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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Celebrating Roger Zelazny, SFWA’s Infinity Award Recipient for the 61st Annual Nebula Awards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Francisco, CA – April 15, 2026

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is pleased to announce that the SFWA Infinity Award will be presented this year to Roger Zelazny at the 61st Annual SFWA Nebula Awards® ceremony on June 6, 2026.

The SFWA Infinity Award was created to highlight the life and work of creators who achieved a distinct and tremendous legacy in science fiction and fantasy. Although they are no longer with us to celebrate this honor, these writers helped to lay the foundation for today’s science fiction, fantasy, and related genres. Their memory abides not only in the works they published, but also in the worlds they inspired fellow and future writers to dream up in their wake.

SFWA President Kate Ristau reflects fondly on the power of Zelazny’s worlds:

“One of my first deep dives into science fiction was the Chronicles of Amber. Zelazny drew me right into the story with his world-building and world-breaking. Characters could manipulate their reality, walking between worlds, and they didn’t always make the decisions you wanted. There were heartbreaking moments and series-wide challenges that were epic and unforgettable; they lingered with you. Zelazny’s impact lingers on with us, shaping how we think about multiverses and how we create characters that are complicated, nuanced, and sometimes deeply flawed. I am honored to present him with this year’s Infinity Award.”

Challenges of a Multiverse

Roger Zelazny entered our genre’s publishing record in 1962, the same year as Samuel R. Delany and Ursula K. Le Guin, and the era of his ascension as a writer was marked by heated debates about the nature of science fiction and fantasy. Some called the work that he and his peers published “New Wave”, a term bound up in contemporaneous social criticism about the uptick in experimental and more “worldly” art, film, literature, and music.

This catch-all term was used in a positive light by some, to suggest a transformation in the genre: a coming-of-age for SFF as a thoroughly “literary” form, featuring more comfortable and slipstream uses of science-fictional and fantastical tropes to tell more nuanced human stories. It was also used in a negative light by some critics, to cast aspersions on SFF writers who played too poetically with language, “wrote back” against ancient myths and story structures, and wrestled with recent insights from psychology and sociology in their prose.

As for the writers themselves, including Zelazny?

Most were less interested in the labels used by critics to describe their work, and more in how to keep growing their craft – often in publishing contexts we can also learn a great deal from today.

Zelazny developed as a writer in an era when magazines were common incubators for novel-length masters of the craft. Widely read by paying customers, the major magazines of Zelazny’s day had different opportunities to curate budding and distinct voices like his.

That’s why, after publishing in magazines like Amazing and Fantastic, Zelazny was able to win a Hugo for Best Novel with what was first a serial production, delighting readers over two issues of F&SF in 1965. Zelazny’s This Immortal (first printed as “…And Call Me Conrad”) would tie for that Hugo with another patchwork publication by another SFWA Infinity Award recipient: Frank Herbert’s famed fix-up novel, Dune.

Zelazny’s Lord of Light (1967), nominated for a 1968 Nebula and winning the Hugo, would then entrench his distinct voice and approach to mythic world-building as a key component of mid-century SFF canon. That year, he would also support SFWA’s internal curation of canon, by editing our third-ever Nebula Award Stories anthology and providing thoughtful remarks on each tale.

Zelazny also won two Nebulas, for novelette and novella, at the very first Nebula Awards: “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” (F&SF) and “He Who Shapes” (Amazing Stories). “Home is the Hangman” (Analog) won for Best Novella in 1975, and he earned many other nominations over the decades of his career.

Writers new to Zelazny’s work might be pleasantly surprised to pick up a volume today; most of his stories boast lush language and a fantastical interweaving of science-fictional conceits with allegorical and/or psychologically rich characters.

George R.R. Martin describes Zelazny as follows:

“He was a poet, first, last, always. His words sang. He was a storyteller without peer. He created worlds as colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen.”

Perhaps just as importantly, Zelazny operated in a community of dreamers, experimenters, and literary incubators. He was loved by many of his peers, and flourished within a network of fellow creators. To read Zelazny’s work today, and to reflect on the context in which it was written, is to remember how much the writers of SFF today share with generations of innovators come before.

The Legacy Continues

From June 3-7, SFWA is celebrating living and posthumous lights in our genre community at our 61st Annual Nebula Awards Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Conference prices for in-person tickets rise May 1, and Banquet tickets for the acclaimed Nebula Awards Ceremony on June 6 are in limited supply.

There, in a special presentation with our latest Grand Master, N. K. Jemisin, we’ll be learning how to build and break down worlds in our prose. With fellow Grand Master Joe Haldeman, we’ll also be exploring how the world of SFF industry has transformed over the last few decades. We will mark Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award recipient David Langford’s contribution to genre history, and the power of our Nebula Finalist fiction to keep light alive even in an author’s absence.

And with the support of Roger Zelazny’s family, friends, and still-avid readers, we will mark this year’s worthy recipient of the SFWA Infinity Award: a writer whose worldbuilding shattered and reformed notions of SFF. Zelazny’s work forged a path for future writers to “write back” on shared mythologies, and to reimagine science-fiction and fantasy conventions with greater confidence — knowing that the gift of creating a well-told and inventive tale, irrespective of the labels outsiders assign to it, is always its own reward.

Join us for the memories, and to revel in the history and future of SFF together!

Get your tickets for the Nebula Awards Conference today

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TheBaltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) has announced that The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso (Atria) [amazon / bookshop] is the 44th winner of the Compton Crook Award.

The other finalists were:

• A Song of Legends Lost, M.H. Ayinde (Saga) amazon / bookshop
• Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, Yaroslav Barsukov (Caezik SF & Fantasy) amazon / bookshop
• All the Water in the World, Eiren Caffall (St. Martin's) amazon …Read More

  The post Gelfuso Wins Compton Crook Award appeared first on Locus Online.

MILESTONES

SARA HASHEM is now represented by Chloe Seager at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. Hashem's Merciful Carnage, first in a dark fantasy romance duology, and another book went to Alyea Canada at Orbit via Jennifer Azantian of Azantian Literary Agency. UK rights sold to Jenni Hill at Orbit UK.

HANNAH WASTYK is now represented by Arley Sorg at kt literary.

OGHENECHOVWE DONALD EKPEKI has been hospitalized for a spinal fracture …Read More

The post People & Publishing Roundup, April 2026 appeared first on Locus Online.

by Angelique Fawns

Read by the author

One of the most daunting questions every author faces is: How do we get our words out into the world?

If you’re like me, you look at the careers of Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, or Kelley Armstrong and wish for that kind of success. A rabid fan base, movie and TV deals, and that most elusive of all goals: a full-time, profitable fiction writing career. But the truth is, those careers are the product of decades of hard work, timing, and luck. Most of us can’t bank on a bestseller falling from our fingers tomorrow.

So the real question becomes: What can we do right now to grow our platforms and share our writing?

I’ve been exploring different options since 2018, and after years of trial and error, I finally found the tool that works best for me: Substack. It might not be the tool for everyone, but it has provided me with an easy way to finally showcase my short stories and serial fiction. Other writers swear by Medium and Wattpad, and I’m hoping to learn more about them as I continue my writing journey.

Escaping the Gatekeepers

Like many indie authors, I wanted to find a way to share my stories without handing all my power—and my earnings—to gatekeepers. That’s not to say I don’t believe in traditional publishing (I have my first novel on sub with an agent right now, hoping to sell it to the Big Five). But if there is one refrain I’ve heard from all the successful authors I’ve interviewed, it’s that you must have multiple streams of income.

Self-publishing on Amazon seemed like a solution at first, but (for me at least) that quickly turned into a way to lose money fast. You don’t just upload your book and wait for readers to appear. It’s a screaming crowd of millions, and unless you pay the “algorithm gods” for ads, your work could sink into oblivion. 

I needed something different: a platform where I could control my own content, connect directly with readers, and not go broke while doing it. 

The Serial Fiction Route

There are other platforms that are free to distribute your work. I tried Patreon at first, and I know it works very well for others, but I was not able to get any traction on it. Like, literally, I had fewer than 20 followers. My issue was discoverability. At its heart, Substack is a newsletter provider. But it’s grown into something much bigger—a haven for writers, journalists, and creators of every kind. What I found intriguing (though it was off-putting at the start) was how writers can monetize their work right away. When I first joined, I turned on paid subscriptions almost as an afterthought. I wasn’t sure anyone would actually click that button. To my shock, people did—some simply because they liked my work and wanted to support it. That kind of generosity floored me.

Taking the Leap

I moved from Mailerlite to Substack for my newsletter when my follower base crested 1,000. (That’s when Mailerlite began charging users; they’ve recently lowered that number to 500.) There are other free platforms, such as Medium, but their email/newsletter system is tied to their ecosystem. My email list was full of names of people who weren’t Medium members.

I joined Substack in March 2024 with my thousand names. As of today, I have over 2,600 subscribers. My current content focuses on researching the short story markets and posting no-fee, paying short story calls, but I recently expanded my content into posting serial fiction. My followers aren’t as enthusiastic about my fiction as they are about my short story research, but I am hoping to find more readers who do.

Researching the markets is fun, and I feel like I’m providing a service for the community, but my goal is to be a WRITER. So, every Wednesday, I now publish a new 1,000-word chapter of my ongoing space opera, The Chronicles of Roxie Vega.

An author will never be “discovered” if their work isn’t out in the world. The best novel ever created will molder sitting on your hard drive. So far, I’ve been very happy with the response. Followers comment on the content, and the instant feedback is fabulous. I might not have tons of readers yet, but this experiment has just begun. At least I’m seeing some traction, whereas my free fiction was read by maybe one person on Patreon. My open rates on my short stories are closer to 1,500 or 2,000 on Substack.

Making It Work 

Part of what gave me the courage to try serialization was seeing other writers succeed with it. I remember watching a TED Talk by Elle Griffin, who talked about how she serialized her novel Obscurity. Though I listened to that talk almost a year before I tried my own serial fiction, I kept thinking about it. I started looking at Wattpad and Medium, but wasn’t sure how I could find an audience.

The setup phase of Substack isn’t entirely intuitive, so it took longer to get it going than I had anticipated, and the “tags” that you assign to content are nothing like hashtags on other social media. Instead, a “tag” is a way to organize content on your landing page.

As a Canadian writer, I’ve had no issues using Substack’s Stripe-based payment system, but I’ve heard from other creators who aren’t as fortunate. Stripe isn’t supported in many countries, which means international writers outside its network can’t get paid or monetize their newsletters directly.

Substack’s openness to nearly all viewpoints has also drawn criticism, especially after reports that extremist newsletters were operating on the platform. Some writers left in protest, while others see it as the price of creative freedom online. The majority of the content and interactions I’ve had on Substack have been positive and supportive, but I do respect that others may have a different opinion.

Even if I never find huge monetization with my serial experiment, the worst-case scenario is having a complete novel at the end of this process. Beyond getting our words into the world, just creating them consistently is a challenge. Committing to posting 1,000 words a week means I must (at a minimum) write those thousand words. Motivation!

Could Serial Fiction Work for You?

For me, Substack has answered many of the questions I used to struggle with. I was spending so much money trying to create a platform for myself, but making nothing. Paying for newsletter hosting, paying for podcast hosting… Now I have a platform that is free and even pays me a little. 

Another issue was visibility. How do you find followers in an oversaturated world of talented authors all hoping to capture reading eyes? Substack’s community talks freely in the “Notes” area, and I have found new writing and reading friends by commenting on the posts of others. I’ve had followers tell me that I should try Medium, and I might branch out as I get more established. I still often feel like I’m screaming into a void, but at least I know a few people can hear me now. If you are sitting on the fence about putting your words into the world, there is no time like the present. Why not try serial fiction?

Explore more articles from Writing by Other Means

Angelique Fawns is a journalist and speculative fiction writer. She began her career writing articles about naked cave dwellers in Tenerife, Canary Islands. After selling her first story to EQMM, she fell in love with weird fiction, which is ACTUALLY stranger than non-fiction. You can find her lurking at @angeliquefawns on X, blogging about upcoming calls at https://angeliquemfawns.substack.com, or gazing into the abyss, hoping it stares back at her.  Over 100 stories published. Find some in Mystery Tribune, Amazing Stories, and Space & Time.

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Finalists for the 17th-annual Xingyun Awards for Chinese science fiction were announced by the World Chinese Science Fiction Association on March 31, 2026. Titles have been translated by Hu Shaoyan, except where English titles were provided by the authors or publishers.

Best Novel

• Ocean Break, Chen Qiufan (Flower City)
• The Tale of a Loong's Metamorphosis, Hai Ya, Fengxing Chengzi (New Star)
• The Gun that Ends Beginnings, Liang Qingsan (People's …Read More

  The post 2026 Xingyun Awards Finalists appeared first on Locus Online.

Congratulations to all of the Locus Awards top ten finalists! These results are from the February 1 to April 1 voting by readers on an open public ballot.

The Locus Awards winners will be announced May 30, 2026, during the in-person Locus Awards Ceremony, held in the historic Hotel Shattuckin downtown Berkeley, California. Join MCs Sarah Gailey and Maggie Tokuda-Hall, plus guests of honor Tananarive Due,Stephen Graham Jones,andNnedi Okorafor, …Read More

The post 2026 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists appeared first on Locus Online.

Katrina Kat Templeton has won the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) to travel from Europe to North America to attend MetropolCon, the 2026 Eurocon, defeating Lisa Hertel.

There were 76 votes, 3 of which were submitted with no preference. The fund is currently administered by Sarah Gulde in North America and Mikołaj Kowalewski in Europe. Eurocon 2026 will be held July 2-5, 2026 in Berlin, Germany.

For more information, see the …Read More

The post 2026 TAFF Winner appeared first on Locus Online.

Fantasy illustrator MICHAEL HAGUE, 77, died March 10, 2026 in Colorado Springs CO.

Michael Riley Hague was born September 8, 1948 in Los Angeles CA. He attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He illustrated for numerous books, many of them classics, including L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz (1982), C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1983), J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1984), J.M. …Read More

The post Michael Hague (1948-2026) appeared first on Locus Online.

Fantasy author John Flanagan, 81, died February 7 of complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

John Flanagan was born May 22, 1944 in Sydney, Australia. He worked in advertising and wrote TV sitcoms before publishing The Ruins of Gorlan, first in The Ranger's Apprentice series, in 2004. He then wrote The Burning Bridge (2005), The Icebound Land (2005), Oakleaf Bearers (2006), The Sorcerer in the North (2006), The Siege of Macindaw (2007), …Read More

The post John Flanagan (1944–2026) appeared first on Locus Online.

Joyelle McSweeney, author of the poetry collection Death Styles (Nightboat) [amazon / bookshop], is among the recipients announced for the 2026 Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize, recognized in the Poetry category.

The Windham-Campbell Prize was established in 2013 to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. The prize is administered by Yale University, with …Read More

Anathema: Spec from the Margins, a speculative fiction magazine by and for queer people of color, has announced that it is relaunching after a four-year hiatus.

We're committed to supporting marginalized writers by paying them a professional rate for their work. To feature up to 4 stories, 4 poems, and 1 nonfiction piece per issue, we plan to pay:

• $0.08/word for fiction up to 6,000 words
• $0.05/word …Read More

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the recipients of its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jonathan Maberry and Lisa Morton. The awards will be presented on June 6, 2026, during the Bram Stoker Awards at StokerCon®2026 in Pittsburgh PA.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented periodically to an individual whose work has substantially influenced the horror genre. While this award is often presented to a writer, it may also …Read More

by Jason P. Burnham

Read by Naching T. Kassa

Whoopsie-doodle! Your protagonist has just been written into a world where the infrastructure for antibiotic production no longer exists. Perhaps you’re writing in the near future, and climate change has progressed to the point of the complete collapse of global commerce. Perhaps the aliens from the first Independence Day movie have blown up all the major centers of production around the world. Or maybe the antibiotic production infrastructure has yet to be invented because you’re writing in the past or a pre-technological fantasy world. Wherever you’re creating, no one is making antibiotics. Protagonists living a “life after antibiotics” (or before, as may be the case) is becoming an increasingly relevant theme/scenario for modern speculative fiction. What’s a protagonist (and author looking to write such a setting with believable medical accuracy) to do?

Before we dive into what your main character’s options are for making/acquiring antibiotics, first we must consider the spectrum of conditions for which you might need antibiotics. Some common bacterial infections are those of the urinary tract, lungs (pneumonia), ears, skin and soft tissue, bones, and meninges (meningitis). Add to that diarrheal illness and sexually transmitted infections. If there are no antibiotics, what can your protagonist do for the afflicted? 

Note: We won’t cover antivirals or antifungals here. For unchecked fungus, see The Last of Us, the empty pool scene from the movie Annihilation, or various National Geographic documentaries. The immune system tends to take care of viral infections without antivirals, though some people would die without supportive care in a hospital. Unchecked HIV without an antiviral infrastructure should be its own Planetside article, but you could also just read up on what happened in the 1980s (see And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts).

Managing Infections Without Antibiotics

Control of a bacterial infection’s source is paramount, and for some infections, this can be done surgically in a way that doesn’t necessarily require any antibiotics (think of draining a boil). Unfortunately, if there aren’t any antibiotics at your protagonist’s disposal, there probably aren’t any anesthetics either (ouch!). So, if you’re the unlucky protagonist (or patient/family member/love interest of the protagonist) who has toe gangrene in this story, break out the mouth guard, the whiskey, and the sleeping incantation, as the most readily available chopping/cutting instrument is sharpened in preparation for gangrenous appendage removal. Make sure the post-operative wound is cleaned and bandaged appropriately, keeping it free of water and dirt. 

These methods (cutting instead of finding an antibiotic) could also be applied to conditions/procedures like the lancing of boils and draining of other purulent collections from festering wounds that are close enough to the skin’s surface to be reached easily with whatever tools of the trade are available in Protagonist World. Note: You’ll want to consider how people with amputated parts are going to be received by others (is this an inclusive world or an ableist dystopia?) and what assistive devices might be fashioned/DIY-ed to make sure they have a chance of outrunning the zombies or rogue AIs or plutocrats.

But what about infections where “chopping it off” isn’t an option or “draining pus” just won’t fly? After all, you can’t cut out the urinary system if it burns when you pee (though your protagonist may think that preferable given their symptoms), nor can you cut out the meninges (yes, I see you autocracy who empties skulls to implant the next-gen brain/spine implant for mind-controlled super soldiers—meninges explant is not allowed!). So, what can the protagonist do? For a urinary tract infection, the best strategy may be an ounce of prevention. Something as simple as having your protagonist drink extra water will reduce the risk of getting a urinary tract infection. “But clean water is limited.” Touché. Perhaps your protagonist has access to cranberry juice or the extracts of urine of pregnant mares to reduce UTIs. But eventually, a character (perhaps even a main one) is going to get an infection that cannot have been prevented and can’t be cut or drained away. What then?

Ancient Recipes

In the last decade, scientists have recreated a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon recipe for an anti-infective salve used for eye infections. Known as Bald’s Eyesalve, this remedy was rediscovered in Bald’s Leechbook (archived in the British Library) by a team of microbiologists and experts in Old English. The concoction involves onions, garlic, wine, and a cow’s bile salts combined in a brass vessel (talk about a witch’s brew). When applied in a lab to Staphylococcus aureus (a bacterium that causes more than a million deaths per year globally), the concoction showed excellent killing activity. The Dark Ages aren’t sounding so dark now, huh? 

Bald’s Eyesalve is just one example—perhaps your protagonist has access to other forgotten or dismissed remedies. An ancient text, only recently discovered. An Indigenous remedy known only through oral tradition, in danger of being phased out of history by colonial violence. Lost scrolls from antiquity stumbled upon in a cave, desert, or island that are previously unread, but provide crucial insights into antibiotic properties and preparations from commonly available plants, fungi, insects, or other plot/world-convenient source. It is entirely plausible! One of the first-line drugs against malaria was discovered by a Chinese researcher in the 1970s, who went through thousands of ancient texts and folk manuals to identify potential anti-malarials! Consider also that wounded Confederate soldiers from the first American Civil War were treated with Native American remedies derived from plants ranging from white oak to devil’s walking stick to tulip trees. The sources of nature-derived antibiotics are myriad in real life and can be in your fiction too.

So, where does this leave our protagonist? If the infection can plausibly be cut out/off, this may be the route to go. If an infection can be prevented, this will save much grief. For those infections that can’t be cut or prevented, an herbal/plant concoction from a plausibly arcane tome/text/scroll may just save the day (and limb)! If you want your story to be a commentary on loss, maybe the concoctions have great promise and the ancient text swears they work, but despite your protagonist’s best efforts, the loved one still dies. But if you’re going for hope, these ancient remedies are going to do just the trick!

The Aftermath

One final note: In a world without antibiotics, disabilities will arise in survivors—limb loss, deafness (meningitis is a common culprit), blindness, gait problems, and debility, among others. Accommodations for and coping among the infirm and the recovered can be powerful points in your story (if you so choose). Happy apocalypse writing!

Explore more articles from Writing from Science

Jason P. Burnham (he/him) loves to spend time with his wife and children. He dearly misses his dog. He is an infectious diseases physician and researcher.

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SF writer and television producer ROB GRANT, 70, died February 25, 2026.

Robert Grant was born September 25, 1955 in Lancashire, England. He attended Liverpool University and wrote for BBC radio. He co-wrote with Doug Naylor the TV series Red Dwarf and several tie-in works of fiction, including Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (1989), Better Than Life (1990), and script collection Primordial Soup (1993), under the name Grant Naylor. He wrote …Read More

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Welcome to Our 61st Annual Nebula Awards Programming!

San Francisco, CA – April 6, 2026

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is proud to launch its preliminary program for its 61st Annual Nebula Awards Conference, running from June 3-7 in Chicago, Illinois.

The Nebulas are an opportunity to celebrate SFWA’s latest finalists and their works in Chicago this June 3-7, along with SFWA’s 42nd Grand Master N. K. Jemisin, latest Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award recipient David Langford, and current Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award recipient Gay Haldeman.

The Nebula Awards Conference is also an excellent opportunity to network with fellow writers, expand industry horizons, and pursue professional development goals in science fiction, fantasy, and related genres.

This year’s conference is packed with in-person and virtual offerings and strongly celebrates our theme of Worldbuilding & Worldbreaking. You can check out our preliminary schedule at our new programming station on SFWA.org. Full panelist complements and final modifications will be added soon.

New Merch Alert!

You can also celebrate this year’s Nebula conference theme with new items at the SFWA Store, where $25 USD from every purchase of these specialty goods goes to our Finalist Scholarship Fund.

Many of this year’s Nebula Finalists would love to celebrate their achievement in community this June in Chicago, and you can help us get them there – while snagging a great new t-shirt or notebook for longterm use. Direct donations to the fund are always welcome.

Spread the Joy in Community

A ticket to the online Nebula Conference also gets you online attendance to the 10th Annual StokerCon – completely free! At StokerCon, which runs from June 4 to 7, you can celebrate Linda D. Addison, one of this year’s inaugural Nebula Award Finalists for Best Poem, and a Guest of Honor at the 10th-anniversary event run by the Horror Writers Association.

Congratulations to our peer organization, the Horror Writers Association, on its decade of conference craft for genre writers!

Details will be sent to registrants. Enjoy two cons for the price of one!

Get to Know Some of Our Headlining Presenters!

Toastmaster Tananarive Due is not only guiding our Nebula Awards Ceremony on Saturday, June 6, but also presenting a Crash Course in Speculative Screenwriting on Saturday, with accomplished husband and creative partner Steven Barnes. This creative duo has made significant contributions to the world of speculative horror, with a focus on Black histories within the genre and the role of genre in general for the heady work of resistance and renewal.

Are you ready to deepen your thematic storytelling in multimedia forms? Join us for this enriching conversation in June!

Gay Haldeman is receiving this year’s Service Award for a career of building out SFF culture in support of her husband’s writing, including through her work with SFWA. On Thursday, June 4, we’ll be hearing from SFWA Grand Master Joe Haldeman himself, in an insightful panel titled “Historical Perspective: The Evolving World of SFF”. This conversation is a critical part of this year’s conference theme, because writers are forever building upon layers of lore that are easily lost in the shifting landscape of our industry.

Where are we reinventing the wheel? What has consistently preoccupied us in genre, and where are we forging new ground? What is uncannily similar and wildly different about the way writers have built their creative lives and careers over the decades – and where might all these historical signs be pointing us next?

Join us for an excellent panel discussion with a star writer who has embodied dedication to his ever-changing community for decades.

And on Friday? Well, that’s when Grand Master N. K. Jemisin will offer a special presentation, a Crash Course in Worldbuilding and Worldbreaking. Learn more from the master herself about how many ways our worldly expectations – of a world, a city, a culture, or a shared reality – can be spun up in readers’ heads and then brought crashing down, only to be remade in more interesting forms.

This spotlight event will lift you up and invigorate the writer in you before we head into our very special evening of star-studded celebrations. After our Nebula Finalist Reception, our Nebula Finalists and VIP Autographing event will be open to the public, and a terrific opportunity to mingle and get to know some of the brightest lights in our “Nebula” this year.

RSVP today to be added to a giveaway draw, too – so tell all your friends in Chicago and its vicinity to bring their books for signing!

Remember: Nebula Banquet Tickets Are in Limited Supply! Purchase Yours Today! WRITERS!
GET YOUR HEADSHOTS AT THE NEBULAS

We are honored this year at the Nebula Awards Conference by the repeat appearance of photographer Kaitrin Acuna, who last year made our 60th anniversary shine, and left smiles on the faces of authors who secured appointments for headshots. (Check out last year’s gallery yourself!)

This year, Kaitrin is back, and with an incredibly generous offer to help SFWA support the general SFF community. When you book an author headshot appointment with Kaitrin for a window during our conference in Chicago, 15% of the fee will go to our Givers Fund, a SFWA-driven outreach program that distributes micro-grants to SFF projects every year.

Thank you – and Kaitrin – for supporting the future of SFF at the Nebulas! Lock in your Nebula Conference Tickets today!

The post Press Release – April 6, 2026 appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

The winners of the 2025 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards have been announced.

BestNovel

• WINNER: When There Are Wolves Again, E.J. Swift (Arcadia) amazon / bookshop

• A Granite Silence, Nina Allan (Riverrun) amazon
• Project Hanuman, Stewart Hotston (Angry Robot) amazon / bookshop
• Edge of Oblivion, Kirk Weddell (Troubador)
• The Salt Oracle, Lorraine Wilson (Solaris)

Best Shorter Fiction (for novelettes and novellas)

• WINNER: …Read More

Outlaw Planet by M.R. Carey (Orbit UK; Orbit US) [amazon / bookshop] was announced as the winner of the 2026 Philip K. Dick Award on April 3, 2026 at Norwescon 48. In addition, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (Undertow) [amazon / bookshop] received a special citation. Other nominees for the award included:

• Sunward, William Alexander (Saga) amazon / bookshop
• Casual, Koji A. Dae (Tenebrous) amazon / …Read More

The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) has announced the winners for the 2025 NBCC awards for books published in English (including translations) in the United States. Titles and authors of genre interest among the winners include We Do Not Part by Han Kang, tr. Paige Aniyah Morris & e. yaewon (Hogarth).

Committee chair Heather Scott Partington said the novel presents

a work of blinding melancholy, bleak weather, and murmuring syntax. …Read More

The shortlist for the 2026 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2025, has been announced.

French Novel

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

Foreign Novel

• Le Chant des noms [The Naming Song], Jedediah Berry, tr. …Read More

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association has named its 13th Grand Master, the multi-talented Ruth Berman.

Ruth Berman's speculative poetry has appeared in Asimov's, Amazing Stories, Analog, Aliens and Lovers, Burning With A Vision, Fungi, Tales of the Unanticipated, Weird Tales, Worlds of Fantasy and Horror, Star*Line, and other magazines and anthologies. As a translator from French, she has placed work in Space & Time, Tales of the …Read More