Search Results for: "written by David Steffen"

Sale! “Fruitful” to Digital Science Fiction

I don’t often post about myself but I wanted to share some good news. I’ve sold my short story “Fruitful” to Digital Science Fiction. I’m very pleased that this has happened now. I was getting rather down about the writing, more than a year having passed since the last non-reprint sale.

The Best of Clarkesworld Podcast

Clarkesworld has published some amazing stories. Like all markets, I don’t like every one of their stories, but when they do publish a story that I like, the story’s not just good, it’s great. It was not hard to fill this list. It was so hard that the entire top 5 are equally worthy of 1st place in my opinion. But ranking them a 5-way tie for first place would be rather wishy-washy and would sort of undermine the point of having a list. So I thought about it long and hard to decide on particular aspects of each story that I liked more than the others to come up with this final ranking.

MiniCon 46, Con Report

written by David Steffen Yes, con season is in full swing once again. As usual, over Easter weekend, Minicon has come to the Twin Cities. Charles Stross was originally scheduled to be the writer guest of honor, but family medical emergencies caused him to bow out (good news: according to Stross’s blog, the prognosis is … Continue reading MiniCon 46, Con Report

The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Podcast

If you’re looking for a new magazine to read, and you’re a fan of some quality worldbuilding, you’ve got to check out Beneath Ceaseless Skies. They have a neat little niche market, focusing on worlds that are “other” in some way, either a past time period (with speculative elements added in) or an alternate world; no contemporary, no futuristic.

Title Crafting

One of the aspects of the craft writing that never seems to get much discussion is the choice of title. Now, certainly there are lots of other things you need to work on, endings, the beginning hook, characterization, so on. And those other things are more likely to affect your chances at making a sale. But titles do matter. At the very least they can be the icing on the cake. At the most they can make the story itself more memorable and thus easier to recommend and discuss (always an important thing). Their value is less obvious and harder to measure.

The Best of Pseudopod 2010+

On November 9, 2009 I posted my very first “Best Of” podcast list, the Best of Pseudopod, which was based on Pseudopod episodes 1-167 and flash episodes 1-22. Well, I’m still listening and still enjoying myself, so I figured there’s no reason I can’t make another list. I expect this will become a yearly thing, and will usually cover everything within 1 calendar year. This one will be a tiny bit different because a bit more than a year has passed since my last, which is why this is 2010+. It will cover episodes 168-219, 60 stories total (because there are a few episodes with more than one story).

Noms: John W. Campbell (and Hugo)

Hello, everyone! I wanted to bring to your attention that this is the first year that I am eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. My eligibility opened up because of publication of my story “Turning Back the Clock” in Bull Spec #3, so I figured I’d pander a bit for nominations, and while I’m at it, Hugo noms.