Talent & Culture
Reading Time: 4 minutes A distant relation is bequeathed to someone whose tenuous employment on the outskirts of humanity makes him a less than ideal custodian.
Reading Time: 4 minutes A distant relation is bequeathed to someone whose tenuous employment on the outskirts of humanity makes him a less than ideal custodian.
Reading Time: 12 minutes I ask authors to let their imperfect scenes and chapters lie, especially until the rest of the story is on paper. And 100-plus links to best writing advice, videos and podcasts from around the web!
Writing Advice of the Week: Love Your Imperfect Creation Read More »
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the 59th Annual Nebula Awards.
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes sexy aliens, epic dragons, and mysterious computer messages,
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for March 15, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutes Totally narcissistic, Electra loved admiring her herself in the mirror. One day a wish turned her to stone gazing in a mirror at herself for eternity. She was mostly happy with this situation, until her old, dying husband visits her and gets a wish of his own.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Azabelle pulled the pins that held up her hair. Dark curls tumbled around her face. She felt Shadow’s presence, of course, but she’d felt it so long she barely registered the danger.
Reading Time: 10 minutes Desperate for cash, Nick and his friend plot a home invasion. They picked the wrong house.
Reading Time: 7 minutes At eighteen, when Gabriel leaves the orphanage, the sisters breathe a sigh of relief. He has never been any trouble. Never talked back; indeed, rarely talked at all. He is obedient, clean, and scentless. The nuns can find no fault in him, but neither can they feel affection. He makes them forget Christ and contemplate Gabriel. He induces guilt. His very silence screams for attention. He is a shadow in the soul.
Gods and Monsters Installment 3: Music and Moths Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutes A Hungarian folktale about young girl seeking to rectify injustice done to her sisters.
Reading Time: 12 minutes The writerly life isn’t as perfect as some would have you believe. Writing takes hard work, but you don’t need to burn out to put out.
Writing Advice of the Week: Don’t Write Yourself Ragged Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a killer robot, an alien arrival, and a cat that turns into a vampire.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for March 8, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 6 minutes Lightly amusing modern-feel fantasy mashup about an unlikely partnership between a budget-price necromancer and his student locked in an unusual business model.
Reading Time: 4 minutes She kept her eyes shut. She ran deep into the wilderness. And as the sun flickered out, and the sky went black, and she held all the light of the world behind her eyelids, she tried to pretend she could bury her pain, and she wouldn’t die alone in the cold of the mountains.
Reading Time: 21 minutes A serial killer is playing havoc in the city-state of Sheebatiya. Can Allii uncover the killer before fear pushes the city into anarchy?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Gabriel is much more unusual than a virgin birth. Granted, human virgin birth is miraculous, but in many species of fish, lizards, insects, and sharks, virgin birth is the norm. It is helpful to remember that a miracle is not necessarily good, it is simply unnatural.
Gods and Monsters Installment 2: Beginnings of River and Gabriel Read More »
Reading Time: 2 minutes The spring 2024 submission cycle for original speculative fiction runs from March 1st and closes at midnight on March 31st. We’re looking for your best enthralling, imaginative, or bone-chilling original fiction stories of 1,200 words or fewer. Please visit our flash fiction submission page for full details and the online submission form. Accepted authors will
MetaStellar is Accepting Flash Fiction Submissions for Spring 2024! Read More »
Reading Time: 12 minutes When writing, it’s easy to isolate and disconnect from the passion the work used to bring. Plus: over 100 brand-new advice feeds from around the web!
Writing Advice of the Week: Find Your Writerly People Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutes A vampire, attempting to adapt to Western customs, sends her Christmas list to Santa.
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes sexy vampires, a sexy prince, post-apocalyptic survival, and an alien invasion.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for March 1, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 3 minutes Iron-Bound Flames is the debut work by Melanie K. Moschella, the first book in her Raek Rider’s series.
Reading Time: 6 minutes Timestealing is an art. And a business. And a service. A good timestealer can predict what the next best-seller will be – most of the time.
Reading Time: 7 minutes We sit down with E.E. King and get the scoop on her new novel, Gods and Monsters, which is being serialized by MetaStellar.
A Vampire Novel Like No Other: E.E. King on Mixing History and Dark Fantasy Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutes The vet said that my grief would modulate over time and eventually become a part of who I was, something I would cease to question, like the existence of my own arms.
Reading Time: 7 minutes My love affairs ever end thus. I always long for them to turn out differently. It’s so disheartening. If only I didn’t fall in love so often with these warm-blooded vessels of nutrition. I constantly swear I’ll convert, become a celibate bloodsucker, a monastic mosquito, a vamp nun. But then I see some sun-glazed man smelling of day, and it begins again.
Gods and Monsters Installment 1: Wherein we meet the three Fates Read More »
Reading Time: 16 minutes When Janza, a bodyguard-for-hire meets a suspicious merchant, her personal code and memories of the oppression suffered by her people battle for her soul.
Reading Time: 11 minutes When you write your first draft, you’re telling yourself the story, as you need to hear it, to make the best sense of it. That first draft is typically when you learn about your main character’s goals and motivations, the barriers or villains that hinder their success, and what the ultimate stakes are if they don’t succeed. You also meet the rest of the cast and get to know them, understand them, see them moving about in your story world. But when you tell your story to your reader, you begin to uncover what the reader needs.
Writing Advice of the Week: The Craft is in Drafts Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a paranormal police department, mermaids and dragons, Greek mythology, and a space opera in which humans are fighting against an invading alien force — from within.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 23, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutes I decided to go find Death myself. It was 2023, and a lady could do that. I didn’t need to wait around for someone to fetch me. I could do the fetching.
Reading Time: 9 minutes During February, making time to write can feel extra difficult. Prioritizing your writing, getting the right pieces in the right places, and speaking to your readers are the goals.
Writing Advice of the Week: Write Your Way Out of the Slump Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a sexy fae king and his mate, a seductive fae king, forbidden romance between a princess and a barbarian, a trip back in time to ancient Alexandria, and a group of outcast marines who must save humanity and the galaxy.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 16, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutes She wondered if she should even say it. She didn’t even want to think it. But Wyx definitely had to know, had a right to know probably. “There’s someone else on board.”
Reading Time: 4 minutes A quick collision of rich space junk collectors, and an expert counterfeiter.
Reading Time: 10 minutes Regardless of industry metrics and analytics, regardless whether you’re established or debuting, through thick and thin, writers write. And in this bizarre, yet hopeful, publishing landscape, writers create their own success.
Writing Advice of the Week: Climb Your Success Ladder Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes Here are nine books on Amazon with tons of positive reviews that will help you finish your writing project — and are free to read with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
The best free* books to help you battle procrastination Read More »
Reading Time: 9 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a sexy hairy beast, a sexy werewolf, a sexy vampire, a sexy dragon, and a sci-fi adventure on an alien planet.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 9, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes In spite of interfering adults, a spoiled child is determined to claim her birthright in the court of Oberon and Titania.
Reading Time: 3 minutes He used to have choices; now, he has a hunger. He needs to find his fiancée.
Reading Time: 9 minutes Writing and storytelling are skills anyone can learn with a little practice, the right mindset, and a bit of help. And rejection isn’t the end of your literary road as long as you keep driving ahead. That’s because rejection is a powerful tool for growth — if you let it be one.
Writing Advice of the Week: Rejection is a Beginning Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes an alien romance, a paranormal romance, a box set from one of our favorite romantic fantasy series, and a sci-fi book about tourists traveling to alternate Earths.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 2, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 8 minutes A secret government organization is fighting an unknown, but strange enemy.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Ken’ichi’s white hazmat suit shines like a beacon as he breaks over the ridge, even through all the rain. His gait is slow and uneven. I never expected to see him again.
Reading Time: 4 minutes A young man can no longer afford to keep all his memories. How will he decide which ones to keep? And he’s running out of time.
Reading Time: 11 minutes So, you’re sitting down at your computer or you’ve grabbed your notebook, and you’re determined to write. I’ll just check socials for a minute, you think. It won’t take long. Then a minute goes by. Five minutes. Ten. An hour. And that quick socials check turns into a rabbit hole of unproductivity such that you
Writing Advice of the Week: What Distraction Tells You Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes four magical mysteries, and a shifter romance box set.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Jan. 26, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutes No magic in it. She didn’t need any. She just turned around looking some kind of way, and bung he went. Sometimes, a person sees their future in stark clarity and chooses to roll off the coil while the going’s good, and that’s the best thing that could be said about Amajane’s father.
Reading Time: 11 minutes In the digital age where authenticity reigns supreme, character transformation is a major tool for bridging the gap and creating an immersive, emotionally intelligent connection between character and reader. And at the heart of your character’s transformation is their character.
Writing Advice of the Week: Give Your Characters Character Read More »