So, in preparation for Viable Paradise, I’m catching up on stuff the instructors have written/recommended. All good stuff. (And I’m also improving my chess game!) But it occurred to me that a number of my future classmates have been published as well, and it would be nice to read some of their stuff before I show up. If any of my future VP XIV classmates happen by and have anything they want to link to, please leave a comment!
I don’t have anything of my own published (except academic crud), but if challenged to reciprocate I’ll figure something out. (Does anyone know how to put pages behind a password wall with WordPress?)
John P. Murphy 
Test… test… OK, I seem to have not turned off comments entirely. Hopefully moderation is now off by default.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope your Google Fu fails miserably, and you are left with the impression that I’m unpublished or that it was just the one in Necrotic Tissue.
Fair enough — you’ll notice that I’m not jumping up to share either 😉
Congrats on getting into VP, John. Reading up on the instructors is a good thing but I wouldn’t fret too much about your classmates 🙂 I didn’t read any of them until I got to VP and it didn’t hurt.
WordPress – When you create a new page, look over on the right hand side. There should be an option for Visibility and one of those should be Password Protected. That’s how it works on mine, though I’m not hosted at WordPress.com.
Thank you! I’m still a little shocked that I got in, actually, since I don’t have any sales yet. Actually, I came upon your site a few days ago while Googling around to see if acceptance letters had started going out. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the excerpt of your July 7th post!
I found the Visibility option, which does appear to work on the WP-hosted sites too. I’ll play with that a bit and see what happens, thanks!
Heh. I didn’t have any sales prior to VP acceptance. Still don’t really aside from freelance articles and book reviews but I’m getting closer.
In my case last year, I’d been watching the VP mailing list and seeing all the people who had been accepted over the weekend. I counted 13 or 14 people and gave up, figuring I’d been passed over. The acceptance came on Monday morning.
Be prepared for a fun time 🙂
Hey John. I have a few measly publications, but you won’t find me in the New Yorker. And homework? Crap. I have Old Man’s War on my reading queue, but I suppose I might want to bother with one of those other instructor people.
Old Man’s War is excellent. My son is in shock and awe that I am going to meet the author. And if you read The Last Unicorn you will probably love Elisabeth Bear’s harpy in http://www.tor.com/stories/2009/12/the-horrid-glory-of-its-wings
Hmm, it could be fun to make a list of online texts by the instructors, actually. *ponders*
Hi Sylvia!
John Scalzi has a page up with his online texts, which includes one of my favorite short stories, “After the Coup”. I’m not sure what’s available by the other instructors.
Hi John,
I’ll be seeing you in October! *grin* I can’t imagine you want to read most of my published works (academic crud!), but I’m rather easy to google if you’re really motivated (hint: Sarah Goslee Reed is someone else!). I do have a short story in the current (July) issue of Crossed Genres, and a nonfic article in the current issue of Clarkesworld, and I write a lot for Science in My Fiction.
I’m trying to decide what the best way to prep is, or if such a thing exists. Finish my novel draft? More short stories? (re)Reading the complete canon from the instructors? Panic?
Hi Sarah! I really enjoyed “Knack,” thanks for the heads-up. I’ll save the non-fiction article for when I have a bit more time and brain, but it looks fascinating.
Yeah, most of my academic work is probably not for general (or human) consumption either. I’m not sure even my committee read my entire thesis! (Except for one member who even corrected the punctuation in an appendix about file system design)
I’m under the impression that we’re going to get a list of suggested reading in the mail. There was a chess book mentioned at the bottom of this page, which I’ve been reading through.
I would expect to get some such list – might as well make the most of the week by having everyone do as much as possible beforehand. And don’t forget this list, and part II linked at the bottom.
Today I’m working on the mathematics of gradient analysis of satellite imagery… and it was time for a break! Nobody’s ever going to read the paper, but I hope they will cite it anyway. 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed the story – I’m still very proud of myself.
I don’t really know anything about tidally-locked planets, I’m afraid. I’m an ecologist, and the worldbuilding series has actually been Ecology 101 spun for spec fic (don’t tell anyone!). I’m not a geologist by any stretch of the imagination.
Ah, thanks for the list, I hadn’t seen that one.
It’s actually partly the ecology I wanted to pick your brain about — I’ve read up on the gravitational forces and likely weather effects, but I’ve been wondering what the slowing and stopping of a planet’s rotation would do to the environment. No tides, no night/day cycle — but presumably plenty of time to prepare for it.
Oh, hey, at some point I should pick your brain about tidally-locked planets.