Speculate!

Welcome back for Episode 77 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this special episode we take a look at the potential benefits and pitfalls of writing workshops with two veteran workshop goers, authors Cat Rambo and Luc Reid, discussing how workshops function at their best, when an author is ready to attend a workshop, and how that author can get the most out of the experience.  We also chat a bit about related subjects, like Luc’s brainchild Codex, and how community building for authors is an important step in building successful careers.  If you enjoy the discussion as much as we did, make sure to check out more of Luc and Cat’s work–and don’t forget to check back for our next episode, which will be recorded live at the Origins convention in Columbus this coming week!  (And if you happen to be in the Columbus area, please stop by and say hello.)  Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word!

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Only a little over 24 hours remain in Brad’s Kickstarter for the third book in his Lays of Anuskaya trilogy. Greg recently finished his read of Brad’s third book and had a few things to say about it. On video, no less! Now he can’t take any of it back!

Welcome back for Episode 68 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this episode we focus for the third time on the state of the speculative fiction field with special guests Matt Forbeck and Lee Moyer, concentrating this time around on the impact of Kickstarter and other crowdsourcing systems on the world of fantasy and science fiction.  Both Matt and Lee have run highly successful Kickstarters in the past year, and over the course of our discussion we look at the implications of Kickstarter for all of us:  is this system going to replace the traditional methods of getting a book or game to market, or can it work side by side with those methods?  What are its potential pitfalls (and how can you avoid them)?  And if you succeed, what comes next?  We cover all these bases and a few more during the course of our discussion, and we hope you’ll find it as enlightening as we did.  If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back for our next episode, the first in a triptych on the work of Robin Hobb.  Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word!

Update: here are links to Lee’s whitepaper on Kickstarters, including the introduction:

http://leemoyer.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/kickstarter-what-does-it-all-mean/

http://leemoyer.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/kickstarter-white-paper-part-1/

http://leemoyer.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/kickstarter-white-paper-part-2/

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Hi everyone. As the co-hosts of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans, we spend most of our time on the show interviewing, analyzing and discussing the work of other people in the speculative fiction field. But now, we’re asking for something a little different. Nominations for the 2013 Hugo Awards are being accepted now, and although we’re not big fans of shameless self-promotion, we figure if we didn’t ask, you might not know that we are eligible to be nominated in the Hugo’s Best Fancast category.

If you are an attending or supporting member of LoneStarCon3, the Worldcon coming up this August, an attending or supporting member of Chicon, last year’s Worldcon, or an attending or supporting member of LonCon3, next year’s Worldcon, you’re eligible to nominate for any or all of the Hugo Awards. And it’s easy–simply go to the nomination page (http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/hugo-nom.html), type in your name and the PIN sent to you by LonestarCon, and nominate for as many of the awards as you like–including, we hope, Speculate! in the Best Fancast category.

We do this show because we love talking about the field in which we write and study, speculative fiction; interviewing authors, artists, and editors, and getting to analyze the work they produce, is a great thrill for us. But the main reason we enjoy doing the show is it gives us a chance to communicate with all of you—to present our show to a lively and ever-growing audience.

Getting nominated for a Hugo—to say nothing of winning one!—would allow us to broaden that reach and communicate with even more fans of one of the most fascinating genres of literature we have. So we would greatly appreciate it if you could nominate Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans by heading over to the nomination page.

The deadline is Sunday, March 10, 2013, which is coming soon–so please do it as soon as you can! And thanks from both Greg and Brad to all of you for your feedback, enthusiastic support, and of course listening to the show! We look forward to giving you some great ones in the year ahead.

Thanks for tuning in, and of course for nominating!

Today brings a nice bit of feedback from listener Kate Heartfield. In Kate’s words:

I’ve only listened to this (Speculate!) one once or twice, as it’s a recent discovery for me. But I can tell it’s going to end up in my regular rotation. It seems smooth and well-organized, and long enough to get into a subject in some depth, with a nice mix of review-style discussion, interviews and talk about craft.

Follow this link to see what Kate has to say about several other fine podcasts like SF Squeecast, Writing Excuses, Coode Street, and SFSignal. Thanks for the kind words Kate!

Welcome to Episode 61 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  We set a new record for single episode participation in this show with four distinguished guests: Brenda Cooper and E.C. Myers (authors of The Creative Fire and Quantum Coin, respectively), freelance editor Gabrielle Harbowy, and Pyr Books‘ editorial and art director Lou Anders speak for an hour on what has made Pyr such a successful speculative fiction imprint, where it’s been and where it’s going in the future.  This wide ranging discussion also looks at the finer points of how good editors work with good authors, how important a good cover is to an equally good book, and what makes Dragon Con such a scary (and amazing!) event every year.  Our shows normally don’t run this long, but we hope you’ll agree the extra discussion we got with all of these fine people was worth the extra time.  If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll start a new series of shows on the work of Joe Abercrombie.  Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word about the show!

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Photo courtesy of the excellent Al Bogdan.

Welcome to Episode 58 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this episode we continue our triptych of shows on the Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine with an interview of its publisher and editor-in-chief Scott H. Andrews, who has a lot of interesting stuff to say about the origins of the magazine, his editorial philosophy, and why literary adventure fantasy is a seriously underserved portion of the speculative fiction market.  If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll conclude our triptych with a discussion of some writing techniques employed in stories published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  Until then, thanks as always for listening to the show, and please continue to spread the word!

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Welcome back for Episode 55 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this episode we take a second look at the state of the speculative fiction field with special guests Mary Robinette Kowal, former vice-president of SFWA and Hugo-award winning writer, and Michael Underwood, North American Sales and Marketing Manager for Angry Robot and the author of Geekomancy.  Our discussion (recorded at the recently concluded GenCon) covers a variety of topics, focusing particularly on new ventures in e-publishing, marketing strategies, and the differences between an author’s online and offline personas, and we hope you’ll find the conversation as interesting (and helpful) as we did.  If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back next week for a series of short interviews with the intrepid participants in the Wellspring Workshop 2012.  Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word!

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Photo courtesy of the talented Al Bogdan.

Welcome back for Episode 52 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this episode we continue our sequence of shows on Throne of the Crescent Moon, the new sword and sorcery book by Saladin Ahmed, with an interview of DAW Books president, editor-in-chief and veteran observer of the field Betsy Wollheim.  In this discussion Betsy explains what she enjoyed the most about editing Saladin’s book, but also ventures farther afield to talk about her general editorial philosophy, what authors most need to remember about what they choose to write and what the future of the industry looks like–and why she’s bullish on the potential of E-books and digital publishing. If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll interview Saladin himself.  Until then, thanks as always for listening to the show, and please continue to spread the word!

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Welcome back for Episode 41 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this episode we continue our look at the impact of E-books and independent publishing on the field of speculative fiction with part two of our talk with author and editor extraordinaire Paul Genesse, focusing here on what makes a book a book, what the kids must think of all of this, and what’s next for our genre. If you enjoy the discussion, don’t forget to check back for our next episode when we’ll begin another triptych of shows on Seed, the new novel from Rob Ziegler.  Until then, thanks as always for listening to the show, and please continue to spread the word!

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