Wednesday 28 January 2009

Concept Sci-Fi Short Story Competition

Concept Sci-Fi magazine has launched its first annual short story competition. Prize is £100, plus assorted "goodies" from sf author and competition judge Sean Williams. Entry fee is £3.50, and all short-listed entries will be published in a special edition of the magazine. Deadline is 15th June 2009. All entries must "conform to the following theme":

Frank Zappa once said that everything in the universe is part of one great big note. He wasn't far wrong. There's music in the earth's core, in the sun's atmosphere, even in the roiling fire of the Big Bang. There's music in our interior lives too, in the stories we tell. "Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable", according to Leonard Bernstein, which makes it a perfect tool in the writing of space opera--my true but not my only love.

Way back in the late 1980s, I had to choose between two lives: one writing words and another writing notes. In an alternate universe, there's a version of me beavering away at a new symphony, or the score to a Hollywood movie. Here, the closest I get is putting Gary Numan lyrics in the mouths of my characters, and dreaming.

Dream for me. Tell me the note that ripples through spacetime in the wake of an ftl cruiser. Convey to me the songs that alien cephalopods whistle in their jovian soup. Give me the music of the spheres as you hear it. When the echoes fade, we'll all be richer for it.

See here for more details.

Genomics Short Story Competition

Genomics Network has launched a short story competition. The subject is, unsurprisingly, genetics:

Information about the genetic makeup of people, animals and plants impacts on every aspect of our lives. But do we understand this impact? And what should we make of it?


How is our understanding of who we are affected by the knowledge that we share so much of our genetic makeup with fruit flies, mice and even pumpkins?


Max length 3,000 words. First prize is £500. Closing date is 31st March 2009.

Winning entries to be posted on the Genomics Forum web site.

See here for more information.

Saturday 24 January 2009

alt.fiction 2009

This year, alt.fiction will be held at Derby's new arts centre, QUAD, on Saturday 20th June. There will be a "launch event" the evening before, Friday 19th June.

Wednesday 7 January 2009

Jupiter issue 23 now out

The publication of anything written by members of the group will be announced on this blog - whether published online, in print, or wherever else. Which means I now get to blow my own trumpet:

Jupiter issue 23, containing the science fiction story 'Thicker Than Water' by Ian Sales, is now available. The story is set on Tethys, a moon of Saturn, and was inspired by Euripides' play Iphigeneia in Tauris.

Get Jupiter from
here.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Thoughtcrimes Anthology Call for Submissions

Writer Leonard Richardson is putting together an anthology of five stories, Thoughtcrimes. Deadline is February 28th 2009, unless he fills the anthology before then. Payment is $200. The anthology will be published on his web site under a Creative Commons licence.

Full details here.

Group Meetings 2009

We now have the upstairs room at the Old Queen's Head on Pond Hill booked for the first and third Mondays of every month. If you're interested in joining us, someone is usually there from around 7:30 p.m.

Meeting dates:
19 January 2009
2 February 2009
16 February 2009
2 March 2009
16 March 2009

Monday 5 January 2009

Another Competition

The US National Space Society and Baen Books have teamed up to create a science fiction short story competition in memory of Jim Baen. They want "a short story of no more than 8,000 words, that shows the near future (no more than about 50-60 years out) of manned space exploration." There is no entry fee. Deadline is 1st April 2009.

Details here.

Friday 2 January 2009

Aeon Award 2009 Now Open

The short fiction competition run by Albedo One magazine is now open. Grand prize is €1000 and publication in Albedo One. Second and third place prizes are €200 and €100 and guaranteed publication in Albedo One. Entry fee is €7 and you can submit as many time as you want.

Details here.