Timewaster's Guide Archive

Here's info about the 2008 Odyssey Writing Workshop.  I went this year and learned a lot, so I highly recommend it to anyone who has the time and money to go.

ODYSSEY WRITING WORKSHOP
ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2008 SESSION
 About Odyssey
Since its inception in 1996, Odyssey has earned a place as one of the most respected workshops in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing community.  Fifty-two percent of Odyssey graduates go on to professional publication.  The six-week workshop combines an intensive learning and writing experience with in-depth feedback on student manuscripts.  Top authors, editors, and agents have served as guest lecturers, including George R. R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, Jane Yolen, Terry Brooks, Robert J. Sawyer, Ben Bova, Ellen Datlow, Elizabeth Hand, Jeff VanderMeer, Donald Maass, Sheila Williams, Shawna McCarthy, and Dan Simmons. 
The program is held every summer on Saint Anselm College's beautiful campus in Manchester, NH.  Saint Anselm is one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the country, dedicated to excellence in education, and its campus provides a unique, lovely setting and state-of-the art facilities for Odyssey students. 
Jeanne Cavelos, Odyssey's director, founder, and primary instructor, is a best-selling author and a former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, where she won a World Fantasy Award for her work.  Being a writer/editor makes Cavelos uniquely suited to provide students with constructive and professional critiques of their work. She guides students through the six weeks, gaining in-depth knowledge of their work, providing detailed assessments of their strengths and weaknesses, and helping them target their weaknesses one by one.  "I give the same unflinchingly honest, concrete, detailed feedback to students that I provided to professional authors," Cavelos said.  "Along with that, Odyssey offers an advanced, comprehensive curriculum through in-depth lectures, providing the tools and techniques students need to improve.  Receiving feedback on your work and learning your weaknesses doesn't help unless you also have the tools to strengthen those areas.  I'm constantly told by graduates that they learned more at Odyssey than they learned in years of workshopping and creative writing classes."
The workshop runs from June 9th to July 18th, 2008.  Class meets for four hours in the morning, five days a week.  Students spend about eight hours more a day writing and critiquing each other's work.  Prospective students, aged eighteen and up, apply from all over the world.  The early admission application deadline is JANUARY 31st, and the regular admission deadline is APRIL 10th.  Tuition is $1800, and housing is $700 for a double room and $1400 for a single.
Meet Our 2008 Writer-in-Residence
This year, Odyssey is excited to host Nancy Kress as the writer-in-residence.  Author of twenty-three books, including science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, short story collections, young adult novels, and three excellent books on writing fiction, she has won three Nebulas and a Hugo for her short fiction and the John W. Campbell Award for her novel Probability Space.  Ms. Kress is the Fiction columnist for Writer's Digest Magazine and has taught at workshops across the country. 
 Other Guest Lecturers
The Odyssey Writing Workshop is also pleased to welcome its 2008 guest lecturers:  award-winning authors Barry B. Longyear, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and James Maxey; best-selling author Craig Shaw Gardner; and Jenny Rappaport, literary agent with the L. Perkins Agency.
 Odyssey Graduates
If you're reading science fiction, fantasy, and horror, you're reading the work of Odyssey graduates.  If you've read recent issues of some of the top fiction magazines in the field--Realms of Fantasy, Asimov's, Analog, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine--you've read stories by Odyssey graduates Theodora Goss, David Barr Kirtley, Carrie Vaughn, Sarah Totton, Carl Frederick, Andrea Kail, and Natalia Lincoln. 
If you've been to the bookstore lately, you've seen books by Odyssey graduates, including Maledicte by Lane Robins, published by Del Rey; Bloodstone by Barbara Campbell, published by DAW; Bitterwood by James Maxey, published by Solaris Books, The Eunuch's Heir by Elaine Isaak, published by the Eos imprint of HarperCollins; and Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn, published by Warner. 
 Andrea Kail, a graduate from the class of '04 and winner of this year's Writers of the Future contest, has this to say about her experience at Odyssey:  "Before I came to Odyssey, I was stumbling around in the dark, writing by instinct and making a lot of bad choices.  But the Odyssey experience and Jeanne have given me the tools I need to follow my good instincts, ignore the bad ones, and make the choices that lead to good stories."  Other graduates have written about their experiences at Odyssey, and these descriptions can be found on the website at http://www.sff.net/odyssey/gradexs.html.   
 Other Odyssey Resources and Services
The Odyssey website www.odysseyworkshop.org offers free podcasts, writing and publishing tips, a class syllabus, and more information about how to apply.  An overview of the Odyssey Critique Service is also available on the website at http://www.sff.net/odyssey/crit.html.  This service provides authors with professional-level feedback on their writing, done with the thoroughness and depth for which Odyssey is known. 
Those interested in applying to the workshop should visit the website, phone/fax (603) 673-6234, or e-mail [email protected]. 
 

I have a couple of books signings this weekend.  If you happen to be in the area, feel free to stop by and say hello.  You don't have to buy a book if you don't want to.

December 1
5:00-7:00pm
Waldenbooks in Provo Towne Centre Mall

December 2
1:00-4:00pm
Barnes & Noble in Bountiful

I interviewed James Dashner and I've posted the results on my blog: http://www.ericjamesstone.com/blog/2006/09/19/writer-interview-james-dashner/

The key to a good marketing campaign is a good advertsing slogan.  Fortunately, the Advertising Slogan Generator is here to help:

Four out of Five Dentists Recommend Mistborn.
Yo Quiero Mistborn.
All The Mistborn That's Fit To Print.

Each year, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA [The second F is silent and invisible]) gather to present the Nebula Awards, which are kind of like the Oscars of the speculative fiction world.

The 2006 awards ceremony was held in Tempe, Arizona, and since I have a sister who lives in the area and likes me enough to let me stay in her guest room, I decided to drive down for Nebula Weekend.

On arriving, I met up with Rick Novy, a fellow new author I know from another online forum. As we were looking for a place to have lunch, Rick spotted Harlan Ellison, so we walked over to meet him.

For those unfamiliar with Harlan Ellison, I'll explain that he's been a famous science fiction author since before I was born. (He also wrote the original teleplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever.") I'll also explain that he is notorious in the science fiction community for his abrasive personality, and that most people who are actively involved in the SF community have "Harlan stories" about their encounters with him. I didn't really expect to ever have a Harlan story, because I wasn't planning on going to a workshop taught by him, and I doubted I would ever come to his attention otherwise.

Shows what I know.

Rick and I walked over to where Harlan was talking with some other people, and just kind of hung around the edge. Harlan noticed us, and said, "I hate lurkers. If you want to meet me, come meet me." (Note: All the quotes are based on my almost certainly inaccurate recollections, and are merely approximations of what was said.)

So we shook his hand. Rick introduced himself and mentioned that they had a mutual friend, David Gerrold.

When I introduced myself as Eric Stone, Harlan said, "That's a great name."

Later, in the course of conversation, Harlan called me "Harry." Something along the following lines ensued:

I said, "My name's actually Eric."

"What?"

"My name's not Harry, it's Eric."

"Eric? That's a terrible name. Hemingway never wrote about an Eric."

So he continued calling me Harry during the rest of the conversation.

And I was rather pleased to have a Harlan story to tell. It made me feel like a real SF writer.

That evening, I met up with a couple of other new authors I know. We were talking about something or other when someone directed my attention toward Harlan, who was standing behind his autograph table about ten feet away.

Harlan was looking at me and yelling, "Harry! Harry!"

When I looked at him, he said, "What's the matter? You don't even answer to your name?"

"Sorry."

"You weren't even going to say hello to me?"

So I walked over and shook his hand.

"Harry's a better name," he said.

"Maybe I'll have to make it my pseudonym," I said.

Then Harlan went off to have dinner.

Thus concludes my Harlan story.

A few other highlights from the Nebula weekend:

* Meeting Stan Schmidt (editor of Analog) and Sheila Williams (editor of Asimov's)
* Getting a bunch of autographs from authors I like, including David Weber, author of my favorite science fiction series, the Honor Harrington series
* Chatting with Connie Willis about Three Men in a Boat
* The Analog/Asimov's breakfast, at which I got to talk with various people
* Sitting in the hospitality suite listening to David Weber talk about the Clarence Thomas hearings, among other things
* Talking with David Weddle, a writer for Battlestar Galactica
* Winning the charity auction for 9 autographed Battlestar Galactica shooting scripts

And the nominees are...

K.J. Bishop (2nd year of eligibility)
Sarah Monette (2nd year of eligibility)
Chris Roberson (2nd year of eligibility)
Brandon Sanderson (1st year of eligibility)
John Scalzi (1st year of eligibility)
Steph Swainston (2nd year of eligibility)
(There are six nominees due to a tie for fifth place)

Congrats to Brandon on making the ballot in his first year of eligibility.

http://www.emcit.com/hugo_section.php?nom.htm

The next quarterly postmark deadline for the Writers of the Future Contest is March 31.

In case you're not familiar with the contest, WOTF is simply the best contest for new speculative fiction writers.  No other contest even comes close.  If you're one of three winners each quarter, you get a prize of $500-$1000, you get published in the annual anthology, and you get flown out for a week-long writers' workshop taught by professional authors, plus an awards ceremony.

It's a fabulous experience, and I'm one of the lucky few who got to do it twice.  It's been a tremendous boost to my writing career.

So if you want to be a speculative fiction writer, I encourage you to enter if you are eligible.

And I volunteer to read and give feedback on the story of any TWG member who plans to submit something this quarter.  (I reserve the right to limit this offer to the first ten people who send me their stories.)  Just email the story as a .doc or .rtf file to twgwotf (at) ericjamesstone (dot) com.  Please format your document exactly as if you were about to print it out to send to WOTF.

(Note that the sooner you send me your story, the sooner I can get it back to you and the more time you'll have to revise if necessary.  And if you get it to me after the 28th, it's unlikely I'll have time to critique it before the deadline.)