Tell us about your debut novel Scarlet Odyssey. What’s it about, and what inspired you to write it?
Scarlet Odyssey follows a young man whose bookish nature and affinity for magic puts him at odds with the rest of his society, in which the path of books and magic is considered feminine, while the art of warfare is seen as the worthiest masculine pursuit. As the first-born son of a ...Read More
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Penguin Random House US released the results of company’s demographic analysis. CEO Madeline McIntosh says, “I don’t think any of us is likely to be surprised by the data, which show that our company, like our industry, is far too homogeneous. But seeing what we generally know to be true documented this way is hard: the distance we have to travel to become a truly diverse company feels all the ...Read More
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The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced Howard David Ingham and Claire Fitzpatrick as recipients of the 2020 Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-fiction Writing. The fund committee is empowered annually to award a “flexible amount.” The fund is named for a former president of HWA who died in 2014.
Most of the other HWA scholarships were previously announced.
For more information, including rules for applying for HWA scholarships (many of ...Read More
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The inaugural shortlist for the Diverse Book Awards, created “to highlight the best of the diverse voices published in the UK during 2019, both traditionally and self-published,” has been announced. Works of genre interest follow.
Best Children’s
Best Young Adult
Best Adult
Selkie Summer, Ken MacLeod (NewCon Press 978-1-912950-63-8, £9.99, 141pp, tp) May 2020. Cover by Ben Baldwin.
In Selkie Summer, Ken MacLeod has given us – or me, anyway – something quite unlike what I would have expected from the deviser of Newton’s Wake: A Space Opera or The Execution Channel. Its first half operates as a romance with metaphysical/supernatural complications: university student Siobhan Ross, working a summer ...Read More
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Powell’s Books has named Patrick Bassett as its new CEO. Bassett is a business consultant and was previously working with Powell’s as an adviser.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Powell’s permanently closed its store location at Portland International Airport. The store in Beaverton OR is the only Powell’s location to have fully reopened since shutting in March 2020. Its main store in downtown Portland OR remains partially open, and the ...Read More
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Temporary by Hilary Leichter (Coffee House) and How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang (Riverhead) are on the seven-title shortlist for the 2020 First Novel Prize, given by the Center for Fiction “to honor the best debut fiction of the year.”
The shortlist and winners are decided by “a committee of distinguished American writers.” The winner will be announced during the Center’s Annual Benefit & Awards ...Read More
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Shortlists for the 2020 Books Are My Bag (BAMB) Readers Awards have been announced, including titles and authors of genre interest in the following categories:
Fiction
Poetry
Children’s Fiction
Young Adult Fiction
The Adventure of the Naked Guide, Cynthia Ward (Aqueduct Press 978-1619761797, $9.99, 116pp, tp) February 2020.
Five years ago, I would never have believed that I’d coincidentally read for review, back-to-back, four books, in every one of which there’s a romance between two women. But the increased frequency with which I read such books means that I no longer so desperately look for them to be good: I no ...Read More
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The October 2020 issue of Locus magazine has interviews with Naomi Kritzer and Marshall Ryan Maresca and spotlights on Ho Che Anderson and Francesca Myman. Main Stories are “Sargent Leaves Macmillan”, “Diversity in Publishing Initiatives”, and the Dragon, Sunburst, Seiun, and Ditmar Awards winners. People & Publishing includes notes on milestones, awards, books sold, and more, with news this issue about Howard V. Hendrix, Walter ...Read More
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