Giger And Sorayama Exhibition

NANZUKA is working with COEXIST and UCCA Lab to host “H.R. Giger X Sorayama: Approaching” from December 25, 2022 – March 24, 2023. The exhibition features 45 works from H.R. Giger and Hajime Sorayama, and is divided into “Surrealistic Explorations, Fear, and Fantasy”, “The Eve of Tomorrow, Between the Biological and the Mechanical”, and “Seeds of Pop Culture.”

The exhibition will be on view at UCCA Lab in Beijing. For ...Read More

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Obama’s Top Books of 2022

President Barack Obama has announced a 13-title list of favorite books of 2022. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

  • The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan (Simon and Schuster)
  • The Candy House, Jennifer Egan (Scribner)
  • Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf)
  • Liberation Day, George Saunders (Random House)
  • The Furrows, Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)

President Obama announced the full list via Twitter, along with

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Huntington Library Acquires Pynchon Papers

The Huntington Library in San Marino CA announced that they have acquired the papers of Thomas Pynchon. The collection filled 48 boxes: “70 linear feet of materials created between the late 1950s and the 2020s — including typescripts and drafts of each of his novels, handwritten notes, correspondence, and research.” Pynchon’s papers were collected and represented by his son, Jackson Pynchon. The materials are being processed and will be available ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, December 2022

MILESTONES

SF writers J. DIANNE DOT­SON & GARETH L. POWELL were married November 5, 2022 in a small ceremony held in Los Angeles CA. Dotson designed her wedding dress herself: “I chose red as it is my favorite color and it honors Gareth being half-Welsh, given the colors of the Welsh flag.”

ALICIA WANSTALL-BURKE is now represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

 

AWARDS

STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES is the ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, November 2022

MILESTONES

JEFF VANDERMEER’s liter­ary interests are now represented by Joe Veltre of the Gersh Agency, who was already his film and TV agent. VanderMeer has also joined the Gersh Speakers Bureau as a client. Alex Kohner of Yorn Levine provides additional representation as VanderMeer’s entertainment at­torney.

DEREK KÜNSKEN is step­ping down as programming co-chair of Can*Con, Ottawa’s liter­ary SF/F conference, after 11 years working on the conference. Co-chair MARIE

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People & Publishing Roundup, October 2022

MILESTONES

MARYANN HARRIS, artist, musician, and wife of Charles de Lint, became ill on September 6, 2021 with encephalitis, and was eventually diagnosed with the rare, tick-borne Powassan virus. She spent eight months in intensive care before being transferred to a com­plex care facility, where she is on a ventilator and almost entirely para­lyzed. Fundraising efforts are un­derway to defray the considerable costs; details, and updates on her condition,

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People & Publishing Roundup, September 2022

MILESTONES

WENDY N. WAGNER is now represented via Lane Heymont of The Tobias Agency.

AWARDS

IDZA LUHUMYO’s “Five Years Next Sunday”(Disruption) won the £10,000 Caine Prize for African Writing, “awarded for a short story via an African writer published in English,”presented July 18, 2022 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

MONICA BYRNE’s The Actu­al Star (Harper Voyager) won the 2022 Manly Wade Wellman Award, ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, August 2022

MILESTONES

RUDY RUCKER sold his liter­ary archive to the Special Collec­tions of the UCR Library at UC Riverside. “The Rudy Rucker Ar­chive includes marked-up drafts of forty books, story drafts, letters, videos, audio, scientific papers, rare ’zines, and email.” Henry Wessells of James Cummins Bookseller ne­gotiated the deal with Cherry Wil­liams and Andrew Lippert of UCR.

AWARDS

JESMYN WARD will receive the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, July 2022

AWARDS

QUENTIN BLAKE, SALMAN RUSHDIE, and MARINA WARNER all received the High Award Companion of Honour dis­tinction in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. IAN RANKIN received the Knights Bachelor distinction, while JOANNE HARRIS and MICHAEL FOREMAN received the Officer of the Order of the Brit­ish Empire distinction for services to literature. JAMES DAUNT, head of Waterstones in the UK and CEO of Barnes & Noble in the US, received ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, June 2022

MILESTONES

ELSA SJUNNESON is now represented by Larissa Melo Pien­kowski at Jill Grinberg Literary.

RR HAYWOOD is now repre­sented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

JOSHUA COHEN’s The Ne­tanyahus (New York Review) won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category, given for ‘‘distin­guished fiction published in book form during the year by an Ameri­can author, preferably dealing with American life,’’ with its $15,000 prize.

 

AWARDS

ROBERT J. ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, May 2022

MILESTONES

Horror author JOHN SKIPP, 64, has announced his retirement from writing and publishing fiction; his final title is col­lection Don’t Push the Button (Clash Books). Going for­ward he will focus on music and film. He has two new albums, The Antidote to Fear and Cry Me a Rain­bow, out via his own Fungasm Records label. He also wrote, produced, directed, and scored short film Doppelbanger, which premiered ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, April 2022

MILESTONES

JOANNE HARRIS was re-elected as the chair of the Society of Authors board. She ran unop­posed for her second two-year term.

CELIA NERI is now represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

AWARDS

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS has been awarded a star on the Palm Springs Walk of the Stars, which was founded in 1992 and runs through the commercial district of Palm Springs CA. Burroughs lived in Palm Springs ...Read More

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2022 Guggenheim Fellowships

Authors Jennifer Croft, Brandon Hobson, Ladee Hubbard, and Alexandra Kleeman are among the 2022 Guggenheim Fellows, announced by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Fellowships were awarded to 180 recipients across 51 fields of study “on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.”

The Foundation was started in 1925 and has awarded grants totaling nearly $400 million. Fellowships are through two annual competitions: one for citizens and permanent residents ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, March 2022

MILESTONES

BRONTE-MARIE WESSON is now represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency. She is an Australian bookseller and influencer.

SUZAN PALUMBO is now represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

IORI KUSANO is now represented by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

Author COLM TÓIBÍN has been named the new Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland, a position which seeks to ...Read More

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School Renamed for Butler

Washington Steam Multilingual Academy in Pasadena CA has been renamed “The Octavia E. Butler Magnet” in honor of the late author, who attended the school (then called Washington Middle School), graduating in 1961. The motion was “passed, approved, and adopted on February 24, 2022, at a special meeting of the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education.”

Octavia E. Butler is a role model for our students as she exemplifies ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, February 2022

AWARDS

LAURIE R. KING has been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and will be honored at the 76th Edgar Awards Ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York on April 28, 2022. Reviewer LESA HOLSTINE won the 2022 Raven Award, for “outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writ­ing,” and Soho Press associate publisher (and author) JULIET GRAMES received ...Read More

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Tóibín Named Irish Fiction Laureate

Author Colm Tóibín has been named the new Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He takes over from Sebastian Barry, and his three-year term begins this month. The Laureate position “seeks to acknowledge the contribution of fiction writers to Irish artistic and cultural life by honouring an established Irish writer of fiction, encouraging a new generation of writers, promoting Irish literature nationally and internationally and encouraging ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, January 2022

MILESTONES

JOHN VARLEY, 74, was hospi­talized last year with COVID, pneu­monia, and congestive heart failure, and received a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He is home now, and expects to soon “be back at work on my next novel, a re-write and near total alteration of the horrible second draft of my first unpublished novel, Gas Giant.” Read his account here.

TOMI ADEYEMI’s publishing rights are ...Read More

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Obama’s Top Books of 2021

Former President Barack Obama has announced a 13-title list of the best books of 2021. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

  • Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr (Scribner)
  • Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
  • Matrix, Lauren Groff (Riverhead)
  • How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith (Little, Brown)
  • The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles (Viking)
  • Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
  • The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois
...Read More Read more

People & Publishing Roundup, December 2021

MILESTONES

Author BRADLEY P. BEAU­LIEU suffered a stroke on Novem­ber 10, 2021, and was admitted for observation and testing. “Knock wood, it seems light so far…. It’s affecting my left hand (fingers, mostly) and the left side of my face a bit. Some slurred speech but not too bad.”

AWARDS

MERCEDES LACKEY is the 38th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial SFWA Grand Master Award. Her award will be presented ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, November 2021

MILESTONES

Librarian MISHA STONE of the Seattle Public Library won the Librarian of the Year Award from the Greater Seattle Romance Writers Association. Stone is a Clarion West board member.

AWARDS

Composer JOHN WILLIAMS received the Forry Award for life­time achievement in the SF field, presented by The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society at their October 9, 2021 meeting.

URSULA VERNON writing as T. KINGFISHER’s “Metal Like Blood in ...Read More

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Lackey Named SFWA Grand Master

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has named Mercedes Lackey the 38th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy said,

From the time I read my first Mercedes Lackey book as a young woman, her stories have illuminated my imagination and brought joy to my life. With multi-layered fantasy worlds, canny magical systems, and characters who step off the page as ...Read More

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Icons of Darkness Museum

Actor Rich Correll has opened Icons of Darkness, a new Hollywood museum filled with $15 million worth of props and costumes from beloved science fiction, fantasy, and horror franchises.

The collection, which represents “over 100 years of Hollywood film history curated and collected over the last 60 years,” includes props from Jurassic Park, a Darth Vader mask, and lots more costumes and memorabilia. The collection is currently on display ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, October 2021

MILESTONES

N.K. JEMISIN was named as one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 by Time. See the full list on their website.

AWARDS

NANCY PEARL will receive the 2021 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, to be presented November 17, 2021 at the National Book Awards ceremony in New York. Pearl is the influential librarian who created the ‘‘One Book, One City’’ program.

SUSANNA ...Read More

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Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Fourth Edition

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE) has launched its Fourth Edition. The online edition of the essential reference work was sponsored by Orion/Gollancz from 2011-2021, but is now published by SFE Ltd and Ansible Editions.

Editors John Clute and David Langford say of the move:

With the release of the Fourth Edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, we have a new publisher and a new web server; but ...Read More

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Breuer Exhibit

The Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Los Angeles will host an exhibition to honor Czech-American writer Miles J. Breuer (1889-1945) on October 14, 2021. The event will commemorate the 76th anniversary of Breuer’s death.
Breuer is the author Paradise and Iron (1930) and co-author of The Birth of a New Republic (1931, with Jack Williamson), along with numerous stories, including “The Gostak and the Doshes” (1930) and “The
...Read More Read more

2021 Nielsen Bestseller Awards

The Nielsen Bestseller Awards have been announced, and include several titles and authors of genre interest. George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake (Jonathan Cape) was a Platinum Bestseller; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton) was a Gold Bestseller; and The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman (Penguin UK & David Fickling) was a Silver Bestseller. Several titles by Matt Haig ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, September 2021

MILESTONES

DOMINICA PHETTEPLACE has been chosen for the Bookshop Santa Cruz Writing Residency. She will spend two weeks writ­ing at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, working on her novel Robot Country, “a dystopian sci­ence fiction novel which imagines robots as the agents of the next wave of American colonization and forced resettlement.” For details see the website.

Writers LAUREN DIXON & DALLAS TAYLOR were married July 31, 2021. ...Read More

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SF Opera Premieres

A new 20-minute opera, Stars Between, with a libretto by SF writer E. Lily Yu and music by Steven K. Tran, is now available on the Seattle Opera website. The opera tells the story of the Voyager space probes, following them “into the interstellar unknown, exploring death, beauty, wonder, space, and time.”

The opera was created as part of the inaugural year of the Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab: ...Read More

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Jemisin On Time‘s 100 Most Influential List

Time has named author N.K. Jemisin as one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 in the “Artists” category. Jemisin is the award-winning author of The City We Became, the Broken Earth trilogy, the Inheritance Trilogy, and more.

For the full list and more details, see the Time article.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely ...Read More

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People & Publishing Roundup, August 2021

MILESTONES

TA-NEHISI COATES is joining the faculty of Howard University, his alma mater.

NNEDI OKORAFOR accepted an appointment at Arizona State University as a Professor of practice as part of the Interplanetary Initia­tive and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

TADE THOMPSON has been voted vice president of the British Science Fiction Association.

RB KELLY is now represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

AWARDS

KEVIN J. ANDERSON and ...Read More

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Museums Honor Butler and Afrofuturism

The Smithsonian Institution plans to honor Octavia E. Butler as part of their upcoming Futures exhibit, scheduled to open November 2021 in the Arts and Industries building. An Olivetti typewriter originally donated to the museum by Butler “will represent Butler’s life,” and will be displayed alongside a portrait of Butler by Nettrice Gaskins, an artist who “uses algorithms meant to be employed in machine learning to produce artworks.” The exhibit ...Read More

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