<![CDATA[Tiffani Angus - Blog]]>Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:31:38 +0100Weebly<![CDATA[Cymera: Had a Blast as Usual]]>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:50:47 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/cymera-had-a-blast-as-usualThis past weekend (well, more of a week!), I was in Edinburgh for the SFF/H book festival Cymera. It's one of my favorites, and the organizers get the best authors on the panels, and I end up with a TBR pile that is threatening to take over my life! I even got to be in the audience for Stephen Graham Jones's interview (the man can write a book in 2 months; I love his stuff yet want to throw him in the sea!). 

I went up to Edinburgh a few days before the festival started to run the inaugural Masterclass. We set this up for newer writers to help them get more experience in critiquing, help them learn how to stat editing their own work, and give them information on the publishing industry. I think it went pretty well, and I am interested to hear from the participants on their experience. Then, on Friday before the convention even really got fully going, I ran a workshop on Folk Horror and then another one on Writing Witches. I ran the latter one twice last year (once online), and sold out both; this one was packed, too. Seems writers can't get enough of witches! So by Friday at 4 I was pretty well wiped out, and then everyone showed up and the festival actually began. I took it easy and just went to panels and hung out with friends, which was fab. 

If you can go, I highly recommend it. You can find more info on this year's festival here. ]]><![CDATA[New Pod/Video cast about Spec Fic for Newbies full of opinions, info, and a few shenanigans!]]>Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:33:26 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/new-podvideo-cast-about-spec-fic-for-newbies-full-of-opinions-info-and-a-few-shenanigansVal and I are gearing up for the release of Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 3 (the third and last of the SFfN writing guides), and last week we sat down with Daniel Willcocks from The Writer's Chair podcast (also a video cast). Daniel asked us questions about writing, about the Spec Fic for Newbies series, and about our lives as writers. We laughed a lot and made lots of faces, and now you can see it, too! Just mosey on over here or find the podcast wherever you listen to/download podcasts. 
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]]><![CDATA[Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 3 is coming soon!]]>Sat, 29 Nov 2025 17:15:48 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/spec-fic-for-newbies-vol-3-is-coming-soonAnd here's a look at the topics it'll cover!
If you're interested in pre-order info when it goes live, sign up for my newsletter:


A Sneak Peek at the Table of Contents for Vol 3 (coming Easter 2026!):
  • Space Academies
  • Superheroes
  • Terraforming Tales
  • Mad Scientists
  • Space Westerns
  • SF Procedurals
  • Meta SF
  • SpyFi
  • Searches for God in Space
  • End of the Universe
  • Dinosaurs
  • Archaeologists
  • Hollow Earth
  • Elves
  • Magic Schools & Dark Academia
  • Wizards & Sorcerers
  • Magical Realism
  • Anthropomorphic Fantasy
  • Fantasy of Manners
  • Swashbuckling Fantasy
  • Weird Fiction
  • Urban Gothic
  • Shapeshifters
  • Birthing Monsters
  • Alien Abductions
  • Fungal Horror
  • Bugs!!!
  • Kaiju
  • Deals With the Devil
  • Near Death Experiences
]]><![CDATA[My most recent newsletter looks at the flaw in time management]]>Fri, 10 Oct 2025 16:07:22 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/my-most-recent-newsletter-looks-at-the-flaw-in-time-managementTime Management for Writers? It's ME Management

​I like to be organized, but no matter what I can’t seem to expand the practice of having a day planner/phone/computer calendars that contain all my deadlines and birthdays and random events to the rest of my life, especially my life as a writer, into making me feel truly organized. I like to read about time management, different organizational styles, how our brains tend to deal with these things, etc., but reading about it and actually implementing it are two different things. And it finally dawned on me why…

Time Management doesn’t exist.

We can’t “manage” something that’s nebulous. Time just is. The disconnect between “time management” and the difficulty in doing it should have dawned on me much sooner than this because I used to teach time travel literature and time & narrative back when I was still a lecturer. Time travel narratives are some of my favorite stories, and thinking about how we put stories together—the choices we make with chronology, disordered scenes, pacing, etc.—is one of my favorite things to think about as far as writing. One of the most fun things to do in these classes while I was talking about how humans have thought about the concept of time over the centuries was to ask my student to come up with a definition for time that did NOT use the word time. You try it. It’s difficult because you need to explain the concept of time to define time. We can’t think outside that box, at least not without maybe being genius physicists, and even then I don’t think so.
Well, if we can’t manage time, what can we manage?

Sadly, there is only one answer, and it sucks: ourselves.

Time management is ME management. It’s managing my choices and habits, breaking out of ruts, and following the rules and processes I set to make me put my receipts away in a place I can find them later, get up at a certain time, actually get some damn exercise, and plan meals. It’s all the stuff we hate to do because it’s just so LIFE-y. And for writers, it’s also not just writing but finishing things, editing them, planning publication schedules, and setting up marketing (if we are self-pubbing) or learning the get-an-agent dance and everything else involved in trad publishing. It’s doing all of that without letting the LIFE-y stuff get in the way or using it as an excuse.

So no, sorry, there will never be more than 24 hours in a day (and boy do they go by quickly), but we will always inhabit our bodies during that time, and while we can’t add more hours to the day we can decide to do the things we know we have to do even if we don’t wanna. So then we can do the things we want to do. Because ME management isn’t only the daily LIFE-y stuff, it’s also the stuff that makes us happy and reminds us that a) this is it (there is no do-over) and b) life can be pretty damn fun sometimes.

Time management for writers: remember that you love to write so it’s not a chore but a joy (even when it’s not).
Go forth and practice ME Management. You’ll be a happier writer.

​Want to subscribe to my newsletter? Add your email address here: https://buttondown.com/TiffaniAngus ]]><![CDATA[Sometimes a meme says it all]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2025 10:59:25 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/sometimes-a-meme-says-it-all
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]]><![CDATA[I'm a double British Fantasy Society Award finalist this year!]]>Tue, 15 Jul 2025 12:01:42 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/im-a-double-british-fantasy-society-award-finalist-this-yearPicture
Recently, I made the British Fantasy Society (BFS) shortlist for two awards!

Best Non-Fiction:
Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 2: A Beginner's Guide to Writing More Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
This means that the Spec Fic for Newbies series, by me and co-author Val Nolan, has made the BFS awards shortlist twice after Volume 1 was a finalist last year. Go to the Spec Fic tab at the top of the page to read more.

Best Short Story:
"The Oracle at Dairy" published in Trembling with Fear via HorrorTree.com, September 2024 (read it free here)
It's my first time being a finalist for a short story award, so I'm pretty chuffed. The story is a kinda twisted mishmash of the Oracle at Delphi and a nursery rhyme with a dash of helicopter parenting thrown in! 

The awards will be announced at the combined British Fantasycon/World Fantasy Convention in Brighton over the Halloween weekend. For more info on that: https://worldfantasy2025.co.uk/
]]><![CDATA[Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 2 getting accolades!]]>Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:41:33 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/spec-fic-for-newbies-vol-2-getting-accoladesSpec Fic for Newbies Volume 2 was recently shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association's award for Best (Long) Nonfiction! My co-author Val and I were well chuffed because Vol 1 was also a finalist in the same category last year. The BSFA awards will be announced at Eastercon in Belfast later this month.

Additionally, Vol 2 made the Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List (as Vol 1 did last year), which means it is on the voting list for the Locus Awards. EVERYONE can vote until April 15!

See the full list here: https://locusmag.com/2025/02/2024-recommended-reading-list/
Vote here: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com/

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]]><![CDATA[UK Ghost Story Festival 2025 & Anthology (with a story from me!)]]>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 15:29:39 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/uk-ghost-story-festival-2025-anthology-with-a-story-from-mePicture
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​February is UK Ghost Story Festival month! The online event is 14th-16th February and includes over a dozen writing workshops, talks, and author and filmmaker interviews, including a workshop I'm running on Saturday the 15th at 12.30-1.30 called "Who's Haunting You?" in which I will lead writers through a deep dive into the types of ghosts and spirits and how knowing who's haunting you can influence your story. For more info and to get tickets, go here. 

The in-person event is 21-23 February at the Museum of Making in Derby. The schedule is chock-full of talks, panels, interviews and workshops. Find more info here and book tickets for individual events here. 
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Alex Davis, who runs the festival plus several other horror-related events during the year, has put together an anthology of stories from several of the writers who take part in the festival. It's called Spirit Seasons, and I have a story in it called "Hill Witch", about a witch making do without a teacher, a very wicked crone with a family grudge and a bone to pick, and the spirit of a horseback mountain midwife who's been stuck between worlds for a very long time. The anthology is available either at the in-person event or vis post. here are limited copies, so find it here. ​
]]><![CDATA[Another story just in time for Halloween!]]>Thu, 17 Oct 2024 10:00:06 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/another-story-just-in-time-for-halloweenPicture
Horror Tree has been a really supportive place since Spec Fic for Newbies came out (check out our video interview with them over on Horror Tree's YouTube channel), and just recently they published my short story "The Oracle at Dairy".

The story was inspired by a nursery rhyme and a really dumb play on words (Oracle at Delphi, get it? I said it was dumb!). But the story itself is about the lengths you go to protecting those you love, and how sometimes you miss what's right in front of you. So read it here, for free!

]]><![CDATA[Just in Time for Halloween: I Have New Horror Story Out With Black Shuck Books]]>Thu, 03 Oct 2024 10:23:09 GMThttps://www.tiffani-angus.com/blog/just-in-time-for-halloween-i-have-new-horror-story-out-with-black-shuck-booksPicture
Black Shuck Books has just released its newest anthology, Great British Horror 9: Something Peculiar, which includes my newest short story "Until the Wheel Spins Round Again." The story is about a woman who flips houses for a living, and her newest acquisition is, well, odd, and then the pandemic hits. At night, she hears a baby crying, and she finds curious items hidden behind walls. As you move forward in time with our house flipper, you discover the story of a girl who lived in the same house 400 years earlier, but her story is told backwards until their tales--and situations--overlap. 

In addition to my story, there are new stories from several other authors including the always fabulous Grady Hendrix, Michael Marshall Smith, Jonathan Oliver, Rosanne Rabinowitz, and others. Order through Black Shuck Books or at any book retailer. 
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