Wrapping Up the Writing Science Fiction Book Club

[Jessica]

Hello,

Thanks to everyone who has participated in Writing Science Fiction over the past few months! It looks like there were some great conversations here, and we hope you learned a lot about the genre. We’d also like to say thank you to your moderator, Marta Randall. Her expertise and enthusiasm for this book club have been invaluable.

This group will run until May 31, after which it will live in Recent Discussions.

Many of you may wonder why we’re making this change. The simple answer is that we're tying to make the best fit for us, for Gotham, and of course for the particpants here. We believe we've spread the conversation out into too many groups, which has has made the back and forth not as lively as we need.

And so, with that in mind, we're thrilled to be able to announce a new approach in what is now the Writing Fiction Book Club. This weekend, Writing Fiction will become The Writing Room, an open conversation about the craft of writing in all its genres (including nonfiction and memoir) and a place for you to continue to post your work for peer review. Gotham’s Brandi Reissenweber will continue to be the moderator of this book club, and will post new topics every week that will get and keep our creative juices flowing. We'll talk about what makes us write, what stops of from writing, and how to get the most from the craft. We hope you come on over beginning Monday to explore this new discussion.

In addition, we’re happy to announce the coming debut of a new Book Club: Getting Published. Led by Susan Driscoll of iUniverse, this is the place to learn and ask advice about the often overwhelming world of publishing. The new Getting Published book club will launch on June 4.

So keep writing -- and thanks again!

[mae-V]

Hmm... I see a really useful thing here. Not as pleasant as having Marta in class, but a really good place to put what we've learned with her into practice: discussing the needs of Science Fiction. The useful thing is that we can now discuss it in the context of other genres. To be able to take the best of the other genres and integrate that into our Science Fiction best, remembering to focus on the SciFi even when it's dressed in Romance, or masked in Memoir, that's the best of our work here.

[Jessica]

---

mae-V wrote: Hmm... I see a really useful thing here. Not as pleasant as having Marta in class, but a really good place to put what we've learned with her into practice: discussing the needs of Science Fiction. The useful thing is that we can now discuss it in the context of other genres. To be able to take the best of the other genres and integrate that into our Science Fiction best, remembering to focus on the SciFi even when it's dressed in Romance, or masked in Memoir, that's the best of our work here.

---

Hi Mae-V,

You make a really good point -- you can still talk about SF in The Writing Room, which we're certain will be a vibrant conversation about all writing in all genres. It's a more open discussion, so you have the power to start a new message there and choose what you talk about!

And while we're on the topic, I'd like to say thanks again for everyone's participation in this group. We'll miss Marta as much as you will.

Even though this board will still be available in the Recent Discussions category, if there are any active threads in this board that you'd like us to move to The Writing Room, let us know. Just send a Private Message to BillP (he's a book club Editor), copy and paste a link to the thread, and we'll make sure it reaches the audience in The Writing Room.

Hope to see you there!

Message Edited by BillP on 05-25-2007 12:32 PM