Writers of the Future Podcast

Writers of the Future and Toni originally met in New York in 1989 where she was a volunteer helping at the Awards event! She has since worked with Jim Baen, working under him as an editor and wearing every hat in a publishing house. With Jim's passing, Toni became the owner and publisher of Baen Books and is going strong! In this interview, we talk about the future of publishing and we also talk about one of her book projects from 1995, "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts."

With a Bachelors in Physics and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Oxford in England, Alan Smale came to America in the late 80s to work with NASA and never went back. In addition to being a research scientist with NASA, Alan writes alternate history and historical fantasy, and is an a capella vocalist. He was a WOTF 13 winner with his story, "Wings." Alan discusses his process in writing alternate history and the extent of his research to provide an accurate base and then weave in his alternate history aspect. He also covers how he manages a full time job with NASA, performing his music, and writing...including an immense amount of research that results in a lengthy novel a year. Discover his many works at www.alansmale.com

Lazarus Chernik has been an art director for over 20 years working with Fortune 100 giants as well as small businesses in need of reaching their next level. He was asked to discuss do's and don'ts of working with an art director. He provides key and vital things artists need to know to work with an art director and things to avoid. He does this by explaining what the art director's job is and explaining what the artist's job is.

Larry discusses how to write hard science fiction and pitfalls to avoid based on what he learned in writing "Ring World." He does concede that readers will forgive a mistake if it's a really good story. We also discuss his laws of collaboration and what is important to make collaboration work, discussing writing with Jerry Pournelle. Larry also explains how he became an author and the two times he felt like a real writer. Discover the various works by Larry at www.larryniven.net

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and has been translated into two dozen languages, including Klingon. In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad, including a visiting lectureship at the University of Leipzig, a 2017 writing class in Beijing, and the annual intensive workshop Taos Toolbox, which she teaches every summer with Walter Jon Williams. In this interview, Nancy discusses world-building addressing these key topics: 1. How much do you have to do? 2. When? 3. How? What are the resources? Who and how is the authority? What is the power line? What is the finance line? How are resources allocated? How is authority enforced? Who has rights? What are the caste levels in that society? A great start to Nancy's writing is her novel, the near-future speculative fiction "Beggars in Spain." If you prefer thrillers is "Stinger." For space opera read "The Probability Series."

Dave Chesson created Kindlepreneur to help authors get started with Amazon. In our interview, he discusses the evolution of self-publishing and the relevance of self-published authors comparing them to free-agents in sports. Self-publishing makes it easier for a publishing house to know who to take on. Self-publishing used to be the junior varsity team but this has evolved. The con to self-publishing includes such things as no backing of a publishing house; not have access to specific editors, no professional formatting, to name just a few of the points. With self-publishing, you need to learn to do these things yourself and have to learn marketing. Extremely important whether with a publisher or not, is to learn how to market and the importance of building an email list that will enable you to grow on other social platforms. Go to kindlepreneur.com as a way to get started and also to reach out to Dave.

Echo Chernik is a freelance artist who has diversified her skills and creates art in all mediums which is important from her experience as she is able to ride with any bumps in the economy and changes in demand. In addition to being well known in corporate America for brands such as Celestial Seasonings tea packaging, she also created two now-famous decks of playing cards for Name of the Wind by Pat Rothfuss (WOTF 18). Echo is the coordinating judge for the Illustrators of the Future Contest and enjoys sharing her hard-won advice to assist aspiring illustrators. She is a big believer in different styles and diversity in art, which is why the last volume had winners from Iran, Turkey, Viet Nam as well as the US, Can, and the UK. She discusses what she looks for in Contest submissions: your own style, skill, and is it telling a story with the illustration, and send the art YOU want to do. And send in your own art, no plagiarism -- we do check for plagiarism. Visit her website at www.echo-x.com

Liz Busby is a mom, homeschooler, SF critic, and superfan, and this interview was done to provide a perspective to writers on what fans are looking for in an author: turn-on and turn-off. We also discuss how to deal with religious themes in SF&F, its origin, and the current trend. Who does religion right in their SF&F? - Brandon Sanderson with his Stormlight Archive, - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell We also discuss her favorite stories in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 36: "Educational Tapes" by Katie Livingston "A Word That Means Everything" by Andy Dibble "Trading Ghosts" by David A. Elsensohn Find her at lizbusby.com/

Meet Elizabeth Chatsworth, originally from the UK and now living in the US, the first winner from WOTF 37 to be interviewed. After a successful career in marketing in the UK, Elizabeth began writing as a late-in-life second career writing fiction in her late 40s. She has now won Writers of the Future, sold her first novel, and was very happy to tell the story of how she approached learning to write. We also discuss the creation of steampunk as a subgenre and reference the article by Tim Powers. https://elizabethchatsworth.com

We met Sean Patrick Hazlett in 2017 when he was a winner in Writers of the Future Volume 33 with his short dark fantasy (horror) story, "Adramelech." He is an Army veteran with the elite 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, a finance executive in SFO Bay area, with an AB in history and BS in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In this podcast we discuss creating horror and dark fantasy and the form he likes. Sean is the editor of "Weird World War III" which combines real-world paranormal with dark fantasy. He acknowledges the late Mike Resnick for providing him with the knowhow to create this anthology. Visit Sean at seanpatrickhazlett@wordpress.com