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Organizations & Resources / Markets / Agents / Dictionaries & Glossaries / Successful Queries / Frequently Asked Questions
Organizations
and Resources
of interest to sf/fantasy writers:
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Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). You can subscribe to the SFWA Bulletin without being a member. Also of interest is the excellent SFWA Handbook. While you're there, check out the Writer Beware and Writing links. On second thought, check out everything—the site is filled with excellent information.
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SF and Fantasy Workshop (SF&FW). Its newsletter, OSPS (Outlines, Synopses, Proposals that Sold) booklets, Promises, PRO-MSS series, and Basic Market List (scroll down SF&FW's homepage to find out about the market list) offer a plethora of useful information.
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SFF Net is a large and varied collection of information related to genre fiction. Links to, among others, The Market List (a compendium of market information) and On Writing (discussions and books for new and experienced writers).
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Writers Groups & Organizations. National, international, local and on-line groups are listed, with links.
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Locus: The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field. Essential reading for serious writers of science fiction or fantasy. Don't go marketing without it!
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Writer's Digest. 1,200 sets of writer's guidelines and 101 recommended Web sites for writers are only a click away.
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The Authors Guild: Oldest and largest association of published authors in the U.S. The "Legal Watch," "Bulletin Board," and "Along Publishers Row" departments in its quarterly bulletin are always interesting—sometimes depressing—reading.
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Independent Publisher covers news and opportunities in the small-press world. In the wake of consolidations that have reduced to a handful the number of large publishing houses, small presses make up a rapidly expanding segment of the publishing business. According to IP, a million books are published annually by 50,000 small, independent publishers.
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Science Fiction Resource Guide is a nicely organized site with links to various Writers Resources and lists of science fiction/fantasy Publishers.
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The Market List: A Resource for Writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Offers articles, interviews, and reviews as well as a Market Index with guidelines.
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Mary Soon Lee's Speculative Fiction Page has an informative section on "Is it worth trying the small press?" and also discusses SF/F/H markets.
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See also SFWA's Book Publisher Listings and SF&FW's Basic Market List.
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Science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer's page, Landing an Agent, offers a sample query letter and a list of American literary agents who represent three or more members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
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Writers Net has a directory of agents, searchable by area of specialization.
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Guide to Literary Agents is a vast resource maintained by Todd James Pierce that links to numerous publishing-related sites.
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SFWA's Preditors & Editors: A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers; has Agent Listings.
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Agent Research & Evaluation maintains a database and will, for a fee, help writers locate agents who are right for them and their work.
Dictionaries and Glossaries for use when the word you want is an old one:
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The 1913 Webster's Unabridged Dictionary offers definitions beyond what's found in some modern dictionaries.
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The Shakespearian Glossary aids in better comprehending the bard's work, and shows just how far he was willing to stretch a word's "accepted" meaning. A couple of examples: He gave "abuse" the meaning "to deceive" and used "yearn" to mean "to grieve or vex." Reminiscent of Humpty-Dumpty's assertion that "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
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The Oxford Thesaurus, American Edition (No. 22 on the list this links to) isn't the best thesaurus I've used, but its inclusions of colloquial British and archaic, old-fashioned, and literary words make it valuable.
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Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness is a "dictionarrative" by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. I've come a little late to the party, only just now discovering a body of "words work" that began with The Deluxe Transitive Vampire. Sink your teeth into Loud Hound and learn the difference between "although" and "though," "pretense" and "pretext," and many other pesky pairs.
Queries—samples of successful query letters and synopses:
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Written by Deborah J. Lightfoot aka Deborah Lightfoot Sizemore, for my first two books, Trail Fever and The LH7 Ranch.
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Analysis of the query for Waterspell that landed me my agent.
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Queries and synopses written by other authors—see SF&FW's excellent OSPS booklets.
If you have other writing- or
publishing-related sites to recommend, please send their URLs to djls@djlightfoot.com.
Thanks.
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