The March-April issues of both Analog and Asimov's science fiction magazines have just dropped into my (virtual) postbox.

Good timing as I just finished reading *Pawn* by Timothy Zahn. I enjoyed this book. I'll need to acquire the other two books in the trilogy... but not yet as I have these magazines to get through first. 🙂

#ScienceFiction #ScienceFictionMagazines #AnalogSFF #Asimovs #TimothyZahn

A shout out to the Submission Grinder

This post is mainly for writers (in particular, writers who do/plan to submit their work, especially to short fiction venues) but also for anybody else who likes a little spec fic inside baseball.

If you are unacquainted with the Submission Grinder, then you are one of today’s lucky 10,000.

The Grinder is an incredible resource of markets (past, present, currently closed, and with upcoming windows). It’s searchable by many different parameters (including genre, length, pay rates, etc.) and it’s free to register to get a little more customization and track your own submissions.

(When you first visit the page, it is a lot. I encourage you to just poke around a bit, maybe look at listings for magazines you’ve already heard of, or take a look at the recent responses to get an idea of what the current submission churn looks like.)

I personally find the Grinder most useful for getting a sense of market response times. Writers voluntarily report submission data, so while this does not reflect the complete contents of editors’ inboxes, it does give you a general idea of how fast or slow responses tend to run. (It may also give you a heads up to query, if you seem to be the sole author who hasn’t heard back; and it can help you gauge when your story is likely to be free to send out as a non-simultaneous submission, if you’re playing submission Tetris.)

The Grinder (driven by David Steffen) has also remained on top of issues impacting writers. The site added a flag, then full category, for AI submissions a couple years ago. There are flags for non-standard contract terms, notes for limited-demographic submissions, and other valuable information.

This week, the Grinder delisted Analog Science Fiction & Fact. This is a big deal: Analog is a major legacy magazine paying professional rates. However, under its new publisher, Analog also has a very non-standard contract, asking for a wider-than-normal range of rights and the waiving of an author’s moral rights.1 To date, SFWA has offered advice about contract negotiation and an informative piece about moral rights.23

But the Grinder has been at the forefront of warning writers about these issues. That’s particularly valuable, since not every writer is plugged into writing communities where this sort of information is privately shared and commented upon. The Submission Grinder in general, and David in particular, deserve credit for integrity and service to the field.

#ahmm #analog #asimovS #business #contracts #davidSteffen #eqmm #fSf #mustReadMagazines #sfwa #submissionGrinder

Finalist from Asimov's 39th Annual Readers’ Award. Stories are free to download and read in PDF format.

https://www.asimovs.com/about-asimovs/readers-award-finalists/

#Magazines #SFF #Asimovs #Awards

Analog and Asimov's, two of the remaining digest-size science fiction magazines, have published the finalists in their annual readers' polls. All the finalists are linked to free online PDFs, so it's a great opportunity to find some quality science fiction.

Links in this post: https://coredump3.blogspot.com/2024/02/2023-finalists-from-analogs-and-asimovs.html

#SFF #Analog #Asimovs #Scifi

A favorite book from a lonely man's youth comes back to haunt him—in more ways than one. It's "Travels with My Cats" by Mike Resnick, from the February 2004 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction!

https://sffremembrance.com/2023/08/24/short-story-review-travels-with-my-cats-by-mike-resnick/
#mikeresnick #fantasy #asimovs

Lunch. Mug of the Russian Caravan, fresh pack just opened. Macaroni cheese, with added gouda, sweetcorn, smoked paprika. Reading The Case of the Blood-Stained Tower by Ray Nayler in Asimov's. Listening to "#stigmata" by Heejin Jang, from the tape label Muzan - recorded live in Stockholm, edited in Seoul. #bandcamp #electronic #noise #TapeLabel #reading #bookstodon #novellas #asimovs #ScienceFiction #lunch #tea

https://muzaneditions.bandcamp.com/album/stigmata

The finalists of the Analog Analytical Laboratory and the Asimov's Readers' Awards have been announced. There's lots of good (and free) science fiction to read here.

https://coredump3.blogspot.com/2023/02/finalists-from-analogs-and-asimovs.html

#SFF #Analog #Asimovs