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Thomas Jackson King, Jr., (24 May 1948–3 December 2024) was an archeologist, an activist, a prolific writer of science-fiction, horror, and urban fantasy, and an award-winning journalist. He wrote articles for The SFWA Bulletin and SFWA Handbook, and served as the SFWA Election Committee Chair. 

King was a well-traveled archeologist who started his writing career as an anti-war journalist, publishing the first English-language underground newspaper in Japan, and organizing protests against the US War in Vietnam in Japan, Tennessee, and Washington, DC. A lifelong sci-fi reader, and compelled by a need to write the stories in his head, he began to write fiction at 38, with his first novel, Retread Shop, published at age 40. He went on to write dozens of adventure novels, contemporary fantasies, and short stories across science-fiction, fantasy, and horror, focused on explorations of culture, adaptation, archetypes, and individual choice, many from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1996, King was the chair of the Philip K. Dick Award jury. He continued to write until the last weeks of his life.

King was the creator and moderator for Shoptalk, a group of new and established science-fiction and fantasy authors that shared their contracts and royalty statements in the early to mid-nineties. Of Shoptalk, past SFWA President Michael Capobianco says, “As a newly published writer, Shoptalk was instrumental to my education in the business of writing. To see other writers’ actual contracts and royalty statements was a revelation, and T. Jackson King was the perfect moderator to keep things on an even keel.”

Writer Kevin J. Anderson recollects, “Early in my career Tom King was a great friend and information resource. He published his first novel, Retread Shop, the same year I published mine, and we learned a lot of the business together and shared what we learned. He was indefatigable at conventions promoting his novel. He always believed in his work, but with the vagaries of the publishing world, he dropped out of sight for quite a while. I was very happy to receive a surprise email from him a decade ago to let me know he was back and happily (and successfully) publishing his own work as an indie author. Tom never stopped writing. Even with a recent spate of health issues, he was determined to get his next novel out in early 2025. Alas, we’ll never get to read it now.”

T. Jackson King lived 76 years.

The post In Memoriam: T. Jackson King appeared first on SFWA.

Author John Marsden, 74, died December 18, 2024 in Australia. He wrote more than 40 books in various genres and was best known for his Tomorrow series of young-adult SF novels.

Marsden was born September 27, 1950 in Melbourne, Australia. He moved to Sydney with his family at age ten and later attended Sydney University for a time before dropping out. He worked various jobs before becoming an English teacher, ...Read More

The Bookseller has created a list of their top 30 UK and Ireland editors of 2024, using available data from Circana Bookscan and factoring in other achievements like literary prizes. The rankings feature several editors and works of genre interest, including:

• Natasha Bardon (HarperCollins/HarperVoyager, acquisitions include Yellowface by R.F. Kuang)
• Romilly Morgan (Brazen, acquisitions include The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood)
• Michal Shavit (PRH/Jonathan

...Read More

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the recipients of its 2024 scholarships and diversity grants.

Amanda Helms, Somto Ihezue, Elis Montgomery, A.W. Prihandita, Ayida Shonibar, Tehnuka, and Ash Vale are winners of the $500 Diversity Grants, given to “underrepresented, diverse people who have an interest in the horror writing genre, including, but not limited to writers, editors, reviewers, and library workers.”

Catherine Yu won the $2,500 Horror Writers Association Scholarship. ...Read More

by Aaron H. Arm

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose.

There’s an adage that people like to bring up when discussing current events: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”* It’s a fair assessment, actually. Everything is confined to the context of its time, after all, and no two events are identical, no matter how thematically similar they may feel. And yet, we often do feel common themes transpire across the ages. So the distinction holds true: We shouldn’t expect history to repeat itself exactly, though we can look at past trends to inform the future.

But we are writers, not historians. Novelists and poets are hardly constrained to the rigidity of the real world, and as such, how we include or draw upon history is entirely our prerogative. Could you choose to retell a historical event so as to repeat it exactly? Could you, like history itself, instead create a facsimile of the event—to “rhyme” with it? Or could you take a more subtle approach, merely referencing events so that they are echoes of history for discerning readers? As with any writing-related question about what you “could” do, the answer is “yes.” The more important question is how that inclusion of real-world history serves the story.

Repeat

In terms of repeating historical events in writing, can a work of speculative fiction genuinely do so without becoming a veritable history book? Even placing parallel events in a different setting can change their context enough to feel divergent. On the other hand, some writers might opt to visit the past through time travel, supernatural visions, or a narrative structure that traverses time. Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred arguably repeats history by throwing its protagonist 100 years into the past, then skipping across time from there to weave a poignant narrative about generational trauma and the lasting damage of slavery in America. In this way, history is repeated so that it can be directly experienced and, therefore, more cogently linked to the present.

Rhyme

Once a writer begins to frame history differently, however, they’ve entered “rhyming” territory. To me, this is more in line with alternative history or allegory, which might recontextualize events while still maintaining the essential mood or zeitgeist of a given setting. But to what end? The reimagining might simply be an end unto itself—it’s fun to ask what could have been or paint an entire city in a different color, proverbially or literally. Just as often, though, these alternative portrayals of history hit upon an overarching idea or deliver a message.

As Jeremy Zentner discussed in The Many Alt-Histories of WW2, Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle offers an alt-history perspective of a world in which Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany won World War II. This provides a clear and dramatic conflict for the oppressed characters—or anyone sympathetic to their plight—but it also explores the competing roles of power, prejudice, and free will in a way that might not be as effective in a traditional setting. As the story continues and hints at competing timelines, it also raises the question of what is authentic or true in a world people have taken for granted.

Historical allegories follow a similar recipe of reimagining real-world events, but just by virtue of being an allegory, the setting tends to look altogether different. If alt-history is a rhyme, then allegory is an off-rhyme. Take George Orwell’s Animal Farm, for instance. The ingredients of the Russian Revolution are all there: We have Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky in pig form, the farmer Mr. Jones as soon-to-be-overthrown Tsar Nicholas II, and a whole cast of animals to serve as varying sections of the proletariat (the sheep are, unsurprisingly, sheep). But transforming the historical figures and setting doesn’t just make them more fanciful; it satirizes the history and delivers a scathing critique of political power and autocracy.

Echo

How might writers echo history if writers repeat history by retelling it and rhyme with history by repackaging it? Echoes, I posit, are allusions that do not comprise the plot itself but simply supplement it along the way. Virtually any story, regardless of genre, can sprinkle in historical allusions to connect with readers’ prior knowledge and add layers of meaning. But in speculative fiction, where writers want readers to get lost in another world, it can be especially effective to include these brief reminders that we—and our worlds—are ultimately products of our history.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons contains multiple echoes of history (and literature and philosophy and mythos) to great effect. One character even fights in a simulated Battle of Agincourt as a matter of character and plot development. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins features its titular plot device as an echo of Roman gladiatorial combat, combined with the lived trauma of the Vietnam War, as expressed by her father. Dune by Frank Herbert is peppered with historical allusions throughout, as family lineage and multi-generational schemes are integral to the story—let alone the overtly Muslim- and Arab-coded Fremen people. Each of these examples, however, is confined to the story’s context and its world, with the historical echo serving more as a literary device than a whole message.

History at Your Discretion

Please note that the above categories are not prescriptive but a convenient way to see how some authors leverage history to enrich their writing. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how you incorporate it yourself or whether you do it at all. Nevertheless, we are all children of history. If you subscribe to the idea that all writing is at least somewhat autobiographical, as I do, then our history will inform our writing in some fashion. It is simply how we wish to include or reference it that matters.

* The attribution to this quote is—perhaps appropriately—lost to time. It is often attributed to Mark Twain, but it would be painfully ironic to repeat hearsay as truth in a blog post concerning history and historicity.

Aaron H. Arm is a speculative fiction writer from central New York. His first novel, The Artifice of Eternity, was published in 2023 by Cosmic Egg Books. He was also published in Dragon Soul Press’s Reign of Fire anthology. In addition to writing, Aaron has edited several novels, memoirs, and anthologies.

Aaron has professional experience in technical writing, communications, copywriting, editing, and teaching. He holds an MA in adolescent education from Ithaca College, where he also received a BA in English literature.

The post History in Speculative Fiction: Repeat, Rhyme, or Echo? appeared first on SFWA.

Liz Pelletier, publisher of Entangled Publishing, is Publishers Weekly’s 2024 Person of the Year.

Entangled Publishing—which includes genre imprints Red Tower, Entangled Teen, and Amara—had a breakout year in 2023 with the publication of bestseller Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Other notable titles include Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer and the Crave series by Tracy Wolff.

Pelletier founded Entangled in 2010 “to bridge the gap in the ...Read More

Hannah Onoguwe is the winner of the 2024 Working Class Writers Grant for her work “Eyes of the Igbadai”.

The $1,000 grant is presented annually by the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) 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.”

Other authors shortlisted for this ...Read More

The Historical Novel Society (HNS) has issued a call for proposals for their 2025 conference (HNS25), open December 15, 2024 to January 15, 2025.

This year, the conference theme is ‘‘A Celebration of Historical Fiction in its Many Forms,’’ and HNS25 program chair Christopher M. Cevasco “welcomes proposals of panels, talks, and readings with a focus on historical fantasy, alternate history, time travel, steampunk, and historical horror, among other forms ...Read More

MILESTONES

CLIO EVANS is now repre­sented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency Ltd.

AWARDS

HAYAO MIYAZAKI is this year’s recipient of the Forry Award for lifetime achievement in the SF field, presented by The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. Miyazaki is the founder of Studio Ghibli and an Academy Award-winning filmmaker. The award, named for Forrest J Ack­erman, has been given annually since 1966.

BOOKS SOLD

SEANAN MCGUIRE, writing ...Read More

The 50th World Fantasy Convention was held as a hybrid event October 17-20, 2024, with the in-person portion held at the Sheraton Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls Convention Center in Niagara Falls NY. Guests of honor were Scott H. Andrews, Galen Dara, and Heather Graham, with toastmaster Michael Swanwick. P. Djèlí Clark was a special guest, and Life Achievement Awards winners were Ginjer Buchanan and Jo Fletcher. The theme was ...Read More

Author Trent Zelazny, 48, died on November 28, 2024 of acute liver failure.

The son of SF writer Roger Zelazny, he began publishing short SF in 1999, and went on to produce over 30 stories, with some collected in The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories (2009). He also edited anthology Mirages: Tales from Authors of the Macabre (2012) and co-edited Shadows & Reflections: A Roger Zelazny Tribute ...Read More

The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) has announced an open call for “original artwork combining fantasy and science fiction themes to be featured as its 2024 Illustration of the Year.”

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2025. The winner, to be announced in February 2025, will receive $750, and the winning artwork will be featured on the SLF website and social media “and used as a visual element of SLF’s ...Read More

Welcome to the December edition of the SFWA Market Report.

Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay our recommended minimum professional rate. Additionally, SFWA adheres to our DEI Policy when making selections for this report. We strongly encourage writers to closely review all contracts and consult our resources on best contract practices.

New Markets

Future States of Stars

Markets Currently Open for Submissions

Analog Science Fiction & Fact
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Baffling Magazine (Recently Opened)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld Magazine
Crepuscular Magazine
Escape Pod
Factor Four Magazine
Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter
Frivolous Comma (Recently Opened)
Infinite Worlds
Issues in Earth Science
Latin American Shared Stories
Nature: Futures
Our Dust Earth
Planet Black Joy
Reckoning
Samovar
Shatter the Sun: Queer Tales of Untold Adventure
Silent Nightmares Anthology: Stories to be Told on the Longest Night of the Year (Recently Opened)
Small Wonders
The Cosmic Background
The Deadlands
Uncharted Magazine
Utopia Science Fiction

Markets Recently Closed for Submissions

AE Presents: Unréal (Permanent)
Apex Magazine
Aphrodite (Permanent)
Augur
Book XI
Fever Dreams (Permanent)
khoréo magazine (khoreo)
Loki (Permanent)
Never Whistle At Night Anthology Series (Permanent)
Out There (Permanent)
PodCastle
Stop Copaganda (Permanent)
Tales & Feathers
The Daily Tomorrow
The Orange & Bee

Upcoming Market Changes

100-Foot Crow‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Baffling Magazine‘s Submission window ends soon.
Book XI‘s “Things” theme begins soon.
Future States of Stars‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Latin American Shared Stories permanently closes soon.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Mysterion‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Our Dust Earth‘s Submission window ends soon.
Planet Black Joy‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved and Insane: Nostalgic Terrors‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Silent Nightmares Anthology: Stories to be Told on the Longest Night of the Year‘s Submission Window ends soon.
The Deadlands‘s Submission Window ends soon.

The SFWA Market Report is compiled by David Steffen, editor of Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology series, and administrator and co-founder of the Submission Grinder.  You can support Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder on PayPal or Patreon or by buying books or merch.

The post SFWA Market Report For December appeared first on SFWA.

The New York Times published lists of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2024 and the Best Horror of 2024, compiled by critics Amal El-Mohtar and Gabino Iglesias respectively.

El-Mohtar’s top ten picks are:

• The Book of Love, Kelly Link (Random House)
• Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
• In Universes, Emet North (HarperCollins)
• The Melancholy of Untold History, Minsoo Kang (Morrow)
• The Practice, the Horizon, and the

...Read More

The 2025 George R.R. Martin Screenwriting Grant is accepting submissions until December 15, 2024. Organized by the New Mexico Film Foundation, with support from the George R.R. Martin Literary Foundation, the competition is open to screenwriters from New Mexico.

The winning grant award for an individual screenplay is $5,000 and includes a mentorship introduction with a seasoned screenwriter. Two additional writers will receive a foundation membership and developmental mentorship with ...Read More

The Otherwise Fellowship is open to applications until December 15, 2024.

From the organizers of the Fellowship:

The Otherwise Fellowship (formerly Tiptree Fellowship) was established in 2015 to support and recognize new voices who are creating work that is changing our view of gender today. The Fellowship program seeks out creators who are striving to complete new works, particularly creators from communities that have been historically underrepresented in the science ...Read More

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series called Perspectives in Translation, where creators discuss the many facets and challenges of translating fiction. The terms “source language” and “target language” will be used throughout this series.

Translation is always a challenging process and can become even more complicated when audiovisual materials are involved. Here, SFWA member and Japanese-to-English translator Kristin Osani answers questions from SFWA Publications Crew member Misha Grifka Wander about translating for video games.

Misha Grifka Wander: Thanks for virtually sitting down with me today!  What is your background in translation?

Kristin Osani: I’ve been a freelance Japanese-to-English translator and editor since 2015. I’ve worked on games such as The Kids We Were, Voice of Cards, and Triangle Strategy, and I’ve also done a smidge of manga editing for Kodansha USA.

How did you get involved in translation work?

I kind of fell into translation as a career. Funny thing is, I translated Japanese folktales into English for my undergrad thesis, and my conclusion after all that was “Eh, translation’s not for me.” Fast forward a few years to spring 2015, and my partner (who got into video game translation half a year or so prior) and I are at a game localization jam in Tokyo. There, a bunch of folks got together for a day to translate a small indie mobile game, and I’m on the editing team and really enjoying it. At the same event just happens to be a representative from a well-established translation agency, who gives me her card and tells me that they don’t hire freelance editors, but I should take their translation test anyway. So I do, even though I’m certain I’m going to fail it. I pass.

What are some unique considerations that video games require from translators?

You may be working on the words, but you have to take any visual and audio elements of the game into account as well. Line limitations can be a headache because you only have so much space to work with in any given text field. Especially with Japanese as the source language, it can often get across much more information more compactly than English. There’s also text that is part of the graphics, which either can’t be changed (depending on budget) or needs to be fixed early in the process so the graphics team has time to make those changes to the assets. If you’re working on a game that is going to be voiced and the character mouths are animated to match the Japanese, you need to take those lip flaps into consideration and try to recreate the pace and timing as closely as possible.

What is the most challenging aspect of translating for games? Do you have a story about a particularly tricky or interesting translation?

Unfortunately, NDAs restrict me from talking about anything specific, but to speak generally, we often don’t get a build of the game to reference and can end up needing to work without critical context in some cases. We can ask questions, of course, but we may not get answers in time—or at all. I mentioned above needing to match the English pace and timing to source language lip flaps. Sometimes the English translation happens before the source language voice-over is even recorded, which means there’s no official reference, and you just have to give it your best guess. When a game gets translated while being under development in its source language, the process is pretty tricky because things such as character names, terminology, and plot are constantly in flux.

Is there something that other people might be surprised to know about translating (for video games or otherwise)?

At least for the type of translation that I do, creative writing ability in the target language (English, in my case) is just as important as competency in the source. And a lot of your time is spent researching to try and hunt down the meaning/nuance of a slang term or expression, or a niche pop culture reference, or a specific historical event, or any number of random things. Another thing that might be surprising is that we are often not credited, and even when we are, we can’t talk publicly about our work because of NDAs.

Is there any conversation about changing how credits work so translators can be acknowledged?

Oh, absolutely. Getting proper credit (and even being able to talk about your involvement in a project—thanks NDAs!) has been a problem, especially among freelancers, for as long as I’ve been in the industry. It’s an especially big issue when you’re working with certain middleman translation agencies, which either don’t care to advocate for translator names to be included in the credits, or will only allow the agency’s name, and won’t give the client the translators’ names even if the client asks. The agencies that don’t credit will claim it’s to protect their translators, but it’s more likely a way for them to maintain their middleman position. If the client doesn’t know who the translator is, they can’t hire them directly, and if the translator can’t build a public portfolio, they can’t search around for work on their own, becoming reliant on agencies to find projects. Personally, I think these agencies wouldn’t need to resort to such underhanded tactics if they treated/paid their freelance translators better, but that’s a whole different can of worms…

What else should people know about the process of video game translation?

It varies by project, of course, but often there are so many layers that translations have to go through to make it into the final product. Initial translation, edits, iterations, client feedback, to say nothing of possible motion capture or voice recording… Because it’s collaborative, the best projects—in my opinion—aren’t the flashiest, most famous ones (though those are nice to brag about, assuming you’re allowed to), but the ones where you’re part of a team of awesome people all working together to make the most awesome thing they can.

What kind of tools are available to translators for their work?

The tools we use vary depending on the project. Excel is common, as are Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools such as MemoQ and Trados. Some larger companies even have their own proprietary tools. Other than that, online dictionaries (for both your source language and your target language) and search engines are your best friends.

Are there communities for translators, and do they involve resource sharing? Or is translation a solitary endeavor?

Since freelancers can be so spread out around the globe, a lot of our community seems to be online via platforms like Bluesky and Discord. I think there are Facebook groups as well, though I haven’t used Facebook in years. There are in-person meet-ups I’m aware of in Osaka and Tokyo, though again I haven’t been to any since before 2020. I imagine there are likely similar meet-ups in other cities, especially ones that are home to companies with in-house translation departments.

Slightly unrelated, but friend and colleague Jennifer O’Donnell has a fantastic blog that I always recommend to people interested in joining the field: J-En Translations.

Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us!

Kristin Osani (she/her) is a queer fantasy writer who lives with her husband in northeastern Japan, where she works as a freelance Japanese-to-English translator when she’s not wordsmithing, working on nerdy cross-stitching, or cuddling her two cats. She has translated games such as The Kids We Were, Voice of Cards, and Triangle Strategy, and has also edited manga for Kodansha USA. Her debut novella The Extravaganza Eternia was published with Ghost Orchid Press in July 2024. You can find her on Bluesky @kristinosani.bsky.social, Instagram @Kristin.Osani, or kristinosani.com.

The post Translation for Video Games: An Interview with Kristin Osani appeared first on SFWA.

On December 10, 2024, the African Science Fiction Society (ASFS) released the following statement:

In light of further revelations in the case of the allegations made by Erin Cairns’ against ASFS member Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, the specific allegations of appropriation and non-disclosure have been investigated by a third party and no longer stand, and a public retraction has been made.

As an urgent response, we have now published a new ...Read More

Ruoxi Chen has joined Putnam as executive editor after seven years at Tor. She will report to editor-in-chief Lindsay Sagnette, who told Publishers Weekly,

Ruoxi will draw on her deep experience in the speculative fiction space to bring exceptional crossover fantasy, romantasy, and science fiction titles for the general reader to the Putnam list… I look forward to watching her bring a new generation of talented storytellers to Putnam.

Chen ...Read More

Philosopher Anand Vaidya, 48, died October 11, 2024 of cancer. Vaidya cofounded the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society in 2022, “to explore connections between science fiction and philosophy, to cross-pollinate new ideas, and to boldly go where no one has thought before!”

Anand Jayprakash Vaidya was born January 4, 1976 in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up mostly in Saudi Arabia, but also spent time in India, Germany, and various parts ...Read More