The American Booksellers Association (ABA) has appointed Jake Cumsky-Whitlock of Solid State Books in Washington DC and Melanie Knight of Books Inc. in San Francisco CA to the board, to serve until board elections in April 2021. This follows changes to bylaws which “bring the number of board members to 13 (from 11) and that require the board to include at least four booksellers who are Black, Indigenous, or People ...Read More
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Longlists for the National Book Awards (NBA) in the Fiction, Young People’s Literature, and Translated Literature categories have been announced, including titles of genre interest.
The Fiction category includes Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (Ecco), If I Had Two Wings by Randall Kenan (Norton), A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet (Norton), and Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Pantheon).
The Young People’s Literature category includes King and the Dragonflies ...Read More
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Publisher Two Dollar Radio won the 2020 Voice of the Heartland Award, given “to individuals and organizations who uphold the value of independent bookselling and who have made a significant contribution to bookselling in our combined regions.” The award is given by the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association (GLIBA) and the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association (MIBA). Nominating bookseller Gary Lovely of Book Loft in Columbus, OH called them “a shining ...Read More
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Co-editors Coral Alejandra Moore and Eliana González Ugarte announced the creation of Constelación Magazine, “a bilingual magazine of speculative fiction.”
Publishing quarterly, each themed issue will feature original artwork. Stories can be submitted in either English or Spanish; selections will be translated and published in both. Submissions for the first issue open in October, concurrent with the launch Kickstarter.
Joining Moore and Ugarte on staff are Christina Jurado and Libia ...Read More
Read moreAuthor Terry Goodkind, 72, died September 17, 2020. Goodkind was a bestselling writer of epic fantasy.
Born January 11, 1948 in Omaha NE, Goodkind lived in Maine with his wife, Jeri, before they settled near Lake Las Vegas NV. He began publishing his popular Sword of Truth series with novel Wizard’s First Rule (1994) and continued with Stone of Tears (1995), Blood of the Fold (1996), Temple of the Winds ...Read More
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John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Publishers, will be leaving the company and its parent, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, on January 1, 2021 due to “disagreements regarding the direction of Macmillan.” Sargent has held the position since 2012, after originally joining Holtzbrinck in 1996 as CEO of St. Martin’s Press. Don Weisberg, president of Macmillan US Trade, will take Sargent’s place as CEO. Susan Winslow will move from general manager to president ...Read More
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Greg Hullender of Rocket Stack Rank announced that he will be taking an indefinite break from reviewing short stories.
This month marks five years since we started the site, and so it seemed like a good time to pause. Eric will continue to operate the site, producing monthly lists of stories for 11 magazines (with blurbs from the publisher or a few sentences from the story) and aggregating recommendations from ...Read More
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The New York Public Library announced Bryan Washington’s Lot (Atlantic) as the winner of its Young Lions Fiction Award for 2020. The $10,000 prize is awarded by a panel of judges “each year to a writer age 35 or younger for a novel or a collection of short stories.” 2019’s winner was Ling Ma’s Severance (Farrar, Straus, Giroux).
For more information, see the official website.
While you are here, please ...Read More
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Kiran Kaur Saini is the winner of the Speculative Literature Foundation’s (SLF) 2020 Older Writers Grant, which gives $1,000 to writers “fifty years of age or older at the time of grant application, and is intended to assist such writers who are just starting to work at a professional level.” S.E. Greco, Jeff Reynolds, and Graham Robert Scott received Honorable Mentions.
Applications for the Older Writers Grant are considered from ...Read More
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The shortlist for the 2020 Prix Utopiales Bande Dessinée (for best French comic book) has been announced.
As previously reported, finalists for the 2020 Prix Utopiales (for best French SF) and Prix Utopiales Jeunesse Awards
EMILY INKPEN is now represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.
MÁRIO SEABRA COELHO is now represented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency.
JOSHUA WINNING is now represented by Kristina Perez of Zeno Agency.
YUDHANJAYA WIJERATNE is now represented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency.
ANGUS WATSON is now represented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency.
PETER S. BEAGLE won the Jack Trevor Story Memorial Prize/Prix du Goncourt, ...Read More
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Conjunctions and One Story are among the winners of the 2020 Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes, which “are awarded in print and digital categories to smaller and mid-sized journals with budgets of up to $500,000.” Conjunctions receives a grant of $10,000, with matching grants of up to $10,000 per year for the next two years. One Story receives a grant of $20,000, with matching grants of up to $20,000 per year ...Read More
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The Omega Sci-Fi Awards, presented by Sci-Fest LA and the Light Bringer Project, are now open for entries in the following competitions:
The Roswell Award short story competition is open to writers 16 years old and up. First place winner receives $500 and access to the UCLA Extension writers’ program. Second prize is $250, and third prize is $100. The Women Hold Up Half the Sky Award, co-presented by Artemis ...Read More
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The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Pantheon) and They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott & Harmony Becker (Top Shelf) are among the winners of the 41st American Book Awards, to be presented October 25, 2020 in an online ceremony. The awards are given by the Before Columbus Foundation for “outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.”
For more information, see ...Read More
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The Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF) have announced the winners of their annual writers’ grants:
Each will receive $100. The grants are “inclusive to all women who have reasonably demonstrated a commitment to writing in the horror genre” and were funded by Cemetery Gates Media, S.H. Cooper, Andrew Cull, Laurel
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (OneWorld) is on the six-title shortlist for the 2020 Booker Prize.
The £50,000 prize is “open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland.” This year’s judges are Margaret Busby (chair), Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson.
Shortlisted authors receive £2,500 and a “specially bound edition of their book.” Winners will be announced November
The European Science Fiction Society (ESFS) Hall of Fame Awards, Achievement Awards, and Chrysalis Award nominees have been announced, along with the names of the nominating countries.
Hall of Fame Awards:
Best Author
Sudden Traveller by Sarah Hall (Faber) is one of five titles shortlisted for the 2020 Edge Hill Prize for Short Story.
The £10,000 prize is given to “a single-authored collection of short stories” by writers born or residing in the UK or Ireland. Judges for 2020 are Zayneb Allak, Sara Hunt, and David Szalay. Winners will be announced in November.
For more information, including the complete shortlist, see the Edge ...Read More
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The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the 2020 Dwarf Stars Award winners.
The Dwarf Stars Award is given by the SFPA to recognize the best speculative poem of one to ten lines published in the previous ...Read More
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Margaret Atwood has won the 2020 Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, given by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize to “writers whose work uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” Sharon Rab, founder and chair of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, said,
In a career spanning more than half a century, Margaret Atwood continues to remind us that “it can’t happen here” ...Read More
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The five-title BBC National Short Story Award shortlist has been announced, with works by authors of genre interest including “In the Car With the Rain Coming Down” by Jan Carson, “The Grotesques” by Sarah Hall, and “Scrimshaw” by Eley Williams. This is the fourth time Hall has been shortlisted for the award.
The winner will be announced live on BBC Radio 4 Front Row on October 6, 2020. The winning ...Read More
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Mark Teppo announced that his publishing projects will no longer operate under the Resurrection House name, with his Firebird Creative projects now appearing under the Underland Press and Underland Arcana banners. Speaking of: Underland Press has launched a new quarterly publication, Underground Arcana, with work inspired by the Minor Arcana of the tarot, launching in Fall 2020. The press has published two anthologies inspired by the major arcana (XII ...Read More
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Hachette UK has established a free fiction development program for “new, unagented and unpublished [writers] from a B.A.M.E (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) background with a novel that you hope to submit within 3-6 months of completing the workshops.” Authors in the UK and Ireland are eligible to apply. The program includes mentoring packages and online workshops with established editors, authors, and agents.
The application window closes September 14, 2020 at ...Read More
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Bearmouth (Pushkin Children’s) by Liz Hyder is the winner of the 2020 Branford Boase Award. Hyder and editor Sarah Odedina were both honored in an online ceremony September 9, 2020. Shortlisted titles included A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby (Egmont) and Frostheart by Jamie Littler (Puffin).
The Branford Boase is “awarded annually for an outstanding first novel to a first-time writer of a book for young people. At the ...Read More
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The Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award) is currently accepting applications for Otherwise Fellowships, providing $500 grants “for emerging creators who are changing the way we think about gender through speculative narrative…. Otherwise Fellows can be writers, artists, scholars, media makers, remix artists, performers, musicians, or something else entirely.”
The Fellowships are “designed to provide support and recognition for the new voices who are making visible the forces that are ...Read More
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In July 2020 there was an SF/F festival. Live, not virtual. It ran from July 14-19, with international guests and visitors, editors, artists, film-makers, translators, and fans. I’ve just come back from it, and I shall explain.
Celsius 232 is a festival in Avilés, in Asturias, in Northern Spain. It has run for nine years, over which it’s become a major Spanish festival, with the ability to attract international guests ...Read More
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Walter Mosley will receive the National Book Foundation‘s 2020 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, to be presented by author Edwidge Danticat. David Steinberger, chair of the NBF Board of Directors, said,
Mosley is a master of craft and narrative, and through his incredibly vibrant and diverse body of work, our literary heritage has truly been enriched. From mysteries to literary fiction to nonfiction, Mosley’s talent and memorable characters ...Read More
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The Sidewise Awards, given for alternate history literature, will not be presented in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, two years’ worth of awards, covering works published in 2019 and 2020, will be presented at DisCon III, the 79th Worldcon, to be held August 25-29, 2021 in Washington DC. Sidewise Award founder Steven H Silver said,
It’s disappointing that global circumstances have forced us to delay our awards selection ...Read More
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Winners of the ninth annual Niels Klim Award were announced September 6, 2020 during Fantasticon, the Danish fantastika convention, which was held virtually this year.
Translated
Children and Young
Novelette
Dragon Con announced the winners of the 2020 Dragon Awards in an online ceremony on September 6, 2020.
Best Science Fiction Novel
The winners for the 2020 Norma K. Hemming Award have been announced.
Short Fiction (stories up to 17,500 words)
“For He Can Creep” by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com 7/19) is the winner of the 2020 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction, announced at Dragon Con, held online September 3-7, 2020. Other finalists were:
