NPR‘s summer reader poll 2021 is now open to nominations of science fiction and fantasy novels. Readers can nominate up to five titles from the past decade through an online form. A top 50 list will be curated by Amal El-Mohtar, Ann Leckie, Fonda Lee, and Tochi Onyebuchi, and announced later in the year.

For more information, see the NPR website.

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Carnegie Hall is putting on a city-wide Afrofuturism festival, scheduled to begin February 2022 in New York City. The official announcement says,

Across New York City, leading cultural organizations present multidisciplinary programming that touches African and African diasporic philosophies, speculative fiction, mythology, comics, quantum physics, cosmology, technology, and more. A diverse range of online offerings also includes film screenings, exhibitions, and talks with some of the leading thinkers and creatives ...Read More

The Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF) writers’ organization is accepting applications for its annual grant program now through August 31, 2021. Nine grants of $100 each are available “to all women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes who have reasonably demonstrated a commitment to writing in the horror genre.” Winners will be announced on September 15, 2021.

For more information, including how to apply or contribute, see the LOHF website. ...Read More

A.M. Dellamonica, Amal El-Mohtar & Kelly Robson have co-written fantasy/horror play Dressed as People, a “Triptych of Uncanny Abduction,” directed by Mary Ellis, performed by Margo MacDonald, and featuring music by SIESKI. The play premieres during the Ottawa Fringe Festival, June 17-27, 2021.

For more information, and to buy tickets to view online, see the Ottawa Fringe Festival website.

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FIYAH magazine has announced the establishment of four grants “intended to assist Black writers of speculative fiction in defraying costs associated with honing their craft.” Three $1,000 grants will be awarded as part of Juneteenth every year.

The Rest Grant will be given “for activists and organizers with a record of working on behalf of the SFF community, but who are in need of respite or time to recommit to ...Read More

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has announced the results of its election for open Board of Directors positions.

President

The election committee consisted of Kate Baker (advisor), Maurice Broaddus, Matthew Johnson (chair), and Peng Shepherd. For more information, see the SFWA site.

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Several titles and authors of genre interest made the 6-title shortlist for the 2021 International Booker Prize:

Texas A&M University Libraries is hosting a virtual talk on April 22, 2021 at noon Central titled “The Future at 25 Cents A Copy: The Material Culture of Pulp Science Fiction Magazines”, discussing the legacy of pulp magazines from the 1920s to 1940s. The talk will feature librarians from Texas A&M University, the University of California, Riverside, and San Diego State University, which all house large pulp collections.

The event ...Read More

The Royal Mail has issued a series of stamps featuring art to commemorate classic science fiction stories by British authors including:

Madeleine L’Engle’s library is being auctioned by New England Book Auctions to benefit three charity organizations. A small portion of the collection was auctioned in December 2020, raising nearly $10,000 for PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program, Smith College’s Madeleine L’Engle Travel Research Fellowships, and the L’Engle Initiative at Image Journal.

The rest of the books can be bid on through the New England Book Auctions website, with lots ...Read More

Polskie Towarzystwo Studiów and Przyszłością (PTSP), the Polish Society for Futures Studies, will host the Stanisław Lem Centennial Debate, free online on April 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time. The event, billed as “the expansion of future consciousness through the practice of science fiction and futures studies,” features Thomas Lombardo, Kacper Nosarzewski, and Karlheinz Steinmüller, and is supported in part by the World Futures Studies Federation, Association of Professional ...Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) board unanimously signed a statement about anti-Asian hate crimes and racism. The statement reads, in part,

Anti-Asian racism has long been a part of America’s fabric from the Page Act to the Chinese Exclusion Act and includes our own SF/F communities. We’ve seen it in the tropes and stereotypes that fetishize Asian women as dragon ladies and butterfly maidens, portray Asian ...Read More

The International Costumers’ Guild (ICG) has relaunched the Pat and Peggy Kennedy Memorial Archives, an online collection of “over 100,000 photos and hundreds of masquerade videos” preserving the history of science fiction fan costuming. The archive contains photos from “science fiction and fantasy conventions, masquerade competitions, fashion shows, historical dress competitions and events, and other costume events and displays.”

For more information, see the ICG online gallery.

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Winners of the 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Awards have been announced, including authors of genre interest.

Laura van den Berg won the $200,000 Mildred & Harold Strauss Livings Award, given “in recognition of literary excellence and to provide freedom to devote time exclusively to writing.”

Chang-rae Lee won the $25,000 Award of Merit for the Novel, given “to an outstanding writer representing excellence in the craft ...Read More

George R.R. Martin has signed a five-year contract with HBO, reportedly worth “mid-eight figures.” The network is developing six Game of Thrones prequel projects based on Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, including House of the Dragon, scheduled to air in 2022.

Martin will also executive produce an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s post-apocalyptic novel Who Fears Death, and an adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s fantasy novel Roadmarks ...Read More

Ancestral Futures and the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) have announced that applications are now open for their three-month mentorship in speculative fiction program. The program seeks to match writers who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a writer of color (BIPOC+), who have not published prose in professionally paying markets, with a professionally published author for “coaching and mentorship.”

Interested applicants must email info@ancestralfutures.org before March 31, 2021. There is no ...Read More

Ancestral Futures and the Speculative Literature Foundation are sponsoring an online reading and anthology launch event, April 2, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time, “to support publication of a community-centered Black Speculative Literary Arts story collection from various members of The AfroSurreal Writers Workshop of Oakland, The Association of Black and Brown Writers, Voodoonauts Fellows, and VONA Alumni.”

The even will be hosted by LP Kindred and feature Trey Keeve ...Read More

Project Northmoor, a fundraising campaign with the goal of buying J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford house and turning it into a literary center, failed to raise the £4.5 million needed to purchase and renovate the house. As of February 4, 2021, it had raised just 17% of its goal. However, the organizers announced that “we have been offered an alternative home for the first literary centre dedicated to Tolkien in a very ...Read More