About Speculative Fiction Writers Association
We are an online group of speculative fiction authors writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, time travel, climate fiction/solar-punk, slipstream, steampunk, weird west, fairy tales, alternate history, dystopian/utopian, cyberpunk, etc. for MG, YA, and adults.
Critique
We meet Tuesdays at 6pm MT/8pm ET on Zoom to discuss current writing topics and critique each other’s work. We are always open to new members of all ability levels.
Community
We have a private Discord server where we discuss current events, publishing opportunities, author conferences, marketing, and publishing issues.
Join Us
Please sit in and audit a session. Meet members and see how our group works. Contact us to schedule a Tuesday that works for you.
Recent Blog Posts
Showdown, Don’t Tell: Keeping a Consistent Narrative Voice
Fiction writers have a lot of rules. “Show, don’t tell” sits near the top of the rulebook, right up there with point of view (POV), use of said tags, and eliminating adverbs. But sometimes we follow those rules straight into a literary box canyon. So take off your cowboy hat, …
Book Review: Into the Known Universe: A Cosmic Love Story, Kinda
It can be a bit of a crapshoot reading a self-published book by someone you know. Okay, I didn’t actually know James R.D. Hilton. But during my audit of our critique group, he mentioned his book, so I bought it. Turns out it’s my favorite book I’ve read this year! …
Do Not Take My Advice! Part 1. The Critique
My advice on writing? Do not take or give advice on writing. There is no one way to write but the way you write. You will most likely be writing differently tomorrow, anyway. That’s my advice: take it, don’t take it, it’s all the same to me. Aw, come on, …
Tips for Building Worlds
Worldbuilding can be the most liberating piece of telling stories in speculative fiction, particularly in sci-fi and fantasy. Being unbeholden to the limits of our world allows your characters to have an entirely different set of environmental, cosmic, and cultural settings. It’s an opportunity for you, as the writer, to …
Creative Writing: What does ‘creative’ mean?
What we writers do is called ‘creative’ writing. But what is that, really? What do we have to do, to be ‘creative’ in our writing? The definition of ‘creative (adjective)’ is ‘involving original ideas in producing an artistic work.’ So, to be ‘creative’ writers, we must make original ideas. Ideas not heretofore conceived …
Book Series Review: Circus of Unusual Creatures
Tammie Painter is the author of The Circus of Unusual Creatures series I have recently been binge reading. Not such a binge since there are only four books in the series so far. The narrator of the stories is Duncan, aka Brutus Fangwrath, Deadliest Dragon in the West. He loves …