Post-FanX Links

I had a great time talking to so many new writers at FanX. It's always great to see so many people who are excited about writing!

I recommended a few things to people, and thought I'd just put the links here, so they're easy to find:

The Submission Grinder. This is like Google, but for short story markets. You can put in the genre, the word count, and what pay rates you want to look at (anything $0.06/word and above is considered pro-paying, though there are also good markets that pay less). From that list, you can go on to read magazine's individual guidelines. Use it! Submit those short stories!

Life the Universe and Everything. This is both one of the absolute cheapest and absolute best writing conferences I've ever been to. It is packed with panels and classes, taught by all kind of amazing authors. It's in February, so you'll have to wait until next year, but seriously. LTUE. It's amazing. Barring the zombie apocalypse (and maybe even then?), I'll be there next year.

Fyrecon. This conference focuses on classes and small critique groups. They've got a bunch of great authors coming, and I'm excited to have something like this happening up north (it's in Layton, UT). It's also very cheap, with steep discounts for students. And they've got a track for teen writers, which -- as someone who was a teen writer -- just makes me ridiculously happy.

Critters.org. This is an online workshop. You can get your short stories critiqued here, as well as swap novels with people. I've run a number of now-published short stories as well as Drift through Critters. Critters will also give you lots of practice critiquing other people's writing, which is invaluable as well.