Woman's face hidden by lace veil and ornate eye mask

Pen Names: Veils and Masks

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How many writers use pen names, and why? Our Speculative Fiction Writers Association member directory shows about FORTY members who do, or about thirty-four percent! Member Examples One of our members (“Q2”) doesn’t want the readers of their fiction stories to stumble across the videos that Q2 produces in their …

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Empathy & Character

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Empathy is not agreement. Empathy is “get”-ment. Empathy is a deep understanding of another person’s perspective and/or experience. But empathy does not start with understanding, it starts with a guess. Here, we’re gonna get into how to apply empathy to a character. On Empathy The essential question of empathy is: …

A writer with a hat, brain illuminated with sparkling ideas, hand writing in a book.

Creative Writers Are Special

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Creative writers aren’t just storytellers—they’re cognitive architects, emotional cartographers, and ethical explorers. In a world increasingly shaped by mechanization and artificial intelligence, their work remains irreplaceable. This post explores the neuroscience behind creativity, the myths we’ve outgrown, and the unique power of speculative fiction writers to surprise, reveal, and transform. …

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Addressing Imposter Syndrome

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Let’s start with how awesome it is that we have a term to name the feeling and/or belief that we are not good enough. That term: Imposter Syndrome. Here, we’re gonna get into what it is and explore some ideas on how to address it. Definition Imposter Syndrome is a …

Hardcopy version of The End of the World as We Know It standing next to a folded paper map and gas can on the pavement next to a car.

Book Review: The End of the World As We Know It

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The current media landscape is littered with nostalgia grabs like so many abandoned cars rotting on the road from Maine to Boulder. We’ve seen reboots of the movies we loved as children as well as do-we-really-need-this sequels that serve us the familiar, the comfortable, and the already-experienced. In the complicated …

Stylized rendition of "The Scream"

Content Warnings for Speculative Fiction

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What Are Content Warnings? Content warnings are brief notices that alert readers to potentially distressing material in a story. They’re not censorship, nor are they spoilers — they’re a courtesy that allows readers to make informed choices about what they wish to engage with. In speculative fiction, where themes can …

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First Person POV: How Many Are Too Many “I”s?

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You decide to write your story in first-person and run the text through an application such as ProWritingAid or Grammarly. Or maybe you submit it to a weekly critique session. You receive feedback that you have X number of successive “I” references in your story. You fret: “This is first-person! …

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World Building—One Person’s Approach

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So, you’re writing a novel, and the world differs from the one you live in—by a little or a lot. Maybe the story is about the past or the future, or strange people, economics, or technology. There might be magic in the world, or the setting could be on Pluto. …

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The Many Subgenres of Speculative Fiction

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When you’re pitching a speculative fiction story to an agent or publisher, do their eyes sometimes roll back in their heads, and you hear them murmur, “What exactly does that mean?” The term “speculative fiction” says very little about the actual story. And if you try to narrow it to …

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Book Review: The Kiss Catastrophe

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It’s always nice to read science fiction with believable science. Getting through a whole book without wincing while you try to contort your brain around a ridiculous scientific assertion is refreshing. So, when I learned that Colorado author Raima Larter has a multi-decades-long background in chemistry, thermodynamics, kinetics, statistical mechanics …