Blog
Ahoy, Critterfolk!
New entry May 28
Critter Notices
Books from Critters!
Check out Books by Critters for books by your fellow Critterfolk, as well as my list of recommended books for writers.
New Book from a Critter Member
**NOW IN PRINT EDITION TOO!** Awesome new book, HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SPECULATIVE FICTION OPENINGS, from a Critter member who's unearthed a shard of The Secret to becoming a pro writer. Really good piece of work. "...if you're at all concerned about story openings, you'd be nuts not to read what Qualkinbush has to say." —Wil McCarthy, author of BLOOM and THE COLLAPSIUMHow to Write SF
The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells by Ben Bova, best-selling author and six-time Hugo Award winner for Best Editor. (This is one of the books your ol' Critter Captain learned from himself, and I highly recommend it.) (Also via Amazon)
Interviewed!
I was interviewed live on public radio for Critters' birthday, for those who want to listen.
Free Web Sites
Free web sites for authors (and others) are available at www.nyx.net.
ReAnimus Acquires Advent!
ReAnimus Press is pleased to announce the acquisition of the legendary Advent Publishers! Advent is now a subsidiary of ReAnimus Press, and we will continue to publish Advent's titles under the Advent name. Advent was founded in 1956 by Earl Kemp and others, and has published the likes of James Blish, Hal Clement, Robert Heinlein, Damon Knight, E.E. "Doc" Smith, and many others. Advent's high quality titles have won and been finalists for several Hugo Awards, such as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy and Heinlein's Children. Watch this space for ebook and print editions of all of Advent's current titles!
Book Recommendation
THE SIGIL TRILOGY: The universe is dying from within... "Great stuff... Really enjoyed it." — SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock
Announcing ReAnimus Press
If you're looking for great stuff to read from bestselling and award-winning authors—look no further! ReAnimus Press was founded by your very own Critter Captain. (And with a 12% Affiliate program.) [More]
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FEATURED BOOK
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Critters Site Map
The master list of Critters pages you can visit...
- The Critters Home Page
- HELLLLLP! How to get help
- Send personal mail to the Critter Captain (include the current anti-spam keywords [click here for which])
- Search the site
What Critters is About
- What Critters is about
- News & Notices
- The message that started it all
- Sample critiques
- Humorous enticement to pros
- Nice things members have said about Critters
- The weekly Most Productive Critter award
- Privacy Policy
- Donate to help keep the minions happy
- Critters FAQ
Administrative Stuff
- How to Join
- How to Quit or go Inactive
- The Official Rules
- Many administrative functions
- Check your participation ratio
- Reset your participation ratio
- Forgot your password?
- Switch to another workshop
- List of email addresses that have bounced my email
- Set your email address & preferences
- Tell the Captain about an email alias
- List of recent critiques received per member
- Form for authors to report credit for a too late/short critique
About Members
- List of member bios
- Woohoo! Member accomplishments
- Report a Woohoo
- Meet the Critter Captain
- The Critter Captain's home page
- Submit your bio
Market Information
- Black holes -- Market Response Time Tracker
- Dark Matter -- Sightings of infrequently publishing markets
- Shining Stars -- Nice things said about editors
- Aburt's market list
Miscellaneous & General Resources
- Critiquing, writing, and SF resource links
- Thoughts on how to phrase critiques diplomatically
- More thoughts on how to phrase critiques, and why
- Thoughts on the (lack of!) Rules of Writing
- Locate or announce a local in-person critique group
- List of other known on-line workshops
- A Critters flyer suitable for distributing at cons
Forums
- About the discussion forums
- Links to the forums
- Why we have two forums
- Some thoughts on arguing courteously
Submission/Manuscript Stuff
- List of stories up for critique
- The submissions themselves
- Submit a piece to the queue for review (members only)
- How many crits each submission has so far
- Formatting ms. for submission
- More on formatting ms. for submission
- More on formatting ms. for submission
- Replace or Remove a submission in the queue
- Is it SF, F, or H?
- Change genre of a submission in the queue
- Master list of Genre codes (if emailing submissions)
- Master list of Format codes (if emailing submissions)
- Submit a critique to Critters (members only)
- Check manuscript for being in proper format
- Reformat mss. for readability when critiquing
- Use an MPC to bump your submission to the top
- Retrieve the critiques for your submission if you missed any
Novel Reading & Large Project "RFDR" Stuff
- Information about the Dedicated Reviewers program for novels and large projects
- Official dedicated reviewer rules
- Form to report a dedicated reviewer is done
- List of open RFDRs
Fun & Misc.
- Story Idea Seed Garden - get or share story ideas
- The Bonsai Story Tree Generator
- Babel Stories — collaborative fiction writing
- Best Ever Written reader's poll (reading list; vote for your favorites)
- Calculate what stamps to use for mailing a manuscript
- Offers alternate display formats for visually impaired members
- Own a square inch of the real South Park
- Hate nuisance fees? Say No to the Feeconomy (Warning, humorous fees may apply)
- How cure bad customer service
- The "Atlanta Nights" PublishAmerica Sting operation
- What do you want the future to hold? Vote for your favorite wishes for the future
- Random character name and attribute generator
- Pull random entries from a list; or randomly shuffle a list
- Time-limited Creative Commons licenses
- Free financial tool your Critter Captain wrote to make sure you get the best type of loan
- Read your Critter Captain's fiction
- Read about and announce new projects (yes, including yours)
- Your Critter Captain's other projects that might interest you