Odyssey Editor

Odyssey Online Instructor David B. Coe: “Rejections and The Aspiring Writer”

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David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson is the award-winning author of nineteen fantasy novels. He taught “Point of View: The Intersection of Character and Plot” for Odyssey Online in 2016.

As David B. Coe, he writes The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, a contemporary urban fantasy from Baen Books. The first two volumes, Spell Blind and His Father’s Eyes, are out from Baen Books. The third book in the series, Shadow’s Blade, will be released on May 3, 2016.

Under the name D.B. Jackson, he writes the Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy from Tor Books that includes Thieftaker, Thieves’ Quarry, A Plunder of Souls, and, the newest volume, Dead Man’s Reach.

He lives on the Cumberland Plateau with his wife and two daughters. They’re all smarter and prettier than he is, but they keep him around because he makes a mean vegetarian fajita. When he’s not writing he likes to hike, play guitar, and stalk the perfect image with his camera. Visit David at the following sites:

http://www.DavidBCoe.com
http://www.davidbcoe.com/blog/
http://www.dbjackson-author.com
http://www.facebook.com/david.b.coe
http://twitter.com/DavidBCoe
https://www.amazon.com/author/davidbcoe

Let’s start with the obvious: Rejections suck.

David Coe Spellblind

They hurt. They discourage. They dent our psyches, diminish our confidence, sap our will to keep working. They suck. I have been rejected tons of times. Twenty years and nineteen books into my career, I still get rejections.

Spell Blind, the first book of my contemporary urban fantasy series — the series Baen Books is publishing right now — was rejected sixteen times before it was finally picked up and published. It has since gotten very nice reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and others.

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By Odyssey Editor, ago

Special Announcement: Writing Resources

Thank you to all who have applied to the summer Odyssey Writing Workshop!  The deadline for the 2016 June-July Workshop has now passed. Applicants should receive word by May 1. Writers, there is a variety of free writing resources available on the Odyssey Workshop site. Here are just a few: –Salon (noun): 1. Read more

By Odyssey Editor, ago

2016 Summer Workshop Dates & Application Deadline

OdboatcleanedupDon’t let more time slip by.  Make 2016 the year that you take your writing to the next level!

The Odyssey Writing Workshop is one of the top programs in the world for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.  Since its inception in 1996, the Odyssey Writing Workshop has become one of the most highly respected workshops for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror in the world.  The intensive, six-week workshop is held on the campus of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH, and combines writing, critiquing, in-depth feedback on students’ manuscripts, private conferences, and an advanced curriculum covering all the major elements of fiction writing.  Students commonly describe it as inspiring and transformative.

Fifty-nine percent of graduates go on to professional publication, and among Odyssey graduates are best sellers and award winners.  Odyssey is for serious writers ready to give up their lives for six weeks and focus solely on their writing.  You’ll work harder than you ever have before and make friendships that will last a lifetime.

The 2016 Odyssey Summer Writing Workshop will take place June 6 through July 15.

Polish up those entrance stories! All applications must be received by April 8, 2016.

The workshop, directed by award-winning author and editor Jeanne Cavelos, combines an intensive, advanced curriculum with in-depth feedback on students’ manuscripts.

Top authors, editors and agents have served as guests at Odyssey, ready to lecture, workshop, and give feedback. This year’s guests:

2016 Writer-In-Residence

Mary KowalMary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Glamourist Histories series of fantasy novels. She has received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, three Hugo awards, and the RT Reviews award for Best Fantasy Novel. Her work has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean.

Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures, and founded Other Hand Productions. Her designs have garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve. She also records fiction for authors such as Kage Baker, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi.

Mary lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Visit maryrobinettekowal.com. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, ago

Interview: Guest Lecturer N.K. Jemisin (Part 2 of 2)

NK Jemisin

N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author who will be a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Writing Workshop in Manchester, N.H.  Her short fiction and novels have been multiply nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, shortlisted for the Crawford and the Tiptree, and have won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her speculative works range from fantasy to science fiction to the undefinable; her themes include resistance to oppression, the inseverability of the liminal, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up.

She is a member of the Altered Fluid writing group, a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop, and she has been an instructor for the Clarion workshops. In her spare time she is a biker, an adventurer, a gamer, and a counseling psychologist; she is also single-handedly responsible for saving the world from KING OZZYMANDIAS, her obnoxious ginger cat. Her essays, media reviews, and fiction excerpts are available at nkjemisin.com.

Her newest novel, The Fifth Season, came out in August, 2015.

Part 1 of this interview posted last Sunday, and is available here. 

What are some elements of your favorite novels or works that influence your work?

My inspiration is usually mythology. I’m more interested in stories as they’ve existed throughout antiquity. I like oral storytelling; I like creation myths of various peoples and cultures and religions. I myself am an agnostic, so I see all religions and all creation myths as mythology, although I know that for a lot of people it’s a lived experience. As far as I am concerned, humanity has had several thousand years to perfect storytelling, and there’s a lot to be learned from those basic, classic—even primordial—storytelling forms and ideologies. That is more interesting to me than what is selling best and what is popular. That may be why I’m not a bestseller! I don’t know. I write stories that excite me; I’m not trying to become the next G.R.R. Martin; I’m trying to tell a story that makes me happy. It’s entirely possible that at some point that writing a story like Martin might make me happy, but right now I’m a little more basic. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, ago

Interview: Guest Lecturer N.K. Jemisin (Part 1 of 2)

NK JemisinN. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author who will be a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Writing Workshop in Manchester, N.H.  Her short fiction and novels have been multiply nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, shortlisted for the Crawford and the Tiptree, and have won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her speculative works range from fantasy to science fiction to the undefinable; her themes include resistance to oppression, the inseverability of the liminal, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up.

She is a member of the Altered Fluid writing group, a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop, and she has been an instructor for the Clarion workshops. In her spare time she is a biker, an adventurer, a gamer, and a counseling psychologist; she is also single-handedly responsible for saving the world from KING OZZYMANDIAS, her obnoxious ginger cat. Her essays, media reviews, and fiction excerpts are available at nkjemisin.com.

Her newest novel, The Fifth Season, came out in August, 2015.

From the time you started writing to the time you started writing seriously, how long did it take you to sell your first piece (defined here as short story)? What do you think you were doing wrong in your writing in those early days?

I sold my first short story probably 1-2 years after I seriously started trying to get published in that area. I got serious basically around the age of 30. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to go to Odyssey, but I did end up doing a one-week workshop, which was Viable Paradise, but after that I joined a writing group, and our writing group kind of made up the difference there. So that’s how I got a lot of experience and skill writing short stories—having the group tear them apart and then submitting them. The group got me in the habit of submitting stories, and submitting and submitting and submitting until submission was part of being a writer in my head—and rejections were also part of being a writer in my head. So I’d say it took a year to a year and a half, maybe.

As for what I was doing wrong, (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, ago

Interview: Graduate & Guest Lecturer Scott H. Andrews

Photo credit: Al Bogdan

Photo credit: Al Bogdan

Scott H. Andrews, 2005 graduate, will be a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Writing Workshop.

Scott lives in Virginia with his wife, two cats, nine guitars, a dozen overflowing bookcases, and hundreds of beer bottles from all over the world. His literary short fiction has won a $1000 prize from the Briar Cliff Review, and his genre short fiction has appeared in Ann VanderMeer’s Weird Tales, On Spec, and Space and Time. He is a World Fantasy Award finalist for his work as Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, a Hugo Award finalist fantasy magazine that Locus has called “a premier venue for fantastic fiction, not just online but for all media.”

Visit him online at http://www.scotthandrews.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter @Scott_H_Andrews.

When looking for stories for Hugo-, World Fantasy Award-, and Parsec-nominated magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies, you look for “stories that focus on the character.” What advice would you give to writers who want to create more well-rounded, fully realized, and interesting characters? Do you think there is a difference between coming up with interesting characters in short stories versus novels?

I think the core thing that every character must have is a motivation. All compelling characters want something. Even if they can’t articulate what they want or don’t know what it is, or even if what they want is an antithetical thing, like wanting to not have a goal. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, ago

Upcoming 2016 Winter Online Classes + Webinar

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Start the new year by leveling up your writing skills!

The Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust, widely known for its highly praised, six-week, in-person workshop, is offering three intensive online writing classes this winter, as well as Odyssey’s first webinar.

Odyssey Online helps you to learn new techniques and build your skills, and provides in-depth feedback to guide you.  If you’re ready to hear about the weaknesses in your writing and ready to work to overcome them, you’d be welcome to apply.

The online classes being offered are:

  • Three-Act Structure in Fantastic Fiction, taught by Odyssey director and bestselling author Jeanne Cavelos;
  • Getting the Big Picture: The Key to Revising Your Novel, taught by award-winning author Barbara Ashford; and
  • Point of View: The Intersection of Character and Plot, taught by award-winning author David B. Coe.

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By Odyssey Editor, ago

Interview: Graduate & Guest Lecturer Meagan Spooner

MeaganSpoonerMeagan Spooner, 2009 Odyssey graduate and bestselling author, will be a guest lecturer at the 2016 Odyssey Writing Workshops. Meagan grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day, while dreaming about life as an archaeologist, a marine biologist, an astronaut. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting, and has spent several years since then living in Australia. She’s traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, and there’s a bit of every trip in every story she writes.

She currently lives and writes in Northern Virginia, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there’s no telling how long she’ll stay there. In her spare time she plays guitar, plays video games, plays with her cat, and reads.

Meagan Spooner is the author of the bestselling young adult fantasy Skylark Trilogy (Skylark, Shadowlark and Lark Ascending). She is also, with Amie Kaufman, the co-author of the young adult science fiction Starbound Trilogy (These Broken Stars, This Shattered World and Their Fractured Light, from Disney Hyperion). These Broken Stars won Australia’s Aurealis Award, and the storyline has been optioned for television.

More information about Meg can be found at http://www.meaganspooner.com.

We last interviewed you back in 2012, just as you were launching not one, but two trilogies—Skylark, written by you, and Starbound (which includes the Aurealis Award-winning These Broken Stars), co-written with Amie Kaufman. You’ve been very busy! Catch us up on the last three years.

It’s been crazy. Most of the time I feel like it’s been a decade since that first book, but then I look back and realize it’s only been three years and I end up feeling dizzy. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, ago

World Fantasy Award Nominations for Jeanne Cavelos & Scott H. Andrews

We here at the Odyssey Blog and pretty much anyone ever associated with Odyssey Writing Workshops are ecstatic! Why?

Because Jeanne Cavelos, the founder and director of the Odyssey Writing Workshops, and Scott H. Andrews, Odyssey graduate and founder and editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazine, have each been nominated for World Fantasy Awards! The World Fantasy Convention and award ceremony will take place next month in Saratoga Springs, New York–and until then we’re all on the edge of our seats.

Without further ado, we Odfellows present a tribute to Jeanne and Scott.

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By Odyssey Editor, ago