• Writing Resources

    Last Call

    Tonight is the last night to nominate Canadian fiction for an Aurora Award! The following is a repost of the original post I put up with all the pertinent details: From the Prix Aurora website: The Prix Aurora Awards are Canada’s National Science Fiction & Fantasy Awards. They are Canadian Fans’ way of recognizing the best in genre creativity and activity of the previous calendar year (January 1st to December 31st 2010). Why am I telling you this? Voting is free and registration is simple — just sign up to be a member and you can nominate every year. And don’t worry, you don’t have to vote in every category.…

  • Writing Resources

    The Query Trigger

    So I have a couple stories that have been ‘under consideration’ for close to a year by some respectable magazines that generally respond much sooner. Now the responsible thing for me to do is to query them and find out if the submission or the reply was lost in the ether. But I won’t do that. See I’m generally not a superstitious kind of guy. I regularly walk under ladders and kick (cross paths with) black cats and so on. The science degree makes that inevitable. But when it comes to query letters I am superstitious. Why? Because out of the dozens of query letters I’ve sent asking about the…

  • Writing Resources

    Rich Horton – Writers of the Future XXVI Mention

    Reviewer Rich Horton has posted an entry on his blog about Writers of the Future XXVI. His blog, ‘The Elephant Forgets‘ has summaries of most sci-fi/fantasy magazines and anthologies. These are short summaries so he does not go into full detail on any individual stories but as a writer it is always nice to know when our work is being noticed. And I admit I am always pleased if one of my stories catches his notice as it seems to have this time.

  • Writing Resources

    Blood and Mirrors

    Fellow Writers of the Future winner Brad R. Torgersen has released a novelette ‘Blood and Mirrors’. Brad says this about his story: Camarro’s world is not too far into our own future: grimy, wet, sexual, and occasionally deadly. I’ve bought the story but have not read it yet. I’m confident it is a great read — Brad has had stories in Analog, Orson Scott Card’s Medicine Show, and Writers of the Future so he must be doing something right! Links Blood and Mirrors Brad’s Blog Orson Scott Card’s Medicine Show Writers of the Future XXVI

  • Empire Avenue

    Vital Empire Avenue Statistics

    So in the last couple weeks I have reached a few milestones on the social network exchange Empire Avenue and I thought I would share them with you today. The Numbers I sold my 105 000th share! I reached 1000 shareholders… yes that means over a thousand people paid cold hard virtual currency to buy pieces of me I own almost 2000 people (but I recently sold a bunch of slackers) My share price passed the 82 eaves mark (eaves are the currency of the Empire and based on my calculations will probably replace the US dollar in 4-5 years*). I bought hundreds of shares in ‘newcomers’ like Intel, Ford,…

  • Writing Resources

    ‘Digital Rights’ – AnthologyBuilder

    My Writers of the Future winning story ‘Digital Rights’ is now available at AnthologyBuilder. So there are now four places to read this story! I really am making this as convenient for you as possible. – In Writers of the Future XXVI – On the Kindle – On a variety of eBook devices through Smashwords (also check here for how to read it for free until the end of the week) – As part of a custom print anthology via AnthologyBuilder

  • Writing Resources

    Brent is in the UK

    Well not really. But my eReprints of various short stories are available in the UK store. And I have a profile too (though you need to click the link above to see the full list of my stories, not all are hooked up to the portfolio). And my stories are available in the German Amazon eBook store too though I don’t think they have profiles setup for that yet.

  • Writing Resources

    AnthologyBuilder – Digital Copy

    According to their latest blog post AnthologyBuilder will be allowing the option for stories to be printed into digital eAnthologies! Users will have a choice of printing a custom print anthology or choosing a digital copy instead. This is pretty cool news and I’ve made sure to enable this for my stories on the site. When I have some free time I’m also going to make sure I upload the rest of my reprints to the site.

  • Apple - iPhone/iPad,  Brent's Toys,  Game Reviews,  Lego

    Lego Games on iPod and iPad

    Our sons (3 and 5 years old) are playing more and more with Lego, which pleases me greatly as I was a Lego kid growing up. Being a hoarder I kept most of my old Lego as well we have bought several newer sets for the kids. In the last couple months the two of them have started to show more interest in the Lego than simply playing with the vehicles and sets we assemble for them. Now they are starting to build their own things… which is awesome. The other night I decided to check the Apps store on the iPad to see if they had any interesting Lego…