Minutes, 1999-04-11
Recorded by Bryn Neuenschwander
Sent to hrsfa-announce, 12 Apr 14:25
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Through dying computers and damaged BIOSes, your Infernal Secretary
forges ahead to bring you a slightly delayed version of what are quite
possibly the shortest minutes in the history of HRSFA.

We met in Science Center E, away from our usual venue.  Burstein talked.
It was good.  Meeting adjourned.

Some details from his talking, for those of you who are interested:

He discussed his time at Harvard, how he came to write short stories, do's
and don'ts of writing, etc.  "You guys look familiar.  I think it's
because you look like HRSFA ten years ago."  He read from a recent short
story of his, "Cosmic Corkscrew," written in honor of the 60th anniversary
of Asimov's first story.  It is available on his webpage, as are many of
his writings; this page is linked to HRSFA's, so go read his stuff.

Recommended things for writers: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,
The Elements of Fiction Writing series (Card's book on characterization in
particular, but skip the one on dialogue and the one on manuscript
submission), Card's How To Write Fantasy and Science Fiction (or some
title to that effect).  Hal Clement was cited as a writer's writer, the
guy writers look to in order to find out how to write.

Recommended things to read: The Big Three (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke),
Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Peter David, Diane Duane, Gordon R. Dickson,
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Nancy Kress, Lawrence Block, Vernor Vinge,
Hugo-winning stories. If you want to publish in a magazine, read a bunch of
issues of it to find out what sort of stories they're oriented toward.