I’m hosting two Twitter events this week for aspiring science fiction and fantasy authors.
Thursday: #SFFpit, with Rule Changes
The #SFFpit Twitter pitching event for sci-fi and fantasy authors returns this Thursday. We’ve followed the lead of Brenda Drake’s #PitMad, and made some adjustments to the pitching rules. Mainly, we’re asking authors to limit their participation to 10 tweets during the 10-hour window, and we’re asking everyone not to retweet their favorite pitches.
I hate to do this, but it’s a necessary step: the participation in this event has grown to the point that the feed is overwhelming for literary agents and editors. Back in June, we had about 18,000 tweets by 670 authors. That’s about 27 tweets per author, and works out to 1,500 tweets per hour! We want to keep this event useful for literary agents and editors, and we’d like all participants to have a fair shot at having their pitch seen. So please, follow the rules and gently encourage others to do so.
Wednesday: #SFFchat with Harper Voyager Authors
So, funny story: the last #SFFpit was on June 18th, and the day after, my agent called with some thrilling news: we’d received an offer for my adult sci-fi/fantasy novel The Rogue Retrieval from David Pomerico at Harper Voyager. Since then, I’ve joined a wonderful group of authors whose books are published by Voyager Impulse or Voyager UK.
On Wednesday, December 9th, many of them will hop on Twitter to answer questions, share pitching tips, and discuss the general state of SF/F publishing. This will happen on the #SFFchat hashtag at two times: 3-4 p.m. and 9-10 p.m. (US Eastern Time). You don’t have to be participating in #SFFpit to join us; you just have to love SF/F books. So who are these Voyager authors? Let’s break it down.
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T. FrohockT. Frohock has turned a love of dark fantasy and horror into tales of deliciously creepy fiction. She lives in North Carolina where she has long been accused of telling stories, which is a southern colloquialism for lying.Her newest series, Los Nefilim, is from Harper Voyager Impulse, and consists of the novellas: In Midnight’s Silence: Los Nefilim, Part 1 (2015); Without Light or Guide: Los Nefilim, Part 2 (2015); and The Second Death: Los Nefilim, Part 3 (2016). You can visit T. and find out more about her stories at tfrohock.com. You can give her a follow on Twitter. |
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Beth CatoBeth Cato is the author of the steampunk fantasy novels THE CLOCKWORK DAGGER (a 2015 Locus Award finalist for First Novel) and THE CLOCKWORK CROWN from Harper Voyager. She has published well over a hundred short stories and poems in venues ranging from Beneath Ceaseless Skies to InterGalactic Medicine Show to the forthcoming Clockwork Phoenix 5. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato. |
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Michelle HauckMichelle Hauck lives in the bustling metropolis of northern Indiana with her hubby and two teenagers. Besides working with special needs children by day, she writes all sorts of fantasy, giving her imagination free range. She is a co-host of the yearly query contests Query Kombat, Nightmare on Query Street, New Agent, PitchSlam, and Sun versus Snow. Her Birth of Saints trilogy from Harper Voyager starts with GRUDGING on November 17, 2015. Her epic fantasy, KINDAR’S CURE, was published by Divertir Publishing. You should follow her on Twitter or check out her blog Michelle4Laughs: It’s in the Details. |
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Laura BickleLaura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams. Her latest novel is MERCURY RETROGRADE, second in the DARK ALCHEMY contemporary fantasy series. The latest information on her work can be found at laurabickle.com. |
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Ingrid SeymourIngrid Seymour is the author of IGNITE THE SHADOWS, an action-packed YA Sci-Fi in which teen hanker Marci Guerrero finds out a third of the population is infected by sentient parasites that supplant and morph their hosts. Worse yet, the shadows that haunt her mean she’s also infected, and there’s no telling how long she’ll be able to fight them. |
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Lexie DunneLexie Dunne is a woman of many masks, all of them stored neatly in a box under her bed. By day a mild-mannered technical writer and by night an adventuress and novelist, she keeps life interesting by ignoring it and writing instead. She hails from St. Louis, home of the world’s largest croquet game piece, and SUPERHEROES ANONYMOUS is her professional debut into the world of caped crusaders, a journey that started when her father took her and her brother to see The Rocketeer. Check out her website and follow her on Twitter. |
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John AyliffJohn Ayliff’s debut novel, dystopian space opera Belt Three, came out earlier this year from Harper Voyager. John honed his writing skills while working in the computer games industry, and still sometimes call his protagonist the ‘player character’ by mistake. He enjoys interesting character drama against a backdrop of hard science fiction, and that’s what he aims to write. Outside of writing, his interests include computer games, tabletop roleplaying games, and going to the opera. He lives in Vancouver, Canada. You can find him on Twitter. |
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Brooke JohnsonBrooke is a stay-at-home mom, amateur seamstress, RPG enthusiast, and art hobbyist, in addition to all that book writing. As the jack-of-all-trades bard of the family, she adventures through life with her fiercely-bearded paladin of a husband, their daughter the sticky-fingered rogue, and their cowardly wizard of a dog, with only a sleep spell in his spellbook. Follow her on Twitter. She and her family currently reside in Northwest Arkansas, but once they earn enough loot and experience, they’ll build a proper castle somewhere and defend against all manner of dragons and goblins, and whatever else dares take them on. Visit her website. |
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A.F.E. SmithA.F.E. Smith is an editor of academic texts by day and a fantasy writer by night. So far, she hasn’t mixed up the two. She lives with her husband and their two young children in a house that someone built to be as creaky as possible – getting to bed without waking the baby is like crossing a nightingale floor. Though she doesn’t have much spare time, she makes space for reading, mainly by not getting enough sleep (she’s powered by chocolate). Her physical bookshelves were stacked two deep long ago, so now she’s busy filling up her e-reader. What A.F.E. stands for is a closely guarded secret, but you might get it out of her if you offer her enough snacks. Check out her website or follow her on Twitter. |
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Auston HabershawOn the day Auston Habershaw was born, Skylab fell from the heavens. This foretold two possible fates: supervillain or scifi/fantasy author. Fortunately he chose the latter, and spends his time imagining the could-be and the never-was rather than disintegrating the moon with his volcano laser. Auston is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest and has published work in Analog and Stupefying Stories. He lives and works in Boston, MA. You can find him at his blog and on Goodreads. |
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Terry NewmanTerry Newman is a scriptwriter for film, TV and radio and the author of ‘Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf’ which went ‘Epic #1’ on Amazon Kindle last week despite being a comedy detective fantasy. Master Detective Nicely Strongoak is a well-dressed dwarf with an innate sense of justice and a distrust of most elves that don’t wear skirts. He carries a hand axe and a shooter, but prefers the former. Terry is a former university biomedical research scientist, and university lecturer in scriptwriting too, a lot of his time is now spent helping other people with their scripts. He has recently written the book to a SF musical (and then adapted that to a book, if you are following us) and adapted another SF book to film. A fantasy action series he wrote for TV is currently in pre-production somewhere nice and warm. |
Please Spread The Word!
Please help us spread the word about these events by sharing this post with your writing friends using the buttons below. You can also click to send a ready-made tweet:
Click to Tweet Introducing #SFFchat, a Twitter event with @HarperVoyagerUS and @HarperVoyager UK authors hosted by @DanKoboldt: http://bit.ly/1INt2qE |
Click to Tweet Rule changes for #SFFpit (12/10) and information on the #SFFchat (12/9) event on Twitter: http://bit.ly/1INt2qE #writetip |
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[…] week, I hosted a fun and engaging discussion about writing and publishing SF/F with about a dozen Harper Voyager authors under the hashtag #SFFchat. It was an absolute blast, and my fellow authors a lot to […]