The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced its new “Publishing Taught Me” program. The program will invite publishing professionals of color to contribute to “an online essay series, to be collated into an anthology, and a symposium aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.”

SFWA seeks two paid interns to serve as assistant editors for the project under the ...Read More

French publisher ActuSF has been put into compulsory liquidation by the Commercial Court, effective September 4, 2023. The company is open to potential buyers, but the future is uncertain.

In an interview for ActuaLitté, director and editor-in-chief Jérôme Vincent described challenges ActuSF has encountered in recent years, including rising operating costs, the COVID-19 pandemic, and logistical difficulties with distributors. Vincent also expressed gratitude to the authors, translators, booksellers, and others ...Read More

Penguin Random House (PRH) continues to reorganize, this time at the Knopf/Doubleday Publishing Group.

Suzanne Herz, publisher of Vintage/Anchor, is taking early retirement effective December 15, 2023. Herz will continue to work in “an external, consulting role” on John Grisham’s books. She was with the company for three decades, first in publicity roles before becoming associate publisher and later publisher.

With Herz’s departure, the Anchor imprint is being discontinued. PRH ...Read More

Cossmass Infinities is permanently closing. The magazine is no longer accepting submissions, but will publish the stories it has already purchased by the end of the year.

The Cossmass Infinities website will remain online, and past anthologies and back issues will still be available for sale. Editor and publisher Paul Campbell said,

Unfortunately, Cossmass Infinities is too expensive for me to continue running. I had hoped that it might have ...Read More

The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) is accepting applications for its $1,000 Working Class Writers Grant, “awarded annually to speculative fiction writers who are working class, blue-collar, financially disadvantaged, or homeless, who have been historically underrepresented in speculative fiction due to financial barriers which make it hard to access the writing world.” Applications are open until September 30, 2023. The winner will be announced November 15, 2023.

For more information, see ...Read More

Tor UK has announced that Michael Beale will be joining the imprint as an editor beginning in October, expanding the editorial team.

Beale was previously an assistant editor at Titan. At Tor, Beale will support publisher Bella Pagan and editorial director Sophie Robinson.

Beale said,

I’m delighted to be joining Tor UK as editor and work with the inspirational Bella and her team. I can’t wait to start working on ...Read More

Private investment firm KKR has reached an agreement to acquire Simon & Schuster from parent company Paramount Global for $1.62 billion.

Paramount has been trying to sell Simon & Schuster for years, with last year’s proposed $2.175 billion sale to Penguin Random House only failing because the Department of Justice blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. Simon & Schuster’s revenues in 2022 were $1.18 billion.

The deal will likely close ...Read More

Irene Gallo has left Tor after 30 years with the company, where she headed the art department and was vice president and publisher of Tordotcom.

As the longtime creative director at Tor, she created the look and designed countless books starting in 1993. Her many awards include the Richard Gan­gel Award for Art Direction, presented by the Society of Illustrators; 13 Chesley Awards; and many gold and silver med­als from ...Read More

Sheila Gilbert has retired from her position as publisher at DAW, effective June 30, 2023.

After over a half-century working in pub­lishing I am moving on from visiting worlds of the imagination to exploring the real world. In that time I have been involved in every aspect of the industry and enjoyed it immensely. I have made many good friends with whom I hope to stay in touch going forward. ...Read More

Fantasy Magazine will close later this year, as announced in their August 2023 editorial:

This is the editorial we’ve been dreading having to write. We’ve been trying not to think about it too much, but we can’t put it off any longer.

We relaunched Fantasy Magazine in November of 2020 – what a weird thing to do at an exceptionally weird time! – and we did it with high hopes, ...Read More

Apex Book Company has announced that Marissa van Uden will become the company’s primary acquisitions editor, and Leah Ning will be managing editor. In an announcement on the company’s website, publisher Jason Sizemore said,

If you’re wondering about me … I’ll stay busy as ever, if not busier, wheeling and dealing in the background. I will work on the acquisition side along with Marissa. Apex is expanding and my attention ...Read More

Publisher Alex Berman has announced the relaunch of Phantasia Press, returning more than 30 years after their last publication. They are “once again offering high quality hardcover science fiction and fantasy editions” produced using archival-quality materials. Their first new release is a limited edition of Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton.

The press was originally founded by Berman and the late Sidney Altus “with the idea of publishing high quality, limited ...Read More

Canelo has announced a new horror imprint, Canelo Horror, to be launched in October 2023.

The imprint will “honour books and authors that have shaped the genre while charting its own territory to offer the most unique and chilling novels being written today”. Commissioning editor Kit Nevile said, “I’m incredibly excited, both for the list’s launch and the potential for horror in years to come. We aim to bring a ...Read More

HarperCollins has announced that YA imprint Inkyard Press will close and Inkyard staff will be laid off on August 1, 2023. No figure was reported for the number of staff affected. According to the publisher’s statement,

Current market conditions have posed a variety of challenges for the business, which [have] been acutely felt in the YA/middle grade space, with a shifting retail landscape, reduced distribution, and higher production costs in ...Read More

Penguin Random House announced company-wide layoffs this week, with an estaimed 60 people impacted. Nihar Malaviya, the interim CEO, wrote:

We are halfway through 2023, and while the book market has grown, particularly over recent years, we have also faced significantly increased costs in all areas across the board, and we expect these increases, as well as inflation, to continue. We have been taking various actions over the last months ...Read More

Ouida Books has announced Phoenix, a new science fiction and fantasy imprint launched by Nnedi Okorafor and Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn. Omotoke Solarin-Sodara is managing editor.

The imprint is “dedicated to promoting and publishing fresh africanfuturism and africanjujuism (science fiction and fantasy) by writers of African descent worldwide.” Okorafor posted to social media that “Phoenix is looking for long-form (novella to novel) works by writers on their A-game…. The idea is to ...Read More

Dark Matter Magazine has announced that Issue 018 (11-12/23) will be the final issue of its three-year run. Founder and publisher Rob Carroll says in a note:

These past three years have been a dream come true for me. The joy of creating and editing my own science fiction magazine was an honor and a privilege, and one that I’ll never forget. Helping in a small way to create something ...Read More

Bloomsbury is facing criticism online for the content of the paperback edition cover of Sara J. Maas’s House of Earth and Blood, which uses an AI-generated image licensed via Adobe Stock. A spokesperson for Bloomsbury shared a statement:

Bloomsbury’s in-house design team created the UK paperback cover of House of Earth and Blood, and as part of this process we incorporated an image from a photo library that we ...Read More

The Authors Guild released a statement regarding reports that New Leaf Literary Agency had “dropped one of its agents’ authors by email over the weekend, including some who were in the middle of contract negotiations, without warning or explanation.” The Guild went on to say, “New Leaf should have assigned the writers to other agents instead of simply dropping them. The Authors Guild strongly believes that every agent needs to ...Read More

According to The Bookseller, Sophie Robinson has been named editorial director at Tor UK, leaving Titan Books. Lydia Gittins has also moved to Tor UK from Titan, taking the title of publicity manager. Both will work under publisher Bella Pagan.

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

Bookouture, a digital publishing division of Hachette UK, has launched a new SF and fantasy imprint, Second Sky.

Their list includes “both debut authors and established writers, and covers a wide range of sub-genres within SFF, from epic fantasy to paranormal thrillers, from fantasy romance to time travel.”

For more information, see their website.

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While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus ...Read More

In April, author Maggie Tokuda-Hall posted on her website about a request from Scholastic’s Rising Voices Library to alter the afterword of her picture book Love in the Library (Candlewick) to remove references to racism, leading to an outcry online and a later apology from the publisher.

Love in the Library, illustrated by Yas Imamura, is the story of Tokuda-Hall’s grandparents meeting at a Japanese internment camp during WWII, ...Read More

Horror/SF micropress Bloodshot Books is reportedly ceasing operations, and Joe Mynhardt of small press Crystal Lake Publishing has offered to take on all the affected authors:

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a big supporter of great books and great authors. I believe in the power of stories, and want to give my all to the genre fiction community.

So whenever I see authors or even a publisher in ...Read More