Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Hey All...has anyone else heard of, or otherwise participated in, io9's Thursday Tales? Much as I love io9 for all things geek, I had never heard of this delightful flash fiction exercise (for longer stories they have a page called Saturday Short Stories) until today when a post came up on my RSS feed about a niner who created a searchable database for all the Thursday Tales and Saturday Short Stories.

So, back to my original question: Anyone been a participant, reader or reviewer? Any personal observations? Or are you like me, squeeing inside at the idea of writing wee fic for the critique/praise of your fellow geeks? Actually I'm kinda hoping this will get me over some of my non-writerness. But that's a different post.

Hi there. I am the curator of the Niner Fiction Canon and the creator of the Searchable Nineosphere, so I guess you could say I have been mixed up in it since the beginning.

It's a fun exercise, and for quite a few Niners it's turned into a training ground for improving their work. We've even had a couple submissions from Annalee Newitz herself, and for me it is a high compliment that she participates and supports the Nineosphere. A few of us have become interested in becoming published because they had no idea they could write (this happens a lot, actually) and I just managed to get published, something I doubt I would have done were it not for a weekly writing regimen and feedback. There is a good deal of commentary from other Niners, both those who write and those who do not. There was less when it first began but nowadays there's often critique on the io9 boards and many Niners provide comments at the writers' websites. When I do the Roll Calls I leave feedback at the sites as well, and follow up with a short blurb/mini review/teensy-weensy summary in the Roll Calls themselves.

Come join us if you like. We'd love to have you, and it's so awesome that people are noticing our little writing group!

Oh cool. I'll check this one out. So much going on. :)