The Clarion West Summer Workshop has announced its 2024 instructors: Ruoxi Chen, Carmen Maria Machado, Usman T. Malik, Brenda Peynado, Sarah Pinsker, and Cadwell Turnbull. The six-week summer workshop will be held June 16 – July 27, 2024 in Seattle WA, with applications opening in December 2023. For more information, see the Clarion West website.
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CARMEN MARIA MACHADO was born July 3, 1986 in Allentown PA. She studied at American University in Washington DC, graduating with a degree in photography in 2008. She attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, graduating with her MFA in 2012, the same year she attended the Clarion Workshop. Machado has received fellowships and residencies from the Speculative Literature Foundation, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and other programs. She was ...Read More
Read moreThe theme for this year’s ICon, held October 3-5, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel, was ‘‘Antiquities’’, a perfect fit to the rich and long history of this country. It afforded an opportunity to a collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority, that had its own booth with artifacts and held workshops and lectures about the art of making mosaics and practicing archeology. It is also a theme that allowed for a ...Read More
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Can*Con 2023 was held October 13-15 online and in person at the Sheraton Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. Guests of honour were Nivia Evans, Fonda Lee, Sara Megibow, and Annalee Newitz.
In-person programming featured 95 panelists at around 50 sessions, discussing science, writing, literature, and more, such as ‘‘Disability in Sci-Fi and Fantasy: Worldbuilding for Disabled Heroes’’ with Melissa Blair, Cait Gordon, Ada Hoffmann, and A.D. Sui; ‘‘Spotlight on Québec Sci-Fi ...Read More
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Knife Witch, Susan diRende (Aqueduct Press 978-1-61976-238-1, $18.00, 252 pp, tp), May 2023.
When K– (I won’t spoil the satisfying reveal of her true name) is faced with a horde of marauding, seafaring invaders, the kitchen girl’s infallible luck takes over. Instead of cowering, she, quite accidentally, stabs one of the leaders through the heart with a filet knife. This earns her an abduction by the inavders as a ...Read More
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The November 2023 issue of Locus magazine is a special issue, “Dimensions of Wonder: Focus on Short Fiction,” featuring interviews with Carmen Maria Machado and a roundtable on short fiction with Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, and Usman T. Malik. The issue also includes spotlights on khōréō, Omenana, and The Sunday Morning Transport, and essays on short fiction by Neil Clarke, A.T. Greenblatt, José Pablo Iriarte, Ai Jiang, Tobi Ogundiran, and ...Read More
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Winners for the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book were announced by Chengdu Worldcon, the 81st World Science Fiction Convention on October 21, 2023 in Chengdu, China.
Best Novel
WINNER: Nettle & Bone, T. Kingfisher (Tor; Titan UK)
Debbie Cross and Paul Wrigley have announced the end of the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund. Over the past 43 years, the fund has awarded 71 scholarships to Clarion & Clarion West Writers Workshops in Michigan, Seattle, and San Diego.
The fund was established as a memorial for writer Susan C. Petrey, who died in 1980. At first, scholarships were awarded just to the Clarion Workshop. With the restart ...Read More
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If you’re looking for a high-production, visually slick science fiction movie that isn’t tied to an existing IP monstrosity, The Creator might be the film for you. However, if you’re tired of machine uprisings and AI paranoia, you might want to skip this one.
Broadly, The Creator follows Sgt. Joshua Taylor (John David Washington) on a near-future journey through “New Asia.” The Americans want to kill or capture Nirmata, the ...Read More
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Pemmi-Con, the 15th North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC 15) was held July 20-23, 2023, at Delta Hotels Winnipeg and the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Philip John Currie, Julie E. Czerneda, George Freeman, John Mansfield, Waubgeshig Rice, Nisi Shawl, and katherena vermette (absent) were guests of honour; Tanya Huff was toastmaster; Lorna Toolis was ghost of honour. Canadian Unity Fan Fund (CUFF) delegate Garth Spencer and Trans-Atlantic ...Read More
Read moreWriter and librarian Michael D. Toman, 73, died September 2, 2023. He wrote several short stories published in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s.
Toman was born October 8, 1949, and attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in 1973. He worked as a librarian for the South Pasadena Public Library until he retired around 2015, where he tirelessly supported the work of SF writers.
His own work appeared in Science ...Read More
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JOHN CORCORAN WISWELL was born September 4, 1981, and grew up around the Mount Kisco area of New York State. He attended Bennington College, graduating in 2005, and went to the Viable Paradise writing workshop in 2013. Wiswell has multiple disabilities, including a neuromuscular syndrome, and often explores disability issues in his fiction.
His first SF story, “Alligators by Twitter”, appeared in 2010, and he has since published around 40 ...Read More
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Readercon 32 was held July 13-16, 2023, in Quincy MA. Guests of honor were Jeff VanderMeer and Justina Ireland; L.A. Banks was the memorial guest of honor. Total attendance was 613 warm bodies. The focus of Readercon is ‘‘imaginative literature’’ – literary science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their intersections, with ‘‘near-total focus on the written word.’’
The event was held at the Boston Marriott Quincy, returning from the convention’s 2022 ...Read More
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The India Science Festival (ISF) has announced their flagship SF writing contest, Spin Your Science. They welcome submissions of SF stories and poems up to 1,500 words in length.
The top three winners will receive prizes “up to INR 30,000” (about $365) and will be chosen by a jury consisting of Sami Ahmad Khan, Arati Kadav, Samuel Peralta, and Shiv Ramdas. The top 20 finalists will receive detailed feedback, and ...Read More
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Armentrout, Jennifer L.: Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Tor/Bramble 9781250750198, $27.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/12/2023)
Fantasy romance novel, the first in a series for adults. Nine cities dot a vast wilderness teeming with monsters and unimaginable dangers, each city ruled by royalty who feed on mortal pleasure. Calista lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for protection she uses the infallible intuition she ...Read More
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OLUWOLE TALABI was born February, 28, 1986 in a steel town on the outskirts of Warri, a city in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, and grew up there and in Benin City before his family settled in Lagos. He currently lives in Malaysia, where he works as an engineer, but expects to relocate to Australia in the future.
Talabi’s first SF story was “The Human Thing” (2011), and his ...Read More
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Dream Foundry, a “non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts,” has announced winners for its 2023 contests.
Writing Contest
Art Contest
Finalists for writing were chosen by Julia Rios and finalists for art by Dante
The Salt Grows Heavy, Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire 978-1-25083-091-3, $21.99, 112pp, hc) May 2023. Cover by Morgan Sorensen.
Cassandra Khaw has cemented their status as horror royalty, once and for all, with their latest novella, The Salt Grows Heavy. All hail and long live!
Here’s the thing, though: I’m not even sure how or where to start telling you about The Salt Grows Heavy. Nothing I say can ...Read More
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Kids these days! With their loud music and TikToks and demonic possession! Talk to Me, an Australian horror movie, focuses on a group of teens who use a talisman (supposedly a psychic’s amputated hand) to summon the dead and invite them to take over their bodies. It’s a neat party trick and, apparently, quite a rush.
Arley: I found this to be very effective, like probably one of the ...Read More
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Alsberg, Sasha: Fracturing Fate (Harlequin/Inkyard Press 9781335453754, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/15/2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel. While battling the demigod Llaw, Klara is catapulted five hundred years into the past, alone and distraught that she and her fated love Callum killed the demigod at the cost of Callum’s life.
Klara is the last Pillar of Time, an anchor point in the timeline of the world. Treacherous enemies both magical ...Read More
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KAREN LORD was born May 22, 1968 in Barbados. She attended secondary school at Queen’s College, and later attended the University of Toronto. She earned a master’s degree in science and technology policy at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, and got her doctorate in the sociology of religion at Bangor University in Wales. She has traveled widely, taught physics in school, trained soldiers, and worked in the foreign service. She lives ...Read More
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The Locus Awards were twofold this year: held online from June 21-24, 2023 and in person on June 24 in Preservation Park in downtown Oakland CA. Maggie Tokuda-Hall emceed the ceremony, with Connie Willis as special guest. There were 175 guests, with 90 attending virtually and 85 in person. Full members received access to virtual and in-person events, six months of digital Locus Magazine, book bags and swag, and more. ...Read More
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Imagine a mix of Us and Sorry to Bother You — a movie where you’re not sure at first where things are going, and then suddenly you take a left turn and find yourself in the middle of (literal) underground government experiments. That’s They Cloned Tyrone. The cloning isn’t a surprise — it’s in the title, after all — but it’s also not the end of the science fiction ...Read More
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The Night Flowers, Sara Herchenroether (Tin House 978-1-953534-86-6, $26.95, 320pp, hc), May 2023.
Sara Herchenroether’s debut novel, The Night Flowers, is a bit of an oddity. Part mystery novel, part police procedural, and part supernatural tragedy, it’s also a meditation on the role of fate and destiny, how someone moves beyond cancer treatment while rejecting the ‘‘warrior’’ or ‘‘survivor’’ narrative, and the various ways (still) ever-present Western societal ...Read More
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BayCon 2023 was held July 1-4, 2023 in person at the Santa Clara Marriott in Santa Clara CA. Catherynne M. Valente, Tehani Farr, and Brad Lyau were guests of honor; Laser the Boy and Brianna Wu were special guests; and Frank Wu was toastmaster. Around 750 memberships were sold, including 16 VIP memberships, five Patrons, and two supporting memberships, with 737 warm bodies. Programming offered 429 items total including genre ...Read More
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Human Sacrifices, María Fernanda Ampuero (Feminist Press 978-1-558612-98-3, $15.95, 144pp, tp), May 2023.
It’s a slow burn, immersing oneself in María Fernanda Ampuero’s latest collection, Human Sacrifices – a literal slow burn, like the reader is a proverbial frog in a pot of water, set over a gradually increasing flame. By the time you notice you are boiling to death, it’s already too late. The beautiful and bleak prose, ...Read More
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ANN LECKIE was born March 2, 1966 in Toledo OH and grew up in St. Louis MO. She attended Washington University, graduating with a degree in music. She has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer.
Leckie attended Clarion West in 2005, where she wrote her first published SF story “Hesperia and Glory” (2006). Over a dozen stories have appeared ...Read More
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Apollo Weeps, Xian Mao (Aqueduct 978-1-61976-230-5, $12, 164pp, tp) January 2023.
One of the greatest strengths of Aqueduct Press’s Conversation Pieces series is that it makes a home for work that simply wouldn’t neatly fit elsewhere. It’s described as a ‘‘grand conversation’’ on feminist issues, made of ‘‘an ever-shifting, fluid mosaic’’ of science fiction voices, across time and topic, and Xian Mao’s novella, Apollo Weeps, makes for tile ...Read More
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WisCon 46 was held May 26-29, 2023 at the Concourse Hotel in Madison WI, as well as online, with Rivers Solomon and Martha Wells as guests of honor. There were approximately 570 warm bodies, plus 154 online memberships. Programming had 181 items scheduled, offering approximately 80 in-person panels and 30 online panels, all focused on SF/F literature, diversity, feminism, disability, criticism, and more, such as ‘‘Trope Subversion vs. Embracing with ...Read More
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Finalists for the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book have been announced by Chengdu Worldcon, the 81st World Science Fiction Convention. There were 1,847 valid nominating ballots (1,843 electronic and 4 paper) received and counted from members of the 2022 and 2023 World Science Fiction Conventions for the 2023 Hugo Awards. Voting on the final ballot will open ...Read More
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On June 20, 2023, I will be awarded an Honourary Doctor of Laws from York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, in Toronto, Canada. The text below is the speech I will give.
Goodness me, it is a gigantic honour to be here today, and to be recognized in this way. I’m profoundly grateful to the faculty and administration here at York, and to my friends and family ...Read More
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