 words. Twenty or so years later, I understand what they meant.

Picking Stories for an Anthology: A Guest Post by Joshua Palmatier

As yesterday’s post makes clear, I’m a great fan of anthologies and this new era of ebooks makes them viable in a way we haven’t seen before. They give writers like me opportunities to try out new ideas and to offer our work to new readers. Aspiring writers gain valuable experience and a track record to offer potential agents and editors. So how do you maximise your chances of acceptance?

Disability Erasure And The Apocalyptic Narrative by Shoshana Kessock

As regular readers will know, I’m keenly interested in issues around diversity and representation in SF&F writing. Thus I’m very aware that the further someone’s lived experience is from my own, the less likely I am to understand the issues they face without listening to their perspective. This article is a case in point, and I will be keeping it in mind for my own writing purposes for a long time to come.

That’s enough to be going on with, so I’ll close with a reminder that you can find other articles about writing, by me and by other folk here.

Author: Juliet

Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy inspired by British folklore in 2018. The Green Man’s Quarry in 2023, the sixth title to follow, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. The Green Man’s War continues this ongoing series. Her 2023 novel The Cleaving is a female-centred retelling of the story of King Arthur, while her shorter stories include forays into dark fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. She promotes SF&Fantasy by reviewing, by blogging on book trade issues, attending conventions and teaching creative writing. She has served as a judge for the James White Award, the Aeon Award, the Arthur C Clarke Award and the World Fantasy Awards. In 2015 she received the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award. As J M Alvey, she has written historical murder mysteries set in ancient Greece.

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