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Books on Writing
- The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction The book at the heart of all this!
- Writing Monsters Advice for SF, fantasy, and horror authors
- The Best of Fantasy Author's Handbook Volume I, 2009-2013
Buy My Books
- Six Guns & Spaceships Featuring my space opera western story “Rendezes”
- Devils of the Endless Deep My trip into the Fathomless Abyss
- Write to the Cover Featuring my story “Bella Lucky and the Titan of Tarvos”
- Australians, Buy Here! Order from Boomerang Books in Australia.
- The Best of Fantasy Authors Handbook …is now available–58 revised and expanded essays from the first five years of FAH!
- Tales from the Fathomless Abyss The anthology that started it all!
- The Haunting of Dragon's Cliff with Mel Odom, a new sword & sorcery barbarian is born!
- Completely Broken A novel of contemporary horror
- Annihilation My entry in the Forgotten Realms series R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen
- A Reader's Guide to R.A. Salvatore's the Legend of Drizzt An essential companion to the greatest hero of the Forgotten Realms world
- I Made a Friend An alternate history/dieselpunk story for your Kindle!
- Morbid Dread of the Dawn Read my story in The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias!
- The Dogs Are In the Alley Again: A new horror story in Jitter #7
- Harbinger Asylum: Published one of my poems!
- The Lighthouse Keeper That Left A new poem in Harbinger’s Asylum!
- MegaTraveller: MANHUNT: Thirty-two years late, but better than never!
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Interviews & Guest Posts
- CLARKESWORLD INTERVIEW 1: I took part in a roundtable interview with other speculative fiction editors.
- MAKE-BELIEVE MONDAYS INTERVIEW: Debra Parmley’s Make-Believe Mondays is a must-read blog for SF/Fantasy fans, and she’s interviewed lil’ ol’ me!
- Celebrity Game Table: A detailed look at my Tegel Manor Campaign from 2003.
- Monsters in D&D, Books, Movies… Dicegeeks Podcast interview with Phil!
- Longwinded One Podcast: Episode 158: Philip Athans: The Years of Phil
- Classic Monsters, Modern Love: How a New Generation of Fans is Keeping the Universal Monsters Alive
- Publisher's Weekly “Is the Universe Expanding or Contracting?”
- Hunting for MANHUNT: The behind the scenes tale of my lost MegaTraveller adventure!
- Inside Storytelling: Writing Monsters, Creatures & Villains
- Porter Anderson vs. Movie Examples: With some nice things to say about my Living Dialogue seminar at the Writer’s Digest conference.
- 10 Questions with…ME! I get grilled by Ryan Schneider.
- SF Signal Mind Meld: Aliens I join other SF/F authors and editors on the subject of what makes a good alien.
- Ask the (Book) Editors: Panel video from 2013 Emerald City Comicon!
- Writer's Digest Guest Blog: How to Make a Vampire Not Suck
- Horror Authors: How to Scare the Heck Out of Your Readers A guest post at The Write Life with practical tips for scaring the crap out of your readers.
- Writer's Digest Interview: On Writing F&SF.
- How To Write Monsters With Philip Athans The Creative Penn Podcasts me!
- Roleplaying Tips: Interviews me!
- The Fanitarium Podcast: Interviews Philip Athans
- How to Create a Magic System: M.S. Farzan and Storyteller’s Handbook features The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction
- How to Write Horror: Reading, Breathing and the Long Sentence (at Writer’s Digest)
- Worldcasting: I join the guys from Worldbuilding Magazine for a chat about… everything!
Past Posts
Monthly Archives: August 2011
WORK IN PROGRESS: THE HAUNTING OF DRAGON’S CLIFF
I’m always writing. I go from project to project, moving on to the next book, story, or screenplay long before the last one finds a home, much less is actually published. So what am I working on now? What did … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, NaNoWriMo, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, creative process, e-books, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, Keith Birdsong, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process
5 Comments
THE FANTASY AUTHOR’S HANDBOOK INTERVIEW: ARI MARMELL
I’m ten years older than Ari Marmell, author of The Goblin Corps, The Conqueror’s Shadow, a handful of other novels, and 27,492 role-playing game supplements, but we have eerily similar back stories. We were both born in New York, but … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Dungeons & Dragons, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged Ari Marmell, author, Author Interview, authors, Books, creative process, Dungeons & Dragons, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, Magic: The Gathering, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, teen books, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process, young adult fantasy
3 Comments
THE NATIONAL BUY A BOOK DAY FOUNDATION NEEDS YOU!
Around this time last year I got it in my head to encourage people to buy more books. Granted, it was at least a little self-serving as I make some portion of my income from the sale of books, but … Continue reading
SELF-PUBLISHED E-BOOKS ARE LOSING READERS DUE TO BAD EDITING
Yes? No? This was the question I asked of a number of people, mostly myself, after seeing all sorts of circumstantial evidence to prove that this was true. I say “circumstantial evidence” because what I’m responding to, mostly, are online … Continue reading
Posted in Books, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, fantasy-romance, Fiction, genre fiction, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, self-publishing, Smashwords, Writing, writing advice, writing exercises, writing process
6 Comments
COMPLETELY BROKEN
So many years ago now that it’s hard for me even to count them, I sat down to write a novel. I’ve always been a dedicated outliner. I need some kind of plan before I can do something as ambitious … Continue reading
Posted in Books, E-Books, Publishing Business, Writing
Tagged author, authors, best sellers, Books, Completely Broken, creative process, e-books, e-readers, editor, Fiction, genre fiction, Kindle Books, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Smashwords, Writing, writing exercises, writing process
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Fantasy Author's Handbook 