How to Write a Short Story: The Basics

7 long videos by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning writer and editor

Kristine Kathryn Rusch won a Hugo Award for both her editing and her short fiction, the only person in history to do so. She is the only writer in history to be in all four Dell Magazines (Asimov’s, Ellery Queen, Analog, and Hitchcock’s) in the same year. And she has done that in numbers of years now.

Nominated for every major award in short fiction in varied genres for both editing and writing, she has won a number of them.

In these videos, Kris lays out the basics of how to write a short story.


Your Instructor


Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy (including the Fey series, the Retrieval Artist series and the Diving series), award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance.

Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.

Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.

She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own.

She lives in Las Vegas, NV.


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