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!NEW!
- Updated Rate Card: Athans & Associates Creative Consulting
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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!
Communicate With Me
- Twitter @PhilAthans Admit it, you need to keep up with me at least a couple times a day.
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- GoodReads Join me at Facebook-for-readers
- Find me on Kindlepreneur: Master Guide to Selecting the Best Book Editor
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
Tag Archives: Mel Odom
FALL INTO THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS
It’s up! There’s nothing more satisfying than having a book out there for sale. It’s done. It’s out there. And I’m happy with it. That last bit? That’s the hard part. I’ve written here about some of the trouble this … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, e-books, e-readers, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Kindle, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Nook, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, shared world, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process
1 Comment
DEVILS OF THE ENDLESS WRITING PROCESS
If you’ve been following Fantasy Author’s Handbook for the past few months, you’ve heard me talk about my love/hate relationship with my current work-in-progress, the Fathomless Abyss novella Devils of the Endless Deep. I started with a report on my … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, writer's block, Writing, writing advice, writing process
4 Comments
COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Excuse for why I missed a Tuesday . . . I’ve been working on finally assembling a complete bibliography. It’s not exactly perfect yet, and when it is, it will appear as a separate page here, but for now . … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, Dungeons & Dragons, horror novels, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, Science Fiction Story, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, best sellers, Books, Dungeons & Dragons, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, Forgotten Realms, genre fiction, Magic: The Gathering, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, R.A. Salvatore, Science Fiction, Wizards of the Coast, Writing
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THE TEN YEARS WAR
The second of the two-volume 10th Anniversary omnibus edition of the Forgotten Realms series R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen was released today, and like my fellow Spider Queen Paul S. Kemp, that’s moved me to some recollections of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, Dungeons & Dragons, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, best sellers, Books, creative process, Dungeons & Dragons, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, Forgotten Realms, genre fiction, Greyhawk, Lolth, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, R.A. Salvatore, R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen, Wizards of the Coast, Writing, writing process
1 Comment
ARRON’S LONELY BLOG
If you still haven’t heard of Arron of the Black Forest, that’s my fault, not yours. How do we rectify that? Well, first off, you can click over to the Arron of the Black Forest blog. Here’s a taste of … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, Conan, creative process, Dungeons & Dragons, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, Forgotten Realms, genre fiction, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, R.A. Salvatore, Science Fiction, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process
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WORK IN PROGRESS: DEVILS OF THE ENDLESS DEEP
Coming in February? Well, that’s still possible. Get back to me on that in a few weeks. But that aside, this is what I’m working on now: the first of the six planned Fathomless Abyss e-books. I’m calling it Devils … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, creative process, e-books, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process
6 Comments
EXCERPTS FROM THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS
THIS JUST IN: Tales From The Fathomless Abyss is on sale NOW for the Nook! THIS JUST IN: Tales From The Fathomless Abyss is on sale NOW for the Kindle! Just this morning I posted Tales From The Fathomless Abyss … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, bottomless pit, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, shared world, worldbuilding, Writing, writing process
1 Comment
THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS
Finally, one of my notorious “secret projects” revealed. First, the amazing cover art by Mats Minnhagen Whose idea was it? The idea for a shared world collective was a combination of Mel Odom, Joe McDermott, and me, I suppose. The … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, bottomless pit, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, fantasy settings, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, shared world, worldbuilding, Writing, writing process
7 Comments
WHAT I’M THANKFUL FOR, 2011
On November 24, 2009 I wrote a post here entitled “What I’m Thankful For, 2009.” I looked back on that post this morning equally happy and sad. I smiled at my “sense of near-completion” on The Guide to Writing Fantasy … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, transmedia, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, resolutions, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving, Wizards of the Coast, Writing, writing advice, writing process
2 Comments
THE ART & SCIENCE OF THE TITLE
What a tired old phrase: “X is more art than science,” in which X can be anything, including art or science. And saying “Choosing a title for your novel or short story is more art than science” is particularly silly … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, authors helping authors, authors to writers, best fantasy blogs, best genre fiction blogs, best horror blogs, best science fiction blogs, best websites for authors, best websites for writers, Books, creative team, Dungeons & Dragons, E-Books, fiction writing blog, fiction writing websites, help for writers, helping writers become authors, how to write fantasy, how to write fiction, how to write horror, how to write science fiction, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, websites for authors, websites for writers, writers to authors, Writing, writing advice, Writing Community, writing fantasy, writing horror, writing science fiction, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, best sellers, Books, creative process, Dungeons & Dragons, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, Forgotten Realms, genre fiction, Magic: The Gathering, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, R.A. Salvatore, Science Fiction, Terry Brooks, titles, Wizards of the Coast, Writing, writing advice, writing exercises, writing process
4 Comments
Fantasy Author's Handbook 