Monthly Archives: June 2013

How to be a writer: how much feedback?

Who should you ask for feedback on your story or novel? Some of them should be fellow writers, so you can be sure they’ll take a critical eye. Some of them should be your target audience, so you can be … Continue reading

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I’m doing Camp NaNoWriMo next month

National Novel Writing Month is becoming a bigger and bigger deal every year, with over 300,000 writers writing 3 billion words last November. But for people in academia, like me, November is one of the worst months of the year … Continue reading

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Supreme Court rules human genes are not patentable

In what is widely seen as a victory for science and medical research, as well as common sense, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously today that human genes cannot be patented. (Read the opinion here.) At issue … Continue reading

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Book review: The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty

Mur Lafferty is the author of the excellent I Should Be Writing podcast, which provides useful advice to writers of all calibers. After self-publishing a variety of fantasy and science fiction works, Lafferty now debuts her first professionally-published novel, The … Continue reading

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The backwards planets

Our Solar System formed from a single, spinning gas cloud in a nebula not unlike the Orion Nebula we can see in the sky today. The whole cloud was spinning the same direction, which means that as it collapsed, almost … Continue reading

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How to be a writer: getting feedback

So you wrote something. Great! Maybe it’s a short story. Maybe it’s a novel. Maybe it’s an epic 300,000-word tome (although if it is, you might have some issues). It’s always good when you can finish a project, but now … Continue reading

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