Features – Locus Online

SF in Israel

November 19, 2018October 31, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

Israel, I am informed, seems to be having an SF moment. Or, from the unexpectedly enthusiastic early reviews of the anthology I co-edited with Emanuel Lottem, Zion’s Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature, SF may be having an Israel moment.

As well it should. After all, the Jewish State drew inspiration from a knock-off of Edward Bellamy’s late 19th-century utopian romance, Looking Backward, 2000-1887, notably, Zionist ideologue Theodore Herzl’s ...Read More

Features

Photo Story: Neukom Awards Ceremony

November 15, 2018October 29, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The 2018 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards were presented October 1, 2018 at Dartmouth College, with winners Lavie Tidhar, Corinne Duyvis, and Juan Martinez in attendance, along with judge Maria Dahvana Headley and award creator Dan Rockmore, director of the Neukom Institute. The $5,000 award is open to submissions until December 31, 2018.

For more information, see the Neukom website.

While you are here, please take a moment to support ...Read More

Features

Photo Story: Galactic Philadelphia

November 13, 2018October 29, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The first anniversary of the Galactic Philadelphia reading series was held October 9, 2018 at the Irish Pub in Philadelphia PA, with readers Laura Anne Gilman and Lawrence M. Schoen. Sally Wiener Grotta curated the evening, and SFWA sponsors the series.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, ...Read More

Locus Science Fiction Magazine Andy Duncan Interview

Features Interviews Slider

Andy Duncan: The Nature of Belief

November 12, 2018November 12, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Interviews

Andrew Robert Duncan was born September 21, 1964 in Columbia SC. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1986, and worked as a reporter and editor for seven years. He entered North Carolina State University’s graduate English program, studying under John Kessel and earning his MA in 1995. He attended Clarion West in 1994, and received his MFA in fiction from the University of ...Read More

Commentary Cory Doctorow Features Slider

Cory Doctorow: What the Internet Is For

November 5, 2018October 24, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Commentary, Cory Doctorow

The internet operates on a revolutionary principle, underpinned by a revolutionary principle, overlaid by a revolutionary principle. Is it, therefore, revolutionary?

The revolutionary principle the internet runs on is this: the “end-to-end” principle, which states that any person using the internet can communicate with any other person on the internet without getting any third party’s permission. If you want to connect to my webserver, you simply connect to it: you ...Read More

Features

1000 Years of Fandom

October 19, 2018October 2, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The 1000 Years of Fandom project launched at Worldcon 76. The pictorial project, run by FANAC.org, was started by Mark Olson, who photographed groups of new and longtime fans, all holding signs listing how many years they’ve been involved in fandom. Two of the photos exceeded 1,000 years of fannish activity, and in all the project photographed 6,707 years of fandom. Fans are encouraged to participate by sending photos of ...Read More

Locus Science Fiction Interview Kate Elliott

Features Interviews Slider

Kate Elliott: Visible Women

October 15, 2018October 2, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Interviews

Kate Elliott is the pen name for Alis A. Rasmussen, born July 27, 1958 in Des Moines IA. She studied at University College of North Wales – Bangor and at Mills College in Oakland CA, graduating with a BA in English in 1980. In 1985 she married Jay Silverstein; they have three children. Elliott has lived in Hawaii for the past 16 years.

Debut novel The Labyrinth Gate appeared as ...Read More

Locus Science Fiction Magazine Photo Story

Features

SF in SF with Finch and Levine

October 12, 2018October 2, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

SF in SF hosted Sheila Finch and David D. Levine at the American Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco on September 16, 2018. Coordinated by Rina Weisman and moderated by Terry Bisson, the event featured readings and signings by both guests, a Q&A session, a full bar, and ample time to mingle. Books were available for purchase thanks to Borderlands Books; Tachyon Publications sponsored the event. For more information on SF ...Read More

Features

2018 Hugo Voting Report

October 10, 2018October 8, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

Worldcon 76 received 2,828 valid ballots, down from 3,319 at Worldcon 75. Some 40% of eligible members voted, up from 32%. There were 1,813 valid nominating ballots, down from 2,464.

The procedure for counting nominations was the same as last year, using the system known as E Pluribus Hugo, or EPH. The rather complicated point system gives a single point to each voter’s ballot, dividing that point among the nominees. ...Read More

Features

Worldcon 76 Report

October 9, 2018October 8, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

Worldcon 76, the 76th World Science Fiction Convention, took place August 16-20, 2018 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose CA. Guests of honor were Spider Robinson, John Picacio, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; Frank Hayes as music guest of honor, Pierre and Sandy Pettinger as fan guests of honor, Edgar Pangborn as ghost of honor, and Bob Wilkins as gHost of honor. There were 5,440 attending members, including kids-in-tow ...Read More

Features Interviews

N.K. Jemisin: Change Theory

October 8, 2018November 12, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Interviews

Nora K. Jemisin was born September 19, 1972 in Iowa City IA, and grew up spending summers in New York City and the rest of the year in Mobile AL. She studied psychology at Tulane in New Orleans, and went to grad school to study counseling at the University of Maryland-College Park. After spending ten years in Massachusetts, she moved to New York City, where she has lived ever since. ...Read More

Features

Photo Story: Hexagon Retreat X

October 5, 2018October 2, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The tenth Hexagon Retreat was held in July 2018 in Crozet VA.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field. ...Read More

Commentary Features

SF Crossing the Gulf — Authentic Indian Experience™

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

Welcome to your authentic Crossing the Gulf experience! In one of our favourite discussions to date, Karen and Karen summarise, assess, dissect and digest the multiple-award-winning short story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse. This richly layered and nuanced story rewards on so many levels. We provide perspectives from our own experiences, alternating roles as insider and outsider.

Reference is made to the film The Thirteenth Floor ...Read More

Commentary Features Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley: Building the Story of Ourselves

October 1, 2018November 6, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Commentary, Kameron Hurley

There is a theory that storytelling is how we create our consciousness. This is why we can’t remember being infants. We only pick up the ability to remember events when we’re two or three years old – about the same time we figure out how to construct narrative. Once we can tell stories about the world and ourselves, we become truly conscious.

So if the stories we tell about ourselves ...Read More

Launch Pad science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Launch Pad 2018

September 27, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The Launch Pad workshop was held May 28 – June 3, 2018 at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The workshop, founded by SF writer and astronomer Mike Brotherton, focuses on teaching astronomy principles to SF writers.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to ...Read More

Sycamore Hill science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Sycamore Hill 2018

September 25, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The Sycamore Hill Workshop was held June 16-22, 2018 at the Wildacres retreat near Little Switzerland, NC.

Features

Photo Story: Alpha Workshop 2018

September 24, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The Alpha workshop for young writers was held July 25 – August 5, 2018 in Greensburg PA.

Shared Worlds science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Shared Worlds 2018

September 20, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The Shared Worlds teen writing camp was held July 15-28, 2018 at Wofford College in Spartanburg SC.

Clarion West science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Clarion West 2018

September 18, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The annual Clarion West writing workshop was held June 17 – July 27, 2018 in Seattle WA.

Rebecca Roanhorse Locus Magazine Interview

Features Interviews

Rebecca Roanhorse: From Legend to Fantasy

September 17, 2018November 5, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Interviews

REBECCA ROANHORSE was born in 1971 in Conway AR and grew up in Fort Worth TX. She received a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale University and an M.A. in Theology from Union Theological Seminary before going on to receive a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law, specializing in Federal Indian Law. Roanhorse is of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and African American descent, and writes “rez-based fantasy ...Read More

Roundtable

V. M. Escalada Guest Post–“The Good, Not Just the Bad and the Ugly”

September 17, 2018September 10, 2018 Alvaro Zinos-Amaro 1 Comment

You want to know why romance is the most popular genre? With more romance novels sold than all other novels put together? I have a theory. It’s not about all the kissy-facing (ok, it is a little bit): it’s because every book ends with hope.

Have you noticed how many versions of Sherlock Holmes there are extant? Looking at movies and TV alone, at least three, right? And probably more ...Read More

Features Spotlight

Spotlight on: Jason Kirk, 47North

September 14, 2018August 29, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Spotlight

Jason Kirk is a senior editor for Amazon Publishing’s 47North and Skyscape imprints. Books edited by Kirk have won the Arthur C. Clarke, British Science Fiction Association, and UTOPiA Book of the Year Awards, and have been finalists for the Philip K. Dick and Bram Stoker Awards. Prior to joining Amazon Publishing in 2014, Kirk worked in magazine publishing and music journalism for 15 years. Aside from his interest in ...Read More

Odyssey science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Odyssey 2018

September 13, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The 2018 Odyssey Writing Workshop was held June 4 – July 13, 2018 at St. Anselm College in Manchester NH.

Rio Hondo science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Rio Hondo 2018

September 11, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The Rio Hondo writing workshop was held May 13-20, 2018 in Angel Fire NM.

Features Interviews

Kelly Robson: Time-Travel Eco-Wars

September 10, 2018October 15, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments Interviews

Kelly Robson was born July 17, 1967 in Edmonton, Alberta and grew up in Hinton, Alberta, a small town just east of the Rockies. She graduated with a degree in English from the University of Alberta. Robson married writer A.M. Dellamonica in an “outlaw” wedding in 1989, and they wed officially in 2003 when Canada legalized marriage equality. They lived in Vancouver until 2013, when they relocated to downtown Toronto. ...Read More

Roundtable

Resisting and Persisting: An interview with the contributors to “Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler”

September 10, 2018September 5, 2018 Alvaro Zinos-Amaro 0 Comments

The Hugo-nominated and Locus award-winning anthology Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler contains essays and letters to the beloved pioneer of science fiction, many of which were written in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.

The timing of this collection is particularly poignant; many of the contributors made direct reference to recent events and the contemporary political climate, drawing parallels with Butler’s work. Her influence is keenly felt. ...Read More

Features

Sloan at Ars Technica

September 7, 2018August 29, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

Annalee Newitz of Ars Technica sat down with author Robin Sloan on August 8, 2018 during the monthly Ars Technica Live event at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland CA to discuss Sloan’s SF novel Sourdough (2017) and his machine learning experiments – including a bot he trained on old issues of SF magazines and programmed to write science fictional sentences. For more, see the Ars Technica website.

Cascade science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Cascade Writers 2018

September 6, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The Cascade Writers workshop was held July 20 – July 22, 2018 in Tacoma WA.

Clarion science fiction writing workshop

Features

Photo Story: Clarion 2018

September 4, 2018August 30, 2018 locusmag 0 Comments

The yearly Clarion writing workshop was held June 24 – August 4, 2018 at UC San Diego in La Jolla CA.

Roundtable

Roundtable Guest Post by Christine Feehan, with Charlaine Harris, Gena Showalter and Melinda M. Snodgrass–“The Evolution of Acceptance of Women Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction”

September 4, 2018August 27, 2018 Alvaro Zinos-Amaro 1 Comment

As women writing fantasy and science fiction today it’s exciting to see so many female writers of this genre, to see more support for women and continued successes. As a writer of paranormal, fantasy, and science fiction since the 1990s, I’ve found a welcoming home in this genre over the years. I’ve invited some of my friends and colleagues to join me in discussing what it’s like to write in ...Read More

Commentary Cory Doctorow Features

Cory Doctorow: Big Tech: We Can Do Better Than Constitutional Monarchies

September 3, 2018October 8, 2018 locusmag 3 Comments Commentary, Cory Doctorow

Once, the mainstream view was that worrying about tech policy was faintly ridiculous, a kind of masturbatory science fictional exercise in which your hyperactive imagination led you to have vivid delusions about the supposed significance of the rules we laid down for the internet and the computers we connect to it.

Weirdly, worrying about this stuff made you a “techno utopian,” though it’s a strange type of utopian who spends ...Read More

Roundtable

Jonathan French Guest Post–“MFA vs…D&D?”

August 30, 2018 Alvaro Zinos-Amaro 0 Comments

A vagabond, a pit-fighter, a noblewoman, and a dung-collector stand in a crowded square to witness the execution of a dissident madman. Though strangers before that overcast day, the condemned man’s final ravings upon the scaffold will bind them inextricably. Marked to deliver his body safely to a doom-cult, the four hapless individuals discover that failure risks their sanity. And their souls.

That was the story hook for a roleplaying ...Read More

← Previous