Matthew Cushing Named 2021 Roswell Award Finalist

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Spec Fic Writers author Matthew Cushing’s short story “The Rite to Vote” was selected as a Finalist for the 2021 Roswell Award. Presented by The Lightbringer Project and the Omega Sci-Fi Awards, the Roswell Award is an international short science fiction story competition that provides an opportunity for science fiction writers to imagine the future of humanity through excellence in storytelling. For 2021, over 500 stories were submitted from around …

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First Encounters in Gamers, Readers, and Science Fiction Unite

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Want free sci fi books? First Encounters and many more book selections are available in the Gamers, Readers, and Science Fiction Unite group giveaway. This giveaway is hosted on Prolific Works starting today and running through April 30th. We encourage our readers to drop by the group giveaway this month and download our anthology and any other books that intrigue and fascinate. If you need a little more information, here’s …

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A Word with Spec Fic Writer Bonnie McCune

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Welcome to A Word with Spec Fic Writers. This week, we interview Bonnie McCune, who has been writing since age ten, when the Saturday Evening Post rejected a submission, and has been publishing whatever she can for decades since. Bonnie lives in Colorado and is the author of novels, novellas and short stories. Her entire family is book-mad. Her interest in writing facilitated her career in nonprofits doing public and …

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A Word with Spec Fic Writer Matthew Cushing

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In our ongoing series A Word with Spec Fic Writers, we sat down with newcomer Matthew Cushing. Mr. Cushing’s passion for writing fiction started in junior high school when he started adding elements of mystery and action to classroom assignments. Short stories soon followed, and he’s been writing speculative fiction ever since. He grew up in the scientific and outdoorsy culture of Los Alamos, New Mexico, which ingrained in him …

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A Word with Spec Fic Writer R. C. Beckett

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Welcome to A Word With Spec Fic Writers. This week, SFW interviews SciFi author R. C. Beckett. R. C. is a retired MD who has always loved science fiction and a good joke.  He made his first website by hand-coding HTML. It was so long ago the scrolls have been lost, and now he volunteers with several non-profit companies as a webmaster.  An avid medical blogger, he started writing science …

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A Word With Spec Fic Writer Linda Ditchkus

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Welcome to A Word With Spec Fic Writers. This week, we’re happy to interview Linda Ditchkus, who publishes under the pen name LV Ditchkus. L.V. DITCHKUS is the author of The Sasquatch Series: Book I – Crimes of the Sasquatch, Book II – Mission of the Sasquatch, and Book III – Legacy of the Sasquatch. Watch for Book IV – Passage of the Sasquatch, which will be released in 2021. …

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Expert Advice from a New Writer

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Writing advice surrounds me. Everyone, it seems, is an expert. One day, all that information on self-publishing, pitching a story, and writing query letters will come in handy, but for now I feel like I’m drowning in unhelpful advice. Sink with me to the bottom of the writing-advice ocean, where I talk with Mark Stevens, author and host of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) Podcast. Why would Mark bother …

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A Word with Spec Fic Writer Paul Martz

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Welcome to our first installment of A Word with Spec Fic Writers, a series of interviews with Spec Fic Writers’ members. This week, we spotlight Paul Martz, a member of Spec Fic Writers Critique Group since 2018. Paul is a new writer, a retired computer programmer, and a former punk rock drummer. He has published two short stories. Jimmy’s Hat appears in the First Encounters anthology, and The Re-Creation of …

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