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Bouchercon has announced the nominees for the 2026 Anthony Awards, honoring the best in crime fiction. Authors and works of genre interest include:

Best Hardcover Novel

• King of Ashes, S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• All This Could Be Yours, Hank Phillippi Ryan (Minotaur)

Best First Novel

• Mask of the Deer Woman, Laurie L. Dove (Berkley)

Best Juvenile/YA Novel

• Well-Behaved Children Seldom Make History, Chris Chan (Level Best)

…Read More

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Shahriar Shaams is the recipient of the 2026 A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature, presented by the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) and DesiLit.

The $1,000 grant is given annually to a South Asian / South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction. Shaams's winning work is A Night With the Spy.

For more information, see the SLF website. …Read More

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The winners of the 2026 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2025, were announced on May 18, 2026.

French Novel

• WINNER: Aatea, Anouck Faure (Argyll)

• Festin de larmes, Morgane Caussarieu & Vincent Tassy (ActuSF)
• Tovaangar, Céline Minard (Rivages)
• Sintonia, Audrey Pleynet (Le Bélial')
• Une vie de saint, Christophie Siébert (Au Diable Vauvert)

Foreign Novel

• WINNER: Le Livre des …Read More

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Science fiction editor, publisher, critic, and translator Tom Clegg, 68, died suddenly May 5, 2026. He was known in the SFF community for his deep affection for science fiction, and he became an important channel for translated works in France through his work at Bragelonne SF.

Thomas Clegg was born in 1957 in Springfield MA and grew up in Spain with his family. He graduated from Amherst College in 1978 …Read More

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by Jason Collins

Read by Jeremy Zentner

“There is more profit made from [book] commerce than from all other merchandise,” in Timbuktu, as observed by Leo Africanus in 1526. This was not simply poetic exaggeration from the famous traveler. For centuries, the Malian city stood at the very heart of an expansive intellectual network across the Sahara where scholars traded in written knowledge. These manuscripts imported into Mali’s libraries can expand what speculative fiction imagines and how we build those worlds.

What Type of Text Is in the Timbuktu Manuscripts?

The manuscripts themselves cover an extraordinary range of subjects, including astronomical charts, medical treatises, legal commentaries, theological debates, and collections of poetry and proverbs. When viewed as a collective, they reveal a city where science, faith, and art were inseparable.

Page from the Timbuktu Manuscripts – Wikimedia Commons

We also know that at its height, Timbuktu’s scholars filled private libraries with manuscripts bound in goatskins and debated theology beneath the mud-brick walls of the Sankore Mosque complex, which functioned as an Islamic learning center. Over 27,000 of these handwritten works, some dating back to the 13th century, have survived the passage of time. Scholars safeguarded the manuscripts for centuries from theft and loss during colonial expansion. Recently, these manuscripts survived thanks to the efforts of families who risked their lives to hide them from extremist attacks.

What the Manuscripts Offer: A Different Intellectual Heritage

Today, writers in the science fiction and fantasy genre should thank all those who worked to preserve the great works of Timbuktu, as many of these West African manuscripts could be the blueprints for new imaginative tales.

These manuscripts reveal that African civilizations were theorizing law, cosmology, and ethics concurrently with European traditions. They also depict worlds where spirituality and science coexisted rather than collided and where libraries served as political and moral centers of society. 

Drawing from Timbuktu’s archives is to engage with an alternative intellectual lineage that redefines what “ancient knowledge” might look like in speculative fiction. The desert city was built on scholarship, where the true currency was knowledge and where literacy was a civic duty and a spiritual pursuit. With Timbuktu’s manuscripts, a talented speculative writer can build societies that think, argue, and evolve on their own terms, not according to what’s already well established in the genre.

Non-Eurocentric Inspirations for Worldbuilding

By leaning on Timbuktu’s knowledge, a writer could create an expansive society that bucks the norm, where might is not reliant on a sword, and a book of star maps is as prized as the business end of a blade. Where scholars wield influence through their mastery of astronomy and jurisprudence. Writers could go so far as to replace knights and castles with mathematicians and libraries who strive for a just cause, shifting the emotional center of a story from conquest to inquiry. 

The manuscripts themselves suggest near-endless narrative possibilities that reach beyond how a world could look. They feature astronomical treatises that map lunar cycles, medical texts with herbal remedies, and legal and ethical writings. This could guide a writer to imagine a world in which priests measure destiny through planetary alignments, healers blend faith and science with a touch of magic, or a civilization develops a justice system that is as complex as their speculative world. The opportunities are endless.

Contemporary Echoes in Afrofuturism and Fantasy

With Timbuktu manuscripts, writers have the tools they need to craft unique stories. But this is not to say that no one has ventured into the realm of Timbuktu lore for their inspiration. In fact, there are a few famous works that draw from this diverse tapestry of knowledge.

For example, The Black Pages, a novella by Nnedi Okorafor, is one of the best examples of an author using Timbuktu manuscripts and ethos in their modern stories. This gripping novella centers on a protagonist who is on an important mission to save an ancient library in Timbuktu, which is under attack by jihadists. This parallels the true events in which extremists threatened Mali, leading librarian Abdel Kader Haidara in 2013 to smuggle out thousands of manuscripts by donkey, cart, and canoe, under the cover of darkness.

Another excellent example of creatives drawing on the lore of Timbuktu is Marvel’s Black Panther: Long Live the King. This comic adaptation, and its broader Afrofuturist worldbuilding, hints that Mali and Timbuktu are part of Wakanda’s heritage. A great alt-history for worldbuilding in comics.

An older example is the 1960s novels The Best Ye Breed and Blackman’s Burden, written by Mack Reynolds. These science fiction novels were set in North Africa and reference Timbuktu.

There are many other speculative worlds with African flair that imply lost scholarship and legendary libraries, even if they don’t name Timbuktu directly. 

How to Avoid Cultural Appropriation

It’s also important to know that when studying Timbuktu’s manuscripts, seeking inspiration from the knowledge gleaned teaches a subtler lesson about worldbuilding. It teaches coherence because every manuscript, even when theological, is grounded in a worldview in which the sacred and the rational intertwine.

Through this strategy, writers can design belief systems that make sense within their invented universes—and avoid the kind of flat cultural borrowing in which non-Western ideas are often used for visual flavor. That’s why, when writers draw on Timbuktu manuscripts, they must remember that these systems of knowledge are living ecologies. They feature histories of logic, lineage, and debate built into them, so a writer’s imaginary world must bear this in mind for the story to remain believable.

To avoid misrepresentation, it is important for a writer to be carefully curious and well learned by reading translations, listening to scholars, crediting influences, and acknowledging when they are an outsider. Science fiction and fantasy writers should go in with the mindset of treating Timbuktu’s manuscripts with reverence and intellectual partnership to guide the spirit of creation itself.

Timbuktu’s manuscripts endure as uncontested proof that civilizations are measured not only by what they build but by what they choose to remember. If we have learnt anything by looking into Timbuktu’s grand history, it’s that to create is to preserve, and to preserve is to imagine anew.

Explore more articles from Writing from History

Jason Collins is a Las Vegas–based freelance writer whose work explores how big ideas ripple through individual lives. His writing often moves between human experience and cultural imagination, tracing the ways people adapt, create, and dream within changing worlds. Whether covering real-world stories or cultural phenomena, Jason approaches each piece with a storyteller’s curiosity and a journalist’s precision.

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MILESTONES

JON COURTENAY GRIMWOOD is now represented by John Jarrold Literary Agency.

LYNNE M. THOMAS and MICHAEL DAMIAN THOMAS were amicably divorced on April 2. Uncanny Magazine is now entirely under the ownership of Michael Damian Thomas per the divorce settlement.

 

BOOKS SOLD

S.A. CHAKRABORTY sold an untitled novel and another book to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager US for seven figures via Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates. …Read More

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Speculative poet and critic Donald Sidney-Fryer, 91, died May 2, 2026 in Chatham MA. He was in palliative care for bone cancer.

Sidney-Fryer was born September 8, 1934. He published well over 100 works of speculative poetry, starting as early as 1968 with Connaissance Fatale and publishing in periodicals including Macabre, Spectral Realms, Weird Tales, and Witchcraft & Sorcery; anthologies including Off the Coastal Path (2010); and collections including The …Read More

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Winners of the 2026 Steve Miller Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) Annual Poetry Contest have been announced.

• 1st Place: Terracotta Warrior , Y.M. Pang
• 2nd Place: Starlight Bathing , Vivian McInerny
• 3rd Place: The Planet that Learned our Fear , Ayesha Mansoor
• Youth Award: Faster Than Light , Madame Reeds-A-Lot
• Honorable Mention: The Witch of Dark Matter , Kristin5689
• Honorable Mention: The River Remembers , Hashim Quraishi

The …Read More

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The winners have been announced for the 2026 Kurd Laßwitz Preis. The prize is awarded to German-language SF works published in the previous year.

BestGerman SFNovel

• WINNER: Lyneham, Nils Westerboer (Klett-Cotta)

• We Burn the Sun, Anika Beer (Piper)
• The Deniables: Gestohlene Vergangeheit, Stefan Cernohuby (Leseratten)
• Skyrmionen oder: A Fucking Army, Dietmar Dath (Matthes & Seitz)
• Der Himmel wird zur See, Sven Haupt (Eridanus)
• Ein Übermaß von Welt, …Read More

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The Bookseller has announced the winners of the 2026 British Book Awards, including the Book of the Year Winners. Winning titles and authors of genre interest, and other finalists of interest in those categories, include:

Author of the Year

• WINNER: A.F. Steadman

• Elif Shafak

Fiction

• WINNER: Boleyn Traitor, Philippa Gregory (HarperFiction)

• Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)
• The Rose Field: The Book …Read More

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by Corrine Kumar

Read by Liz J. Bradley

Until this summer, I thought I had my writing process down to a science—my perfect desk setup, music playlist, iced coffee, phone away and on Do Not Disturb. However, when I sat down to work on a novel I’d taken a break from, I found myself stuck, hit by writer’s block. When none of my usual tools and strategies worked, I decided to ditch my perfectly curated setup and try something new. I hopped on my treadmill and started dictating my novel into my phone instead. And, remarkably, this was just what I needed. At the time, I thought of this as a last-ditch strategy to overcome writer’s block. Now, however, writing while walking has become a core part of my writing practice and has had a tremendous impact on my writing craft and process.

Increased Creativity

When I’m in the brainstorming phase of a project, I get my best ideas while walking. If I get stuck on a scene, chapter, or section of my manuscript, everything always seems clearer when I get back to my desk after a run. While I’ve observed this anecdotally, a 2014 Stanford University study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition has shown similar findings in the lab. In their study, “Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking,” researchers Opezzo and Schwartz found that participants who walked on treadmills, walked outdoors, or were pushed in wheelchairs scored higher on Guilford’s Alternate Uses Test (which assesses creative and divergent thinking) afterwards. These results—though not found in relation to writing specifically—suggest that writing while walking might help us come up with creative solutions to narrative problems and figure out what comes next.

Increased Immersion

While I initially thought adding the extra component of walking to my process would break my immersion in the story, I have found the opposite. Walking actually helps me visualize my settings, improve my dialogue, and get into my characters’ heads. Since I’m not staring at the words on my screen, I can better picture the settings my characters are in and see them in my mind with greater detail. Because I’m saying my characters’ thoughts and dialogue out loud, I get a better feel for their personalities, word choice, sentence structure, and emotions.

Turning Off Your Internal Editor

The “internal editor” is something that plagues many of us throughout our writing careers. It keeps us staring at the blank page, deleting sentences as we write them, and tweaking the same paragraph for an hour. However, when I’m dictating and walking on my treadmill, I find this voice is strangely quiet. This is, in part, because I don’t look at the words while I’m dictating, and thus, my internal editor can’t analyze and pick my sentences apart. The combination of walking, generating ideas, and dictating keeps my brain occupied enough that it can’t find a way to edit as I go.

Increasing Physical Activity

Physical activity has so many benefits for our physical and mental health. Numerous studies have shown that exercise leads to enhanced cardiovascular health, sleep, bone strength, creativity, self-esteem, balance, memory, cognitive flexibility, attention, problem-solving, and overall sense of well-being. Improvement in all these areas not only results in better overall health, but it can have a positive impact on our writing as well. However, in our busy schedules, trying to fit in both writing and physical activity amongst everything else can be challenging. By dictating while walking, we can combine these two activities and better integrate them into our daily lives.

Feeling the Flow

Reaching a creative flow state is something I crave as a writer. Those writing sessions where hours pass without me realizing it, words flood the page, and it feels as though the story is writing itself. I’ve tried many tricks over the years to reach this flow state—the right writing setup, great music, a unique writing ritual—but none of these methods have worked as well for me as writing in motion. While I don’t get to the flow state every time I use the treadmill, I find I reach it more frequently.

Decreased Distractions

Though having your phone in your hand to dictate might sound like the perfect recipe for distraction, I’ve found the opposite in practice. Because I’m so focused on generating ideas, walking, and dictating, my mind is too busy to wander. Too busy to watch another cute koala reel on Instagram, see what friends are up to on Facebook, or refresh my e-mail. Because my mind is occupied and I can only have one program open on my screen at a time, I’m less likely to fall down a research rabbit hole mid-writing session. When I get to a point in the scene where I need more information, I’m forced to dictate a placeholder rather than spend an hour researching how a character might repair an internal combustion engine.

Increased Inspiration

While most of my writing is done on a treadmill, I do also take my craft outdoors. When I write outside, whether I’m in an exciting, new location or in my neighborhood, I find infinite ideas for my settings. For example, seeing the variety of colors in the fall leaves on my usual route sparked an idea for a world where the magic system changes with the seasons. Outdoors, I’m also naturally forced to experience the world with more of my senses—to pay attention to more than just what I see. Hearing hawks calling to each other, feeling the oppressive heat of the humid 90-plus-degree summer, and smelling the blooming wildflowers remind me to use a variety of sensory details in my scenes.

Getting Started

As with all new strategies, writing while walking does have a learning curve. Speaking the words aloud can feel strange and awkward, getting used to your software’s quirks can be frustrating, and editing mis-dictated words afterwards takes time. However, with practice and patience (and a little time devoted to setting up), this method increases my enjoyment of writing, improves my productivity, and feels just as natural as typing at my desk. As you’re getting started, walking at slow speeds, using all safety features of your treadmill such as handrails and safety keys, setting your phone on the treadmill’s console, and walking in outdoor areas you are familiar with can all be ways to ease into this new method. 

Whether you use this strategy as a core part of your process, as a weekend treat, or as a way to just mix things up to get over writer’s block, writing while walking can be an incredible addition to your creative practice.

Explore more articles from Writing by Other Means

Corrine Kumar is a science fiction and fantasy writer with a love of martial arts, cooking, and learning languages. Her greatest writing influences are Brandon Sanderson, Fonda Lee, Pierce Brown, and Christopher Ruocchio. She is an alumnus of the Futurescapes Writers’ Workshop, and her articles “Active Reading to Step Up Your Writing,” “It’s All About Momentum: Writing Effectively and Productively Amidst a Busy Life,” and “Characterization and Worldbuilding Through Fight Scenes” were previously published by The SFWA Blog. Corrine can be found on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky.

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Rosemary Edghill (June 1956–07 April 2026), also writing as, eluki bes shahar and James Mallory, was a prolific novelist, short story writer, comic writer, and essayist. She is known for her genre-spanning work, writing both alone and collaboratively. Mad Maudlin, her third Bedlam’s Bard collaboration, was a 2002 Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA) selection as one of the best Horror and Fantasy novels of the year.

Starting as a comic book and then a regency romance writer, Edghill debuted in science fiction and fantasy writer with the space opera Hellflower series, and continued to write across genres and media, collaborating with several of the bestselling women authors of the day. Dozens of her short stories were published, and dozens of collaborations of varying length, along with her own novels, including the Bast series, and the Twelve Treasures. Edghill continued writing and collaborating through the mid 2010s.

Edghill loved collaborative writing as a way to explore both another writer’s mind and the multitude of interpretations different people find in the same phrasing of language. She enjoyed her experiences at conventions, meeting and talking with other writers, and especially loved her English Toy Spaniels.

Rosemary Edghill lived 69 years.

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Ian Watson (20 April 1943–13 April 2026) was an innovative and highly prolific novelist, poet, and short story writer. Watson’s 1973 novel The Embedding won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and was also a Nebula Award Finalist, along with the 1985 novelette “Slow Birds.” Watson was also a Hugo Award Finalist for “Slow Birds” and “The Very Slow Time Machine.” Watson’s 1975 novel The Jonah Kit won the BSFA Award, and in 2024, Watson was named European Science Fiction Grandmaster by the European Science Fiction Society.

Watson served as the SFWA Overseas Regional Director in the early 2000s, and he was the long-time European Editor for the SFWA Bulletin, where he also handled the regional shipping of copies. Born in England and settling in Spain, Watson was often a featured guest at European book and science-fiction conventions and events.

Focused on thought, perception, and transcendence, with a detailed eye to control of information in pursuit of power, Watson wrote, explored, and taught over the course of six decades. Watson wrote over 200 short stories, including 11 short story collections, alongside dozens of novels. While best known for his science fiction, Watson enjoyed innovation across genres, including satire, erotica, thriller, and horror. His works were translated into a large variety of European languages, and the translation of The Embedding, L’Enchâssement, won the Prix Apollo in 1975.

Watson, along with Michael Bishop, achieved the first noted transatlantic science-fiction novel collaboration, Under Heaven’s Bridge, via mailed, typewritten manuscripts. In 1990, Watson was the first novelist for the Warhammer 40,000 wargame setting, and he is a credited writer, in a collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, for the Steven Spielberg’s 2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Ian Watson lived 82 years.

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Joseph Lee Green (14 January 1931–20 February 2026) was a prolific science-fiction writer. A charter member of SFWA in 1965, he was the Nebula Conference Toastmaster in 1970, and served as co-Director of the South/Central Region from 1976 to 1978.

A missile base construction worker and later communications writer for the US Space Program, Green also wrote prolific fiction on topics of extraterrestrial life and technology, including genetic modification. Green also wrote for non-fiction articles for Analog Science Fiction and Fact between 1967 and 1972. Around 80 of his short stories were published over the course of nearly 60 years, along with eight novels. His earlier novels include 1971’s Gold the Man (published in the US as The Mind Behind the Eye), and he returned to novels in the late 2010s, including with a supernatural murder series. Green’s novelette “The Decision Makers” was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1965.

Author Robert Silverberg remembers:

“I met Joe Green at the 1961 Worldcon in Seattle. My career was well established by then, but Joe was just starting to think about doing some writing, and asked me a lot of questions about the commercial aspects of writing for a living.  I helped him as much as I could, and was pleased to see his name turning up on the contents pages of the s-f magazines not long afterward. A good many stories and some novels followed over the years, an impressive body of skillfully done work. Wisely, though, he looked upon writing as a sideline – very few of us have been able to make a go of it as a full-time proposition — and as his primary activity he put in 37 years as an engineer with NASA, serving to turn science-fiction into reality. When such writers as Robert A, Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Gordon Dickson came to the Kennedy Space Center to see the launch of moon rockets, Joe, who lived nearby, was their genial host.  I enjoyed a friendship with him of more than sixty years and his passing leaves yet another big absence for me.”

Joseph Green lived 95 years. 

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Lee Martindale (1949–10 March 2026) was a multi-genre fantasy writer, editor, anthologist, essayist, advocate, Named Bard, ordained minister, and friend to many.

Martindale served for two three-year terms on the SFWA Board of Directors, where she authored and was a fierce advocate for SFWA’s Accessibility Guidelines. She served on the Grievance Committee as a liaison to membership, and also as the SFWA Ombudsman. She received the Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award in 2019.

Martindale was a passionate writer her whole life, yet it wasn’t until her forties when she first sold a published short story, “YearBride,” the first of around three dozen short stories published over the next quarter of a century. Martindale’s writing danced through speculative realms, centered in fantastical sword and sorcery—and never stayed its hand from exploring love, marriage, and sex. Determined to defy harmful standards for women in sword and sorcery, she was proud of stories such as 1998’s “Neighborhood Watch,” which introduced a “fat, feisty, and toothsome heroine into SF&F.” Martindale also wrote essays on her experiences and advocacy work, in her own Rump Parliament Magazine, her The Bard’s Fire blog, and in the 2012 article “The Good Guest Primer” for the SFWA Bulletin, edited by Jean Rabe.

Martindale’s anthologies and collections were of particular and groundbreaking importance to women in genre. Her 2000 anthology, Such A Pretty Face: Tales of Power and Abundance, centered fat protagonists, enabling a new welcome to many women to see themselves in the stories they loved. And her 2011 anthology, The Ladies of Trade Town, featured sex workers as protagonists in speculative stories. The continued notability of these collections speaks to Martindale’s insight and impact. She published a collection of her essays in 2008, and one of her short stories in 2014, under her own imprint, HarpHaven Publishing.

Lee was a member of the “SFWA Musketeers,” a self-proclaimed troupe of SFF women authors, all members of SFWA, almost all of whom were skilled fencers. Rumor speaks of some men as auxiliaries. Lee fenced from her “battle chariot” (motorized wheelchair), delighting doubters and the familiar alike with her victories (and losses) during convention demos.

Former SFWA President Cat Rambo says, “Lee was sharp and funny and unafraid. She spoke her mind and I am so sad never to be able to talk with her again in this life.”

Writer and Musketeer Elizabeth Moon recalls, “I knew Lee Martindale for years both in SFWA, and outside it; as a personal friend who, with her husband George, enlivened many a Thanksgiving feast and birthday party at our place. Lee enjoyed visiting with my horses and they enjoyed her, until Rags was a Bad Bad Pony and bit her once. She was a lively, interesting, fun guest to have around the big table. And as most of you know, a fierce advocate for many causes. I’m sure whatever post-life location her soul ended up is enjoying her now. I certainly did.”

Writer and Musketeer Melanie Fletcher notes, “If you looked up ‘force of nature’ in the dictionary, you’d see Lee’s picture. She was a brilliant writer and editor, a fierce champion and activist, and the most loyal friend anyone could ask for. She was also my treasured sword sister as one of the SFWA Musketeers. One of the most ‘Lee’ moments I can remember was when she received an angry letter from someone she’d turned down for an anthology threatening physical violence. Her reply: ‘I have two things to say to you: ‘Smith & Wesson’ and ‘Come ahead, sucker.’’ The next letter she received from the individual (yes, he wrote back) was exquisitely polite.”

Writer and Queen of the Musketeers (not a fencer, as it was not considered wise to hand her sharp, pointy things) Esther Friesner remembers, “I don’t know when we first met but I’m so glad that we did. She was talented, no-nonsense, gifted and able to speak frankly without using ‘honesty’ as a shield for speaking cruelly. She knew how to choose her battles and was never one to retreat from what needed to be done or what needed to be said. She was always fun to hang out with. As the Musketeer’s Queen I took to calling her ‘ma barde,’ and bard she was. It’s very hard accepting that ma barde has gone ahead. It is a comfort to know that even so, her music and her voice remain.”

Lee Martindale lived 76 years.

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Jeffrey A. Carver (25 August 1949–06 February 2026) was a prolific and beloved novelist, short story writer, essayist, teacher, and creator of science fiction worlds, such as The Chaos Chronicles and the Star Rigger Universe. Carver wrote over a dozen novels and two short fiction collections. His novel Eternity’s End was a finalist for the Nebula Award in 2001. Carver received the Helicon Frank Herbert Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022.

In service to SFWA, Carver first took on the role of Nebula Awards Committee Chair and then as SFWA Awards Rules Committee Chair for more than 25 years, starting in July 1998.

Carver directly and unabashedly loved science fiction. His childhood wonder at the expanse of space led him to find that same inspiration in writing, in literature as exploration. Carver wrote of possibilities, hoping readers would take that insight and question the world around them, of what possibilities it could hold. Carver took his passion also to teaching, with the educational series Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing.

Author Robert J. Sawyer reflects:

“Jeff Carver was an absolute gentleman. Although at that point, we’d only ever met online, when he heard I was coming to his home state to do a signing, he invited my wife and me to stay overnight at his home. He was also one of the few authors willing to share hard numbers with others; he believed the more we all collectively knew, the better off everyone would be. We were friends for thirty years, and I will miss him for the rest of my life.”

Jeffrey A. Carver lived 76 years.

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LAcon V has announced that online voting for the 2026 Hugo Awards, the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer are now open.

WSFS members can access the Hugo Awards Voter Packet and cast their ballot by logging in to the LAcon V online balloting portal. The deadline is August 8, 2026, 12:00 p.m. PDT, and votes can be resubmitted at any …Read More

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Finalists for the 2025 Analog Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) Award and the 2025 Asimov's Readers' Awards have been announced.

The Analog AnLab Awards finalists are:

Novella

• Aleyara's Flight , Christopher L. Bennett (11-12/25)
• Apartment Wars , Vera Brook (1-2/25)
• Murder on the Eris Express , Beth Goder (3-4/25)
• The Return of Tom Dillon , Harry Lang (3-4/25)
• Under the Moons of Venus , Jay Werkheiser …Read More

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Horror author Thomas Tessier, 78, died March 26, 2026.

Thomas Edward Tessier was born May 10, 1947 in Waterbury CT. He studied at University College Dublin in Ireland and lived in the UK for many years before eventually returning to Connecticut.

Tessier's first genre novel was The Fates (1978), an SF horror, and he also wrote The Nightwalker (1979); Shockwaves (1982); World Fantasy Award nominee Phantom (1982); Finishing Touches (1986); …Read More

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The Pulitzer Prize Winners have been announced.Angel Down by Daniel Kraus (Atria) won in the Fiction category. Other finalists of genre interest include Auditionby Katie Kitamura (Riverhead) andStag Dance: A Quartetby Torrey Peters (Random House). In addition, Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) won in the Memoir or Autobiography category.

The Pulitzer jury said ofAngel Down: A breathless novel of World War …Read More

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