The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced their second annual Summer Scares Reading list.
ADULT
YOUNG ADULT
MIDDLE GRADE
The Bookseller has announced 30 from 30, a “super list” of 30 books from the past 30 years of British Book Awards winners as finalists for a one-off award for the best book of the past three decades. Titles of genre interest include Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Myer (Little, Brown), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (Bloomsbury), Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (Scholastic), and The Lovely Bones ...Read More
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The San Francisco Public Library presents “SF by the Bay,” an exhibit and series of events from February 1 – April 30, 2020, showcasing the library’s J. Francis McComas Fantasy and Science Fiction Collection and celebrating the San Francisco Bay Area’s contributions SF art, film, and literature. The exhibit is located on the 3rd floor of the Main Library in the General Collections and Humanities Center, with associated displays located ...Read More
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Hachette Book Group (HBG) has acquired more than 1,000 Disney Book Group titles for the Little, Brown Books for Young Readers line, including numerous titles that have not yet been published, roughly doubling the imprint’s backlist. The deal encompasses YA and middle-grade titles, as well as board books, picture books, and graphic novels.
Disney will continue to publish works that can be developed “across multiple platforms and media,” and will ...Read More
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Welcome to the annual Locus Recommended Reading List!
Published in Locus magazine’s February 2020 issue, the list is a consensus by the Locus editors, columnists, outside reviewers, and other professionals and critics of genre fiction and non-fiction — editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi; reviews editor Jonathan Strahan; reviewers Liz Bourke, Katharine Coldiron, Carolyn Cushman, Paul Di Filippo, Amy Goldschlager, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, John Langan, Russell Letson, Adrienne Martini, Ian Mond,
The longlist for the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize has been announced. Titles of genre interest include:
The annual Dylan Thomas prize, in partnership with Swansea University, awards £30,000 “to the best published or produced literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under.” The judging panel is chaired by Professor Dai Smith
Author and Arc Manor assistant publisher Lezli Robyn will take over as editor of Galaxy’s Edge magazine, per an announcement by Arc Manor publisher Shahid Mahmud via the Galaxy’s Edge Facebook.
As many of you know, Mike Resnick passed away recently. He pretty much single handedly created this magazine with the aim to give writers, particularly newer writers, a new venue for their stories. He was known in the industry ...Read More
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Ted Chiang will be artist in residence at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study for the 2020-21 academic year. He will take part in a two-day workshop, engage with Notre Dame faculty, and participate in weekly seminars. His Exhalation (Knopf) appears on the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2019 list.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. ...Read More
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Michael Chabon will receive the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award “for his service on the board of the MacDowell Colony, for donating the proceeds of several books to organizations that support writers, and for helping to raise funds to assist other authors,” to be presented at the Poets & Writers 50th Anniversary Gala in New York City on March 16, 2020.
Chabon & Ayelet Waldman’s company Escapist Fare ...Read More
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Author and philanthropist James Patterson is offering bonuses (a total of $200,000) to Barnes & Noble booksellers this year in the form of a contest: he will give $300 to the bookseller in each B&N branch who creates the best display, as judged by store managers. He says, “I’m excited about all the recent changes at Barnes & Noble and to see where they go next. But I’ve always been ...Read More
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Co-founders Kay Holt and Bart Leib announced that Crossed Genres Publications is “on indefinite hiatus, effective immediately, with the expectation of permanently closing once our current titles are all out of print.” They will not be producing any new titles, and have canceled their planned anthology, Recognize Fascism, co-edited with Crystal Huff. Holt and Leib said,
The decision to close down Crossed Genres is solely the result of personal ...Read More
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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has announced Michi Trota as their new editor-in-chief, taking over the role from Neil Clarke, who stepped down earlier this year. Trota will be in charge of the organization’s communications and publications, including the SFWA Bulletin. SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal said,
After a candidate search, the board selected Michi Trota to head our publications. We were all impressed with her ...Read More
Read moreRecent Nobel Prize in Fiction Laureate Olga Tokarczuk has announced plans to create a new literary foundation based in Wroclaw, Poland, in a villa previously owned by poet Tymoteusz Karpowicz. The organization will offer scholarships to writers and programmers, as well as educational programs. She wants the foundation to foster international dialogue about the power of literature to impact the spiritual and the physical world, and to address social ills, ...Read More
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The inaugural event in the new ephemera reading series took place on November 6, 2019 at Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto, Canada, featuring Madeline Ashby, Rati Mehrotra, and Kelly Robson, as well as a drag performance by Titus Androgynous and Henrietta VIII. Readings will be held on the first Wednesday of each month and are hosted by PodCastle co-editor Jen R. Albert & fantasy author KT Bryski. Funding is provided ...Read More
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San Diego bookstore Mysterious Galaxy, which was in danger of closing after 27 years of business, has found new owners and will remain open for the foreseeable future. Jenni Marchisotto & Matthew Berger purchased the bookstore and signed a five-year lease on a new location. They said,
We are so excited about our new roles as part of the Mysterious Galaxy family. When we attended the holiday party last Saturday ...Read More
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George R.R. Martin opened Beastly Books on November 30, 2019, located next to the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe NM. Martin said,
We’ve been doing amazing author events at the Jean Cocteau Cinema ever since we reopened the theatre in August, 2013. Dozens of terrific, award-winning, bestselling writers have appeared at the JCC to speak, read, and sign their books… SF writers, mystery writers, historical novelists, romance writers, thriller ...Read More
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Europa SF, the “Pan-European Speculative Fiction Portal,” announced that it will shut down effective December 20, 2019 after seven years of providing English-language news and information covering European fandom. In a Facebook announcement, they cited hosting costs and portal maintenance as the main reasons, and are asking for anyone interested in taking over the portal and domain name to contact them.
[via File770. Edited 12/19/2019 to add the following:]
Cristian ...Read More
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Audible.com has announced their Best of 2019 lists, selected by their editorial team. Titles of genre interest include:
Science Fiction
Publishing firm Blue Corn Creations has gifted $1,000 to create a scholarship for writers of Native American descent who wish to attend the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Blue Corn Creations owner Rob Schmidt said,
We’re excited about developing the next generation of Native superhero, science fiction, and action/adventure stories. To do that, we also need to develop the next generation of Native writers. This scholarship will help accomplish that.
The ...Read More
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The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has named Lois McMaster Bujold the 36th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal said Bujold “has had an undeniable influence on the field of science fiction and fantasy. From the the Vorkosigan Saga, to the Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series, she finds new ways to explore the genre, mixing and matching ...Read More
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Vonda N. McIntyre (1948-2019) has left her literary assets to Clarion West, expressing her wish that “the organization manage her literary copyrights in perpetuity.” She also left a bequest of $387,129 to the program, the largest single financial gift in the organization’s history: “The bequest will bolster the Clarion West endowment, strengthening our mission and ensuring our financial stability for years. Vonda’s extraordinary generosity will allow Clarion West to continue ...Read More
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Administrators Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford announced that Writing the Other‘s financial aid program has been renamed the “Vonda N. McIntyre Sentient Squid Scholarship.” The scholarship began in 2016 when McIntyre donated anonymously to the Writing the Other online classes, and was originally named the Sentient Squid Scholarship in honor of a character from her Starfarer series of books.
“To date, the Sentient Squid Scholarship has provided over $15,000 ...Read More
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The Guardian announced its list of best science fiction and fantasy books in 2019, selected by Adam Roberts: ...Read More
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The China Science Fiction Research Institute was jointly established by Sichuan University, the Sichuan Association for Science and Technology, and Science Fiction World magazine with “the aim of supporting the development of the sci-fi industry and related literary and artistic endeavours,” and was announced during the fifth China Science Fiction Conference in Chengdu, China. Chengdu is currently supporting a bid to host the 2023 Worldcon.
The institute will also publish ...Read More
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Analog magazine is celebrating its 90th anniversary with “An Astounding 90 Years of Analog Science Fiction and Fact: The Fourth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium”, to be held in conjunction with City Tech College on December 12, 2019 in New York NY.
There will be an author reading and panel, an editorial panel including Trevor Quachri and Stanley Schmidt, a keynote speech from Michael F. Flynn, and various presentations ...Read More
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The Financial Times has released its Books of the Year 2019 lists, selected by “FT commentators, critics and guests.” The Best Books of 2019: Science Fiction were chosen by James Lovegrove:
While you are here, please take a ...Read More
Read moreYahoo Groups, which provided mailing lists and online forums for a variety of subjects (including SF/F) announced plans to shut down a large number of their features including deleting archived messages and files, with all groups closing on October 21, 2019. All the archived data in those groups and lists will be deleted by December 14. Writer and historian Ada Palmer says, “This means we have only a few weeks ...Read More
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The New York Times is changing up its bestseller lists again. They’re bringing back the mass-market paperback list (dropped in 2017) on a monthly basis, and running a new monthly combined list for “graphic books” including fiction, non-fiction, and manga for children and adults. Middle-grade and young-adult paperback bestsellers will also be listed monthly, after being discontinued in 2017. The lists are coming back “due to continued reader interest and ...Read More
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Andy Duncan has stepped down as SFWA Member at Large because the position “deserves to be held by someone who can devote much more time and energy to the job than I can.” He will continue “serving the organization in other capacities” and remains “committed to the mission of SFWA.” He is replaced by James Beamon, one of the runners-up in the election.
While you are here, please take a ...Read More
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Following various allegations of late payments, non-payment, harassment of authors and staff, and other improprieties (as documented extensively at File 770), Sandra Kasturi & Brett Savory have stepped down from all publishing-related duties at ChiZine Publications, effective immediately. Christine Harkin is now interim publisher, and can be reached by email for author-related requests. Kasturi and Savory said:
It is important to us that we clear all outstanding arrears as soon ...Read More
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Kirkus has announced its selections for Best Fiction of 2019, including titles and authors of genre interest in several categories:
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy
Jim Freund’s venerable SF radio call-in show Hour of the Wolf has gone off the air after nearly 50 years. The show aired on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, but on October 8, 2019, the station’s owner Pacifica Across America canceled all local programming and replaced it with shows from other stations due to “financial losses.” The closure came without warning, and station employees and volunteers vowed to take ...Read More
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