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Barbara Young was really the person in charge of fiction for Dragon at this point--and for a large part of the magazine's run. Cheers, Jim Lowder

Agreed. And KotDT has been somewhat badly served by the frequent changes--is it fiction or is it non-fiction, or is it something else altogether? The awards would certainly benefit from a set of stable baseline definitions created to make it clear to publishers and even the jurors what is and is...

The first few books in the Dark Horse series sold very, very well, rivaling some of the Realms releases of the time. Not long after the second book came out and did quite well, someone in the front office suggested that we immediately put some game products onto the schedule to capitalize on the...

Some of the creator-owned books sold extremely well. A few outsold some of the mid-tier shared-world titles. The TSR Books titles were, however, inconsistent sellers. One release would do brilliantly and the next would not do as well. The books required more advertising and more individualized...

Having a strong local base helps. However you can still draw attendees under the right circumstances. (Indianapolis is not all that far from Columbus, after all.) Origins is still a fun show, but it currently benefits from few of those circumstances. Origins has always been known as a...

There are all kinds of byzantine industry and personal politics that play into what companies participate in the Origins Awards. Some publishers have gotten annoyed at rules changes over the years--usually the ones having to do with how much control publishers have over submissions or the vote...

Absolutely. I started with a good collection, but I ended up buying at least a dozen games after Hobby Games: The 100 Best and am on my way to that number from Family Games. Some were games I hadn't heard much about, others were titles I'd heard of, but I didn't understand what it was that...

Family Games: The 100 Best, the companion volume to Hobby Games: The 100 Best, has finally gone off to the printer. Should be back and available in a couple of weeks. In the book, the top game designers and publishers write about the most enjoyable, most cleverly designed titles of the last one...

Indeed. Working with a bad editor or someone who is a bad fit for a particular project can be nightmarish. Been there, more than once. This can be an especially soul-draining experience when dealing with a license or shared-world, when you may have several different editors or licensing people...

Most writers work better with an editor. Editors can be a constraint, but a good editor can help a writer clarify his or her vision. It has to be the right editor, and not all writers are going to find the same editors helpful, but editors are not, by definition, a bad thing. Same with...

Passion is indeed important to any writer, and any process that puts artificial constraints on what or how a writer creates can be deadening. However, you are assuming you can see into someone else's heart, their creative soul. You can't. People write for different motivations and readers or...

Thanks for the update, Tony, and to everyone for all the hard work on the awards. While the topic of this year's awards is on the table, I hope you won't mind if I offer a suggestion. Please consider adding some sort of PR/award acknowledgment of the designers, writers, editors, and artists...

Zeb Cook and I announced we were parting ways with TSR a few days apart. He wrote the "First Quest" column for Dragon #207. Mine ran in #208. I recall editor Dale Donovan mentioning that someone else had done a column around that time who also was leaving the company, but I don't remember who it...

I know of very few writers who do not end up battered by deadlines, no matter how long those deadlines are. Some writers do much better work with a lot of pressure. It forces them to stop dithering, to stop tinkering with every sentence, and just write. Many, many writers still operate on the...

I hadn't looked at the Empires Trilogy Novel Ideas column since it was first published, but your comments prompted me to dig out my copy of Dragon #164. Your notes, and the original article, are worth a reply. Unless you're working on a book "on spec" -- that is, without a contract -- you're...

Hi: I've been trying to get to the site here for a few days to respond to this, but ENWorld has apparently been having site problems of their own. Thanks for the warning. The web staff at Devil's Due has been working on the issue. It's still not clear if the problem was with our hosting site...

Interesting stuff. Always good to get a glimpse into the process. Was there a reason there were no "honorable mentions" this year? Cheers, Jim Lowder

Thanks to the judges for all their hard work. And thanks from Devil's Due for placing Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons among the regalia finalists. We're really proud of how those issues turned out, and, personally, it was great to work on them alongside so many of my old TSR compadres. Cheers...

Thanks to everyone at Origins who voted for Worlds of D&D in the fiction category, and to all the writers and artists who worked on the book! Cheers, James Lowder

Small juries made up of area specialists winnow down the submissions to lists of 10 in each category. The jurors are from the various branches of GAMA, including the Academy, but there are some retailers, etc, on the juries. The lists of 10 semifinalists are then put before the retailers at the...