Adventures in the SF Trade

Welcome to this month’s reading, which is from the opening chapter of my novel The Recollection (Solaris Books, 2011).

This won’t be news to anyone who’s ever tried to write one, but novels aren’t easy. Somehow, you have to sustain the storytelling impulse over 90,000 words and maybe six to twelve months of hard work. When I first started out, I seriously doubted I’d ever be able to concentrate for that length of time.

According to the European Commission, 56% of people currently live in urban areas. By the end of the century, this figure is expected to rise to 85%, at which point the global urban population will exceed 9 billion. Obviously, this trend presents a huge challenge for urban planners, architects and civil engineers, who will have to figure out how to provide enough infrastructure to support this huge rise in city living while still striving to achieve emissions targets for a sustainable climate.

Greetings, my fellow literature-lovers! Today, I’m hugely excited to bring you the one and only, ! Gareth is the award-winning author of 20 books — these have been adapted for TV, nominated (and won) many awards, and have been translated into no less than eleven languages! Readers of are privy to his expert advice on writing, publishing, and the secrets to building a career in fiction, as well as keeping up to date with all his publishing news.

Cavan Scott is a New York Times Bestselling author, comic book writer and screenwriter. He created Shadow Service, The Ward, Dead Seas and Sleep Terrors, and is a lead story architect for Lucasfilm’s bestselling multimedia initiative, Star Wars: The High Republic. He has written comics for Marvel, DC Comics, Dark Horse, IDW, Legendary, 2000AD and the Beano; audio dramas for Big Finish Productions and Audible; and books for BBC Books, Penguin Random House, PS Publishing and more.

It’s every author’s nightmare. You finish writing for the night, save your manuscript to the cloud and go to bed. But when you wake up and turn on your computer the next morning, the file has gone. Those months of hard work, when you were fighting against post-COVID exhaustion and brain fog, not to mention a crapload of stress in your private life; when every word felt like you were carving it from stone with your ragged fingernails—all vanished like morning dew on a hot day.

There Will Never Be Another Twitter A couple of years ago, life was much simpler. I had 40k followers on Twitter, and had built up a pleasant, engaged community based on positivity and a love of books. Then Musk happened, and everything that was bad about Twitter became much worse. Fewer and fewer of my followers were se…

Straight from my keyboard to your inbox: essential writing advice and updates from award-winning SF and Horror novelist, Gareth L. Powell. By Gareth L. Powell · Over 2,000 subscribers “Writing advice and insight from my pal, top SF author, Gareth L. Powell who is building a lovely community here. ” Cavan Scott, The Cavletter “Learn to write SFF with Gareth L. Powell.” “A thoroughly decent person and someone who has a solid background not just in writing but promotion.

In 2022, Gollancz published my handbook About Writing: The Authorised Field Guide for Aspiring Authors. The thing is, I hadn’t set out to write such a book. My imposter syndrome would never have allowed me to attempt such a thing. So, how did it happen? To answer that, let me take you back to 2006.

Antony Johnston is one of the most versatile writers of the modern era. A New York Times bestseller and the creator of Atomic Blonde, his immense body of work spans books, film, graphic novels, videogames, non-fiction, short stories, journalism, podcasting, and music. His latest work is The Dog Sitter Detective, the first in a series of murder mystery novels. He lives and works in England.