Recommended Reading List: January, 2021

Oh, wow. We’re in 2021! I found that I couldn’t read novels until after January 20. I guess my brain could only handle short bursts. I read a couple of novels, but am only recommending one. The others didn’t stick the landing. The endings were either awful or nonexistent. I’ve noticed that a lot lately in non-series books, especially those traditionally published, and I have […]

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Recommended Reading List: June 2015

I admit: I haven’t read enough Leigh Brackett. I fell in love with her stories as I read for the women in sf anthology. I’m beginning to believe that all sf roads ride through Leigh Brackett.

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Recommended Reading List: February, 2015

I spent all of February reading manuscripts for the anthology workshop at the end of the month. One of the students counting up the reading and determined we all read one-million words of unpublished fiction. (See the picture to the left, taken by Brendan Swann.) Usually when a professional writer mentions that she’s read that much fiction for a workshop, the fiction is pretty mediocre. […]

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Recommended Reading List: February 2014

I read 250 manuscripts by professional writers this month. All of the stories were good. Some fit anthologies better than others. We held a writing workshop where six of us edited for Fiction River. You will see some tremendous upcoming stories, not just in FR, but in other magazines as well. Because once the editing left my control (I was editing a volume called Past […]

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Recommended Reading List: October 2013

I taught a week-long science fiction craft workshop in October, and read lots of excellent stories. I’ll mention them when they show up in print and you can find them. I’ll be amazed if editors don’t snatch these stories up. I know that Lee Allred took some for the second Fiction River special that he’s editing, and I told the students if they didn’t sell […]

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Recommended Reading List: April, 2013

Again, I did a lot of Fiction River reading this month, and you will see the results over the next year. The first volume of Fiction River, Unnatural Worlds, appeared on April 23, and please consider the stories in there as part of this recommended reading list. I’m not going to tell you my favorite stories—that would be like confessing I have favorite children—but I […]

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