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Saturday June 12 at 6pm

admin — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:05:13 +0000

Our next meeting is Saturday, June 12, at 6pm at the Hurst Barnes and Noble Bookstore. We will be meeting at our regular time and the deadline for uploading your submissions for critique is Sunday (today) at midnight.

If you’re not a member of NTSFW, come visit us any 2nd Saturday night to see how we conduct our group meetings. We are a writer’s workshop focusing on the speculative fiction genre and our intent is to write to publish. We have both published and unpublished writers, as well as beginning writers and experienced writers in our group.

Hope to see you there!

Readings May 8th

admin — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:15:59 +0000

On Saturday, May 8th, NTSFW had their first public reading at the Hurst Barnes & Noble Bookstore. What a great group of reads!

I’d like to thank Georgette and Barnes & Noble for allowing us to use their wonderful bookstore as our meetingplace. Georgette has been our staunch supporter and the bookstore manager, Brian, and the staff have been so helpful and patient with us. Thanks! Your efforts on our behalf do not go unnoticed nor unnappreciated.

NTSFW Reading Aloud Sat May 8

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:57:29 +0000

NTSFW members will be reading from their original work aloud Saturday, May 8, starting at 4:30 p.m. before our regular monthly meeting at the Hurst Barnes & Noble Bookstore.

Members will read from either published works or work in progress. This event is free and open to the public.

Come join us Saturday afternoon with a coffee and snack and good reads!

28th Dimension Anthology Update

admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 04:22:06 +0000

Contracts are being emailed out this weekend to the authors of the 28th Dimension: Tales From the Texas Zone Anthology. Please let me know if you should have gotten a contract and didn’t.

Please check the 28th Dim page for updates and notices.

Tom speaks out at NPR

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:40:31 +0000

Tom’s radio commentary on the Thomas Jefferson/Texas Textbook controversy runs multiple times today (April 7) on NPR Morning Edition, about 500,000 listeners according to the rating services. Although this story stems from the Texas school curriculum, it has run on all the national media and cable news shows since the whole textbook industry follows Texas guidelines.

Tom says: It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these: with all the fiction writing I promised myself I would not do another one unless something really enraged me, and here it is. To read and/or listen (audio will be posted only after the news show is over today at 9am Central time):

Click here for the text.

There is an SF component to this 3:30 spoken-word piece: I open with a quote from Orwell’s 1984 and tried to emulate his radical voice.

Thanks to everyone at NTSFW workshop who helped me on the edits in less than 24 hours. This form of only 500 words or less is VERY difficult, almost like a poem where you have to account for every syllable. It takes over ten minutes per word to do it justice.

I’m amazed they let me get away with the last line (you’ll have to listen to it): most people who the critiqued original draft liked the idea, but many thought it was over the top and would be cut by the News Director. If you read Chuck Palnhiuk’s PYGMY, he also uses this quote in the front piece and at the end, and it did inspire me. As Marshall McLuhan said, “Art is whatever you can get away with,” and I feel lucky to have slipped this one in.

Enjoy!

Story Challenge Update

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:58:36 +0000

STORY CHALLENGE: Story must be titled “The Accidental Sheep” and must pertain to the story somehow

DUE: April meeting (Apr 10)

WORD COUNT: usual, less than 8K

GUIDELINES:

At ConDFW, we had our regular meeting for Feb in the bar. One thing led to another, and Becky was telling us about her illicit affair with her new sheep (snicker). This thing has the hots for her and follows her everywhere (Becky, you have to tell the REAL story LOL).

So we decided in our infinite variations of inebriation, that our next story challenge was to write a short story titled “The Accidental Sheep”, the caveat is, it has to be linked to the story somewhere, somehow. (ie, can’t just write a short story and name it that).

This is completely voluntary. Don’t worry about the story being perfect or even making a lot of sense. The purpose of this excercise is to stimulate your Muse and get writing. Edit and polish as much as you can, but this is more for fun at this stage, than for publication.

At April’s meeting, we’ll compare stories. We’ve gotten some real winners from these story challenges. Some have published them and won contests from them.

This is a “no pressure, just for fun” thing.

Alley

2 new members!

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:56:10 +0000

Welcome Sarah and Ralph! Both attended last night’s meeting and decided to hang around . Welcome to NTSFW!

Gerald accepted to Odyssey

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:23:21 +0000

Member Gerald has been accepted to the prestigious Science Fiction and Fantasy Odyssey Workshop! There he’ll spend 6 long weeks studying the art of writing in the spec fic genres with the likes of Laura Anne Gilman, former editor at Berkley, Alexander Jablokov, Michael Arnzen, Gregory Frost, and David G. Hartwell.

Erin’s published book of poetry

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:07:57 +0000

Member Erin has published a book of poetry with Diminuendo Press called Napkin Poems.

March Story Challenge

admin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:18:08 +0000

The story challenge for March is to write a short story titled:

“The Accidental Sheep”

Contents of the story are yours to create!

Have fun and see you Saturday, March 13 at 6pm at the Hurst Barnes & Noble Bookstore!