2023 Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants Winners

The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) announced that Ysabelle Cheung has won the 2023 Diverse Writers Grant for “Please, Get Out and Dance”, and Edward Rathke the 2023 Diverse Worlds Grant for “The Wicked Flee”.

The Diverse Writers Grant is “intended to support new and emerging writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups, such as writers of color, women, queer writers, disabled writers, working-class writers, etc. — those whose marginalized identities may ...Read More

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Kimberley Atkins Named Head of Zeus Publishing Director

Kimberley Atkins has joined Head of Zeus as fiction publishing director, where she will “spearhead the strategy and publishing for the company’s Aria, Aries and Apollo Fiction imprints.”

Atkins was previously editorial director at Hodder & Stoughton, commissioning commercial women’s fiction.

Atkins said,

I am delighted to be joining the dynamic team at Head of Zeus and to help shape their fiction publishing across the Aria, Aries and Apollo lists. ...Read More

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2023 Writing NSW Diverse Writers Mentorship Recipients

Writing NSW has announced the recipients of its 2023 Diverse Writers Mentorship. Writers in the the program have the opportunity to work on a short story under the mentorship of writer Eugen Bacon and with the support of Writing NSW, with the eventual goal of publication. The nine selected writers are Celine Eigner, Tamara Haque, Michelle Huynh, Andrew John, Teneale Lavender, Hiromi Matsuoka, Annie McCann, Guan Un, and Cherry Zheng. ...Read More

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Milford Readers & Writers Festival

The Virginia Kidd Agency and Arrowhead SF Foundation are running the sixth annual SF branch of the Milford Readers & Writers festival, to be held September 22-24, 2023 in Milford PA.

This year’s panel is “The Monsters That Make Us”, September 23, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. at the Pike County Library. The event will feature authors Carol Gyzander, Robert Levy,  Charles E. Gannon, Stephanie Feldman, and Karen Heuler as the ...Read More

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Inaugural Black To The Future Festival

Irenosen Okojie MBE, in collaboration with the British Library and the Royal Society of Literature, have announced the inaugural Black to the Future festival, an “Afro-Futurist celebration of outstanding Black artists, a space for visionary imaginings to thrive.”

The festival begins the end of October, and runs until February 2024, and accompanies the British Library’s Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibit. The theme for this year is Black Phantasmagoria. The festival ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, September 2023

AWARDS

RICHARD BLEILER won the 2023 Munsey Award, given at Pulpfest to “an individual or or­ganization that has bettered the pulp community.” Nominees were selected by the general pulp com­munity, with the winner selected by a vote of past Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Awards winners.

CARYL LEWIS’s Drift (Double­day UK) was the Overall Win­ner at the Wales Book of the Year Award for English-language works, and also won the ...Read More

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Le Guin Short Films on LitHub

The Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation has announced The Journey That Matters, a six-installment series of short films featuring never-before-seen footage of Le Guin discussing her life and childhood, her writing, and more, as well as interviews with adrienne maree brown, Julie Phillips, Nisi Shawl, and others.

The series was created by director Arwen Curry in collaboration with with the foundation. The shorts contain unused raw material from Curry’s ...Read More

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HWA Staff Changes

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced that Maxwell I. Gold is the new executive director, replacing Brad Hodson. Gold was previously the treasurer for the HWA Board of Trustees; his role as treasurer will be filled by Michael Knost.

Gold said,

I am honored to have this opportunity to serve the Horror Writers Association in this capacity. The HWA is the oldest literary organization serving the horror and dark ...Read More

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Spin Your Science Contest

The India Science Festival (ISF) has announced their flagship SF writing contest, Spin Your Science. They welcome submissions of SF stories and poems up to 1,500 words in length.

The top three winners will receive prizes “up to INR 30,000” (about $365) and will be chosen by a jury consisting of Sami Ahmad Khan, Arati Kadav, Samuel Peralta, and Shiv Ramdas. The top 20 finalists will receive detailed feedback, and ...Read More

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Zombies Need Brains Call for Subs

Publisher Zombies Need Brains, LLC has announced a call for submissions for two upcoming anthologies, Familiars and Last-Ditch.

Familiars is to feature science fiction, fantasy, or urban fantasy stories where the story revolves around some type of animal familiars (or human familiar). We would like a wide variety of genre settings for this anthology. In other words, we don’t want the entire anthology to be urban fantasy settings. As ...Read More

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Fabulist Flash Call for Submissions

The Fabulist Flash, a new flash-fiction project from The Fabulist Words & Art, welcomes submissions of fantastical and speculative writings of up to 1,000 wordsfrom November 6-12, 2023.
The Fabulist Flash will debut in 2024, and run in parallel to our current short-fiction programming. We’re paying a flat fee of $100 for stories of up to 1,000 words (the equivalent of an SFWA-qualifying rate of $0.10/word), payable upon contracted acceptance.
...Read More Read more

ALA Awards Young Adult Sci-Fi Great Stories Club Grant

The American Library Association (ALA) has announced that it is awarding 29 libraries with implementation grants for a Great Stories Club program with the theme, “Imagining Tomorrow: Building Inclusive Futures.”

The reading list consists of five recent Young Adult science fiction novels:

  • Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Teen)
  • Across a Field of Starlight, Blue Delliquanti (Random House Graphic)
  • The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline (Dancing
...Read More Read more

Manchess Holiday Stamps

Artist Gregory Manchess created four new stamps for the US Postal Service to celebrate the winter holiday season:

Celebrating the spirit of the holidays, the U.S. Postal Service captures the playful pleasure of Christmas snow globes on four new stamps. Each Snow Globes stamp features an artist’s rendition of a wintertime or seasonal motif.

In each of the four stamps, artist Gregory Manchess used oil paint to reproduce the magic ...Read More

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Changes to SFWA Membership Requirements

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced that poetry and translated fiction are now accepted as qualifying works for membership in the organization. The decision is the result of a vote by members to reverse previous referendums disallowing poetry and translated fiction from counting towards qualification.

We’re excited to welcome poets and translators into the fold, joining prose, game, comics, graphic novel, and screenwriters working on traditional, ...Read More

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Worldcon 2025 Site Selection Open

Chengdu Worldcon has opened site selection voting for the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in 2025. The only active bid is Seattle WA, though write-in bids are also allowed.

Voting is open only to members “who have successfully purchased WSFS memberships and voting rights through the official website” of Chengdu Worldcon. Per the announcement sent by email, “Ballots sent in via postal mail or email must be ...Read More

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City Dedicates Avenue to Octavia E. Butler

On July 29, 2023, the city of Lake Forest Park, WA held a ceremony to name a section of 37th Avenue NE “Octavia Butler Avenue,” in honor of author Octavia E. Butler. The section includes the house where Butler lived from 1999 until her death in 2006. The ceremony was opened by city council vice-chair Phillippa Kassover, deputy mayor Tom French, and council member Tracy Furutani. Other speakers included Caren ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, August 2023

MILESTONES

ROBERT SILVERBERG has written a story, his first since retiring over a decade ago, set to appear in Analog: “It is all of three sentences long, a takeoff on Fredric Brown’s classic story ‘Knock’…. I first sold a story to Analog in 1955, 68 years ago. That doesn’t quite equal Jack Williamson’s record of longevity – he sold a serial to them when he was in his nineties, 74

...Read More Read more

People & Publishing Roundup, July 2023

MILESTONES

Author CHARLES YU has joined the Board of Directors for the National Book Foundation.

AWARDS

CATRIONA WARD’s Sundial (Macmillan) won Best Hardcover Novel in the Thriller Awards, presented by the International Thriller Writers and announced June 3, 2023 at ThrillerFest XVIII in New York City.

AYANNA LLOYD BANWO’s When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton) won the £2,500 Best First Novel Award from the Au­thors’ Club, open to ...Read More

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Bradbury Panel from LoA

The Library of America is hosting an online panel, “The Enduring Genius of Ray Bradbury“, on July 19, 2023 from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. PDT.

In The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, and other visionary works melding science fiction, horror, fantasy, and high literature, Ray Bradbury electrified readers and inspired generations of genre-bending younger writers. Acclaimed authors Connie Willis and Kelly Link join LOA Bradbury editor Jonathan R.

...Read More Read more

2023 SF&F Hall of Fame Inductees

The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) announced the 2023 inductees to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame: N.K. Jemisin and John Carpenter were honored as Creators, while Dune by Frank Herbert and Rocky Horror Picture Show and were honored as Creations. Inductees are added to the SF&F Hall of Fame display in the museum.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 and then relocated from ...Read More

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Hal-Con 2023

One of the earliest examples of proto-science fiction in Japan is the tale of Urashima Taro, in which young fisherman briefly descends to a palace at the bottom of the sea and rises back to a world of the future, altered beyond recognition. For some of us, that’s an image that might describe our recent experience of the world. But here in Japan, where such symbols are as bountiful ...Read More

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British Library Fantasy Literature Exhibition

The British Library has announced an upcoming exhibition titled Fantasy: Realms of Imagination.

From ancient texts to anime, Sir Gawain to The Sandman, fairy tales and films to graphic novels, video games and fan culture, this exhibition dives deep into some of fantasy literature’s defining moments. Spanning centuries and continents, the exhibition illustrates the varied ways in which readers are enchanted by fantasy, which can serve as both an escape ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, June 2023

MILESTONES

OGHENECHOVWE DONALD EKPEKI has been appointed vir­tual conference coordinator for the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts.

EUGEN BACON is now rep­resented by Jennie Goloboy of Donald Maass Literary Agency.

JONNY NEXUS is now repre­sented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

AWARDS

DEBORAH P KOLODJI has been awarded the President’s Lifetime Service Award, given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association for “service throughout the years, ...Read More

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SFWA AI Statement

The Board of Directors of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has released a statement on the use of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to produce text. The Board

has been monitoring the rapidly evolving technological and legal landscape as it pertains to machine-generated works. We continue to hold conversations inside our organization, as evidenced by our recent call for posts that brought in a wide variety ...Read More

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Clarion West Write-a-thon Open to Registration

Clarion West‘s largest annual fundraising event, the 2023 Write-a-thon, has opened registration. Participants set and work on six-week writing goals, and friends and family are encouraged to pledge donations in support. Participants will also have access to Write-a-thon events and the option to create an individual Write-a-thon fundraising page.

The Write-a-thon runs from June 25 to August 5, 2023, during the same time frame as Clarion West’s Six-Week Workshop. For ...Read More

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HWA Scholarships Open

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced that the submission window for HWA scholarships, grants, and endowments are open from June 1, 2023 to August 1, 2023. You do not need to be a member of the organization to apply.

Available programs include The Horror Writers Association Scholarship, The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship, Diversity Grants, The Dark Poetry Scholarship, The Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-fiction, The Dennis Etchison Young ...Read More

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SFWA 2023 Election Results and Membership Eligibility Changes

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced the results of its election for open Board of Directors positions. Positions for re-election included President, Secretary, and three Director-At-Large positions. New Board members include:

Directors-at-Large:

  • Phoebe Barton
  • Chelsea Mueller

Effective July 1, 2023, they will join continuing Board members Jeffe Kennedy (president), John Murphy (vice president), Jasmine Gower (secretary), and Erin Hartshorn (chief financial officer). Monica Valentinelli, Jordan Kurella, and

...Read More Read more

Rosson Receives Octavia E. Butler Fellowship

Lois Rosson, a PhD science historian “focusing on visual representations of the space environment,” is the second recipient of the $50,000, year-long Octavia E. Butler Fellowship, given by the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino CA.

Rosson plans to spend her time principally working with The Huntington’s Octavia E. Butler Papers. Butler’s literary vision of space as a place of asylum, Rosson writes, is one of ...Read More

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Locus Awards MC Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Guest Speaker Connie Willis

The Locus SF Foundation is thrilled to announce two esteemed personalities will be headlining the upcoming Locus Awards ceremony. Author Maggie Tokuda-Hall (Love in the Library; The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea; Squad) will bring her wit and personality to the stage as emcee for the event, and legendary science fiction writer Connie Willis will grace the evening as the guest speaker. The Locus Awards will take ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, May 2023

AWARDS

SALMAN RUSHDIE will re­ceive a Hay Festival Medal for Prose for “exceptional work” as one of four “groundbreaking sto­rytellers” during the Hay Festival event in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, to be held May 25 – June 4, 2023.

ARLEY SORG received the fourth annual Space Cowboy Award, for “someone whose work has helped to enhance and support our ever growing and changing field,” administered by Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree ...Read More

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2023 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the top ten finalists in each category of the 2023 Locus Awards. These results are from the February 1 to April 15 voting, done by readers on an open public ballot. Congratulations to all of the finalists!

The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 24, 2023, during the in-person Locus Awards Ceremony, held in the historic Nile Hall at Preservation Park in ...Read More

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Butler Awarded Inaugural Infinity Award

Octavia E. Butler has been named the recipient of the Inaugural Infinity Award. The award is presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) to “posthumously honor acclaimed creators who passed away before they could be considered for a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. This new award aims to recognize that even though those celebrated worldbuilders, storytellers, and weavers of words are no longer with us, their ...Read More

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