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2018 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot
The Horror Writers Association has announced the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot. The finalists for Superior Achievement in a Novel are:
- The Hunger by Alma Katsu (Putnam)
- Glimpse by Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin’s)
- Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman (Del Rey)
- Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker (Putnam)
- The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay (Morrow)
See Locus for the nominees in all categories. Our congrats to all the finalists.
The presentation of the awards will occur during StokerCon 2019, to be held May 9-12, 2019 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, MI.
2019 Andre Norton Award Nominees
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have announced the nominees for the 2019 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan)
- Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi (Rick Riordan Presents)
- A Light in the Dark by A.K. DuBoff (BDL)
- Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman (Random House)
- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
- Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword by Henry Lien (Henry Holt)
Our congrats to all the nominees.
2018 Aurealis Awards Finalists
The finalists for the 2018 Aurealis Awards have been announced. The nominees in the SF, Fantasy, and Horror novel categories are:
BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL- Scales of Empire by Kylie Chan (HarperCollins)
- Obsidio by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)
- Lifel1k3 by Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)
- A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer (Ventura)
- Dyschronia by Jennifer Mills (Picador)
- The Second Cure by Margaret Morgan (Penguin Random House)
BEST FANTASY NOVEL- Devouring Dark by Alan Baxter (Grey Matter)
- The Dark Days Deceit by Alison Goodman (HarperCollins)
- City of Lies by Sam Hawke (Penguin Random House)
- Lightning Tracks by A. A. Kinsela (Plainspeak)
- The Witch Who Courted Death by Maria Lewis (Hachette)
- We Ride the Storm by Devin Madson (self-published)
BEST HORROR NOVEL- The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett (Allen & Unwin)
- The Years of the Wolf by Craig Cormick (IFWG)
- Tide of Stone by Kaaron Warren (Omnium Gatherum)
See the official press release for the all the nominees in all categories.
Winners of the 2018 Aurealis Awards will be announced at the Aurealis Awards ceremony in Melbourne on Saturday May 4, 2019.
2018 Nebula Award Nominees
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have released the final ballot for the 2018 Nebula Award. The noms in the Novel category are:
- The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
- Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)
- Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)
- Witchmark by C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)
- Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)
Locus has the complete list of nominees in all categories.
2018 BSFA Shortlist
The British Science Fiction Association has announced the shortlist for the 2018 BSFA Awards.
- Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)
- Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
- Before Mars by Emma Newman (Ace)
- Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell, (Titan)
- Rosewater by Tade Thompson (Orbit)
See Locus for the complete shortlists in all categories. The winners will be announced at the 70th Eastercon, Ytterbium, to be held April 19-22, 2019 at the Park Inn Heathrow in London, UK.
Do You Want to Be a Science Fiction Writer?
This is an important time of year for would-be science fiction writers. The big three SF writing workshops, Clarion, Clarion West, and Odyssey are taking applications for their 6-week workshops this summer. Application deadlines are March 1, March 1, and April 1. These workshops require a serious commitment of time and money, but you get to work with professional writers and editors. You’ll need roughly $5000 to cover tuition and expenses not counting travel costs. The real commitment is finding six weeks free from work. Acceptance is based on a story you submit with your application. James Gunn offers a shorter 2-week Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop June 9-12, for those who have less vacation time.
Clarion, Clarion West, and Odyssey are for people committed to becoming writers. Many modern science fiction writers got their start at these workshops. Each year, around fifty students attend these workshops. Many of them go on to sell stories. A few of them go on to sell novels. Wikipedia even lists alumni for Clarion and Clarion West.
These workshops are based on submitting stories and having them critiqued by fellow students. You’re expected to write a story a week. There are countless general fiction writing workshops, MFA programs, creative writing courses that use the same techniques to get feedback on your work. Then there’s Critters Workshop, an online critiquing system for those agoraphobic writers who never want to leave home.
If you’re a new writer, critiques by other would-be writers are the marketing research you want the most. Don’t expect your first few dozen stories to be worth reading. Jamie Todd Rubin’s experience is more typical. And I’ve read memoirs by writers who claimed it took writing two hundred short stories before they started selling professionally.
Our genre often feels far more open to new writers than other genres. Several sites for science fiction writers such as Duotrope, Ralan, SFWA (you don’t need to be a member to read their market reports), Locus Magazine, Writer’s Digest, Critters Black Hole, will help you find magazine publishers that are open to new submissions.
One way I keep up with the event horizon of the latest science fiction is to subscribe to digital SF magazines at Amazon. For $12 a month I get the latest issues of Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, and Lightspeed automatically sent to my iPad. I wished that F&SF still offered a monthly Kindle subscription. I do miss the wonderful paper editions, but mailing labels ruining beautiful cover art was just too painful, so I’ve gone digital. There’s more free science fiction being published on the web today than any immortal could read, so if you’re too cheap to support the markets you want to sell to, at least read their stories online as market research. If you want to know your real competition, just buy any of the annual best-of-the-year anthologies.
