Several people have asked for my current pro-rates markets list for short fiction. The following are periodicals only (i.e. no anthologies) broken out by genre, and listed in order of highest paying to lowest.
Here you go, listed in or:

All Genre
New Yorker
Atlantic Monthly
Playboy
Saturday Evening Post

Science Fiction/Fantasy
Tor.com
Cobblestone
Heliotrope
Clarkesworld
F&SF
DailySF
The Pedestal
Analog
Chizine
Pulp Fic Press
Realms of Fantasy
Asimov's
OSC's Medicine
Lightspeed
Abyss&Apex
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Grantville Gazette

There's a conversation going on at the always controversial blog of Dean Wesley Smith. The post itself is interesting for its unconventional wisdom, but it is the comments that are important. In it, several authors with pub credits in the dozens and loads of literary experience talk explicitly about contract terms, money management, professionalism, and negotiations. They compare notes, go into deep detail, and it is absolutely essential reading for ALL authors-indie or newbie or podcast or mainstream established.

At my home page I've been doing a blog series on the Principles of Contracts. It's hard to ask for a better illustration of my point - that all freelance artists must be competent in contracts - than this story.

Pursuant to this post on my blog at jdsawyer.net, I'm officially opening The Great Ass-Moving Competition. You can find the forum on which the competition will proceed here. Enjoy!

I got the following questions from Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn blog and podcast about the purpose and direction of the association:

Q: In terms of education, will the Assn offer its own courses or will members be able to put their own up? e.g. can I submit my Blogging for Authors course? or is it all for free, in which case we could all submit our free resources - ebooks etc.

Welcome to the madness, everyone. As you can see, the site is still taking shape, so pull up a user account, post a forum topic, and let's get the conversation going :-)

As unceremonious as it must seem, this little entry is the inaugural post of what will hopefully become a tremendously fruitful endeavor for all present. My first question is to those of you interested in the association:
1) any of you good with Drupal?
2) what kind of articles/resources would benefit you most, soonest?

Chime in in the comments section!