Interview: Ken Liu
If you’ve kept up with science fiction publications in the last few years, you’ve probably at least heard the name Ken Liu. Dozens of his stories have been published just in the last couple of years in the biggest and best SF publications out there today, including F&SF, Analog, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction… The list goes on and on. He won the Hugo for “Mono No Aware” this year. He won the Hugo and the Nebula for “The Paper Menagerie” last year, one of my personal favorite stories I’ve read in years. I just read a fun story by him on the Drabblecast titled ” Call of the Pancake Factory”, about a representative of a certain supercorporation amusement park happening to cross paths with a cult of Cthulhu–great story. He’s on a roll, and showing no signs of stopping. He’s a great writer and you should check out his work if you ever get a chance to read it.
Karl Bunker sold “Gray Wings” to Asimov’s a few months ago and followed it almost immediately with “The Women From the Ocean.” One the heels of his first two stories to Asimov’s, he sold “This Quiet Dust” to Analog. Three stories to the two leading science fiction magazines in rapid succession. Has he arrived? Diabolical Plots inquires about this and more.
Nebula nominee, frequent Analog byliner, Writers of the Future first place award winner, 2 time Phobos Fiction Contest winner, 6 time Analog Readers Choice Award winner, Odyssey graduate, and longtime Critters member Carl Frederick is camera shy. As you can see from the photo, even his pet cat is shy. He likes cats and dogs and they are prominent characters in many of his stories. Frederick is known for his hard science stories. He’s had 40 plus short stories published in Analog. Lately, without letting up on the hard science stories, he has delved deep into character driven stories and even literary science fiction. Or rather, stories with strong character development well blended into the hard science element – and vice versa.
Most people who comment on the changing publishing landscape concentrate on the problems. Bestselling author and blue chip workshop instructor Dean Wesley Smith has a can-do make it happen attitude and concentrates on solutions. And unlike self proclaimed experts, he’s a proven success. The business model he blogs about on his website and teaches in his workshops isn’t theory. He sells books with that business model. Lots of books. At a profit. In this interview with Carl Slaughter, he plays myth buster for writers who have reservations about making the transition from print publishing to electronic publishing and from traditional publishing to self publishing. At http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/, he dispels conventional wisdoms on a regular basis. 
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has vast experience and enormous success as an author, editor, and publisher. She also has a lot of experience as a workshop instructor. As an editor, she has a strong background in magazine and anthologies. She was editor of F&SF magazine for several years and was publisher and editor of Pulphouse’s Hardback Magazine. Her latest project is Fiction River, a new anthology series.
Leah Cypess is a fantasy author with 2 novels under her belt (“Mistwood” and “Nightspell”, 2 recent stories in Asimov’s (“Twelvers” and “Nanny’s Day”), another novel due in early 2014 (“Deathsworn”), and a fist full of rave reviews. A free anthology of her short stories is entitled “Changelings and Other Stories” and is available from B&N, Amazon, and Smashwords. Her website is www.LeahCypess.com.
Laura Resnick has authored 6 fantasy-detective-comedy novels (the Esther Diamond series from Daw), 3 fantasy novels (the Silerian trilogy from Tor), 15 romance novels (from Silhouette), many short stories (mostly in DAW anthologies), several essays on print and screen fiction, and “Rejection, Romance, and Royalties: The Wacky World of a Working Writer.â€Â