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The SFWA Board and Elections Committee would like to announce the results of the 2024 special election. Thank you to all our members who took the time to vote.

Kate Ristau has been elected SFWA President and Steven D Brewer has been voted in as SFWA Secretary.

The newly elected officers will serve on the SFWA Board from November 1st, 2024, through June 30th, 2025.

Kate Ristau – President
Anthony Eichenlaub – Vice President
Jonathan Brazee – CFO
Steven D Brewer – Secretary
Christine Taylor-Butler – Director-at-Large
Phoebe Barton – Director-at-Large
Noah Sturdevant – Director-at-Large
Alton Kremer – Director-at-Large

The SFWA Board and staff would like to thank the candidates who volunteered their time and expertise to run for office and those who continue to serve the organization in various ways. Most of our programs, services, committees, and the Board of Directors are run by volunteers.

The post 2024 SFWA Special Election Results appeared first on SFWA.

by Marie Croke

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.

As speculative fiction authors, we twist and remake reality. Yet, when it comes to retelling events or using fiction to manipulate a real-life person’s biography, those places we’re remaking were someone’s home, those events were often the worst days of someone’s life, and those people were someone’s grandmother, cousin, child, whose memories could still be very much alive.

No one is exempt from the pain of having someone shove their hands in your memories, in your home, your life. No one. Not even you.

As an example, during high school I had an English teacher, Ms. Lake, who assigned her students a creative exercise: make an etching of a gravestone, then write a story about the deceased. 

After school, I stopped at a local graveyard. There, I paid respect to a particular grave that shares my last name. Then I sought out the oldest grave, one with a name I suspected would be as unknown to my peers as it was to me, and made my etching. When Ms. Lake asked for volunteers to read their creative exercises out loud, I, terrified of public speaking, was not a volunteer.

Then I went about my day normally, completely ignorant of what happened two periods after.

You see, another student had gone to that same graveyard. Had made her etching less than thirty meters from where I’d made mine. And she was not afraid of public speaking. Not at all. She stood in front of twenty-five of my peers and told a story. About a little girl buried just the year before. A sister. A younger sister. Of mine. Four years old. Died of leukemia.

I finished my day. Stepped outside school. And was promptly pulled aside by Ms. Lake, who asked me: “Did you have a sister die last year?”

No warning. No lead-up. Nothing but an abrupt, dismissive comment on a cold field. Put on the spot, I managed to whisper, No. She’d been my niece.

“Oh, did she die of leukemia?”

I choked out another No. But I didn’t go on.

I didn’t tell her my niece had cerebral palsy, that her lack of coordination had caused her to fall, that she’d been rushed to the emergency room when it became apparent she was more uncoordinated than normal, that she’d had a blood clot that reached her brain. That there was nothing the doctors could do. That my family was wrecked.

I didn’t tell her because it wasn’t any of her business.

Ms. Lake laughed. Said that the other student had gotten it all wrong. Then she walked away, leaving me to wonder how many people had been privy to a false narrative about someone I loved.

As if she’d been a game, a plaything to steal, to twist, to remake.

Sometimes events and people will call you to write about them, but if or when that occurs, consider the following steps to approach your fiction writing respectfully. This approach will allow you to do what you do best—creatively play—but within the parameters of human empathy.

1) Seek out interviews. Speak to the people associated. Show the depth of your care. The passion you have is precious if coming from a fascinated and loving space. Your attention to detail and your questions can create a bond rather than a schism. Human beings crave connection and understanding. Give people those, and they are far more likely to be open to your ideas.

2) Request permission. Just as you would ask to photograph someone on the street, ask to write about their pain and then respect their decision. Some events aren’t meant for you to write about, especially in the cases of situations outside your culture or home. Some people aren’t yours to take liberties with.

Many authors will use others’ stories as inspiration for their own tales, changing names and locations to ease themselves around the “all persons fictitious” disclaimer that many works use to protect themselves from libel. Others will consider their everyday acquaintances as free-game character fodder, believing that those acquaintances will never know and that ignorance suffices.

If you’re too afraid to ask, then maybe the story percolating in your mind isn’t for you to write.

3) Respect boundaries. If you are given permission, the next step is to be sure you’re listening to the limits. And there will be limits. Compare this type of fictitious writing to narrative nonfiction, where journalists respect anonymity or refrain from sharing more intimate parts of stories relayed to them. Don’t give in to the presumption that because you can, you should.

4) Consider the effect of your creative decisions. Not just on your story’s plot or on the characters you’re borrowing, but on readers. It’s easier to write about people who have long ago died; it’s a much more dangerous endeavor to dive into stories concerning more recent situations.

We’re often told to write without editors in mind, but in this specific case, I believe in bending that rule. Think about how the changes you enact will affect others. When crafting a story about an event that impacted a multitude of people, it’ll be far more difficult to consider everyone’s view, but by checking ourselves, making sure we’re coming at the situation with the kindest hearts and respectful words, we’re likely to craft a story that is far more meaningful. Given the fact that tragic events tend to be more attractive to write about than happier ones, this advice is particularly important.

I know that you will use your daily life as inspiration, and that includes both painful, awful situations all around the world and the minutia closer to home. All I ask is that you remember respect. Don’t stand up in front of your peers and readers and write creative lies about someone else’s grief. Don’t presume you know someone else’s family or culture or home. Don’t perpetuate pain when you can immortalize kindness.

Marie Croke is a fantasy & science-fiction writer with over 40 stories in publication. She is a graduate of the Odyssey workshop, first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest, and her work has been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, Diabolical Plots, Fireside, Flash Fiction Online, and Cast of Wonders among many other fine magazines and anthologies. She has worked as a slush editor for multiple magazines, including khōréō, and has written reviews for Apex Magazine. She is now an Acquisitions Editor at Dark Matter INK. She lives in Maryland with her family and enjoys crocheting, kayaking, and aerial dancing in her free time.

The post The Dangers of Writing on Someone Else’s Heartstrings appeared first on SFWA.

Actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton was one of 19 recipients of the National Humanities Medals. The 2022 and 2023 medals were presented by President Biden on Monday, October 21, 2024, in a private ceremony at the White House.

The recipients include writers, historians, educators, and filmmakers. Presentation of the medals was followed by a reception “with remarks by President Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, National Endowment for the ...Read More

Diana Pho has been promoted to editorial director at Erewhon Books. Pho posted on social media,

Marking my upcoming 2-year anniversary at the company, I’m so, so thrilled to announce that I have been promoted…. Grateful to have the support from the Erewhon and Kensington Publishing teams as we level up!

Pho joined the company as executive editor in 2022. This promotion follows the departure of publisher Sarah Guan earlier ...Read More

Updated 10/29/24 to add ASFS statement and 10/31/24 to add Ekpeki statement.

Multiple allegations of unethical and unprofessional behavior on the part of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki have recently come to light, including in this report by author and editor Erin Cairns, and through comments by other industry professionals on social media. From Erin Cairns’ report: “I am reporting Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for unethical practices. He submitted a story entirely written ...Read More

On 10/27/2024, the Board met to discuss multiple ethics complaints regarding Director-at-Large Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki after hearing statements from various parties involved. Mr. Ekpeki was also given a chance to speak to the Board regarding these complaints. After due consideration, and in compliance with Article V(5)(iii) of the SFWA Bylaws, the Board voted unanimously to remove Director-at-Large Ekpeki from his position on the SFWA Board of Directors for good and sufficient cause, effective immediately.

The Board will not be answering questions on this matter to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

The post SFWA Board Statement on Removal of a Director-at-Large appeared first on SFWA.

Carlos Hernandez, Edward Zuckerman, Rob Cameron, A.C. Wise read at the Barrow’s Intense Tasting Room in Industry City, Brooklyn NY on September 17, 2024 as part of the Brooklyn Books & Booze Reading series, hosted by Randee Dawn.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like ...Read More

Winners for the 2024 Geffen Awards for best science fiction and fantasy published in Hebrew were announced by the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy at Icon, held October 20-22, 2024 in Tel Aviv Israel.

Best Translated Fantasy Book

• The Hidden Legacy: Sapphire Flames, Emerald Blaze, Ruby Fever, Ilona Andrews, translated by Yael Achmon (Alma & Ahavot)

Best Translated Science Fiction Book

• The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin,

Light Bringer Project and Omega Sci-Fi have announced that the Roswell and New Suns Climate Fiction awards are on indefinite hiatus.

Omega Sci-Fi is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, and will continue their two youth competitions, The Tomorrow Prize and The Green Feather Award. Submissions for both awards are open through February 14, 2025.

This year’s competition will come to a close during the Celebrity Readings and Honors event ...Read More

Finalists for the 2023 Kitschies, awarded for “the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining fiction that contains elements of the speculative or fantastic,” have been announced.

The directors of the award have announced that this, their 15th year, will “be the final year of the prize, citing the increased time-commitment required both of the prize’s administrators and its judges. They note, however, that this year’s diverse lists make the perfect ...Read More

by Anneke Schwob

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.

I’ve spent a lot of time in archives and special collections: parsing handwritten letters, transcribing diaries, puzzling over telegraphs and radio transmissions. I was trying to write a dissertation. But inside the climate-controlled sterility of the reading room, I got lost instead, poring through a vast accumulation of details, swept up in the endless messy traces of human life. That willingness to become immersed wasn’t necessarily a good quality for a would-be academic. But now, some years later, I find myself reconsidering my time in the archives through the lens of writing fiction.

In this article, I’ll make the case for archival research as a tool for SFF writers. I’ll explain broadly what archives are and how to use them. But before diving into the how, I first want to spend a minute on the why.

Primary sources capture a wealth of specifics that most secondary sources necessarily elide. But archival research can be about much more than nailing the details. What if we approach the archives as a way to open gaps in our understanding–gaps into which story can enter—rather than close them?

One of my favorite anecdotes about archival research comes from historian Jill Lepore. Lepore was going through the papers of Noah Webster, who you may know from dictionaries. She begins by describing a fairly typical day: opening folder after folder and finding nothing particularly remarkable in any of them. Sometimes it’s like that. 

She moves to the next folder—Box 3, Folder 18—expecting more of the same. Opening it, she discovers instead a lock of Noah Webster’s hair, cut by his daughter Eliza as a keepsake. Lepore is briefly overcome.

“Noah Webster was a miserable, irascible man,” she writes. “But his daughter had loved him.”

This story, about Eliza Webster cutting her father’s hair and slipping it into an envelope, where it would wait 200 years for Jill Lepore to empty it into her hand, isn’t about the archive’s power to change our understanding of history. Nothing new was learned, really. Not about Noah Webster, Eliza, or 19th-century practices of creating mementos. (They were obsessed with hair as keepsakes, but we already knew that.) Rather, it’s a story about how one historian briefly experienced everything that the archive couldn’t capture: a living moment between father and daughter, itself only one moment in two whole lifetimes full of them. 

To me, that vast space of possibility is where the story lives.   

If you too are interested in exploring those spaces of possibility, some orientation may help make the dive less intimidating.  

Put simply—too simply—an archive exists to collect and preserve historical material. Often, though not exclusively, archives gather written traces of the past: letters, manuscripts, official records. (Though it’s worth noting that many special collections also include visual material such as photographs, or even physical objects—the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin famously holds Edgar Allen Poe’s actual desk.) 

By nature, archives preserve a much more complex and messy history than that written into narrative. That detail and scope can make archives an important tool for reinterpreting or recontextualizing the past, in fiction or nonfiction. Archival research can draw attention to voices and narratives that have been forgotten. But archives aren’t inherently radical or even neutral. Power and privilege continue to shape decisions about what is collected, and that same power, privilege, and legacies of oppression can affect the way those collections are handled and described. 

The Society of American Archivists lists a series of resources that can help you figure out where archival materials are held.

Before visiting an archive in person, familiarize yourself with its specific policies and procedures around accessing materials. There are some constants: most will only allow you to write with pencil, no archive is going to let you bring snack crumbs around their first-edition Leaves of Grass, etc. But each has quirks about things like technology in the reading room, how to put in requests for documents, and reproduction of archival material.

Visiting a physical archive may not be possible for reasons of distance, cost, or accessibility. Poring over papers in rooms that always seem too bright or too dark and, invariably, universally, too cold (anything to keep the books happy), is both physically and mentally taxing. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that archival research itself is out of reach. Many archives have digitized large portions of their collections. Others will happily dispatch research assistants to scan documents and deliver them digitally.

But many collections are so large that their scope is described not just in folders or boxes but in linear feet. (The Ursula K. Le Guin collection at the University of Oregon, for example, is 140 linear feet—the length of half a football field.) So whether you’re visiting in person or trying to access documents online, how do you know which specific items to request? 

Enter the finding aid. A finding aid (sometimes called a collection guide) is a digital road map to a collection’s holdings. Usually hosted on an institution’s website, a finding aid describes a collection’s broad historical and thematic scope as well as, crucially, what it doesn’t contain. They also provide an inventory of folders and boxes, with brief descriptions of what might be found in each. The finding aid for the Le Guin papers, for instance, tells us that the collection includes material related to both her career as an author and her private life. Further, it divides its materials into broad categories, such as correspondence, literary works, personal papers, and so on. The divisions aren’t always perfect, but they save time: a visitor looking for Le Guin’s handwritten draft of A Wizard of Earthsea is unlikely to be waylaid by her Master’s thesis.

The other great secret to archival success really shouldn’t be a secret at all: the archivists and research librarians who keep the whole show running. One constant among almost every librarian and archivist I’ve talked to is that they love to be asked. Many of them know their collections intimately and will be delighted to help you find material to work with. 

Once you have your documents, sit with them. Let yourself get a little lost. Experience the stories you’re being told, as much as possible without the pressure of preconceived interpretation. Let the gaps emerge. Eventually, the story will rush in.

Anneke is a lapsed academic, former robot impersonator, and lifelong enjoyer of the weird and fantastic. Their fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons and Baffling and is forthcoming from Nocturne and Kaleidotrope. In addition to their fiction, they have written on pulp SF and Antarctic exploration and are part of the review team at GrimDark magazine. Anneke can most often be found on a rocky shoreline, a cursed bog, or online at annekeschwob.info. Technically, though, they live in Montreal.

The post Using Archives to (Re)Write History appeared first on SFWA.

It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken (New Directions) is the winner of the third Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which includes a $25,000 cash prize, given “to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction” and presented by the Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust.

The judges called the book

a work of quietly detonative imagination. Written in the guise of a ...Read More

The winner for the Endeavour Award was announced at OryCon 44, held October 18-20, 2024, in Portland OR.

• WINNER: Painted Devils, Margaret Owen (Holt)

• Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree (Tor)
• Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Cañas (Berkley)
• Again and Again, Jonathan Evison (Dutton)
• Sleep No More, Seanan McGuire (DAW)

The prize recognizes “a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author

The World Fantasy Awards winners for works published in 2023 were presented during the 2024 World Fantasy Convention, held October 17-20, 2024 in Niagara Falls NY.

The Life Achievement Awards, presented annually to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding service to the fantasy field, went to Ginjer Buchanan and Jo Fletcher.

The World Fantasy Awards winners are:

Best Novel

• WINNER: The Reformatory, Tananarive Due (Saga; Titan UK)

• The Possibilities,

A museum dedicated to science fiction author Cixin Liu has opened in Yangquan, China. Ceremonies were held on October 13, 2024, as part of Yangquan’s second annual Liu Cixin Hometown Science Fiction Culture Week.

Liu, author of The Three-Body Problem, The Wandering Earth, and other influential works, took to the stage with local officials. In his commemorative speech (reported here), he said, “I hope that science fiction can bring ...Read More

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) sent a message to members on October 15, 2024, announcing that Russell Davis is being brought in for “a transitional leadership position.” Interim President Anthony W. Eichenlaub said

Recent resignations prove to us how much we’ve come to depend on our staff while also highlighting flaws in the structure of our organization. SFWA must change as it rebuilds… [Davis] knows SFWA well, ...Read More

Seattle Worldcon 2025 has announced a short story writing contest with separate categories for adult and young adult writers.

The winners in each category will be recognized at the convention, receive free memberships to the convention, and have their stories published in an upcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press. Stories must draw inspiration from our Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future – For Everyone.

The theme “was selected to invoke nostalgia

by Austin Conrad

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.

Online media is my preferred starting point when seeking historical inspiration for my game writing—especially my recent fixation on King Arthur. If you use a discerning eye, the internet’s free resources are flush with useful information. For example, YouTube is home to many good documentaries that glean information from hard-to-access sources. Likewise, Wikipedia provides useful overviews and often detailed information. Even if the online encyclopedia is often maligned, it remains far superior to the ChatGPT hallucinations permeating search engines and “content” mills.

However, even high-quality secondary sources don’t present the joys, fears, and limits of people living through “history” firsthand. For a more immersive experience, writers of alt-history need to employ the vitality of primary sources.

Yet writers shouldn’t treat primary sources as gospel, either. Primary sources are a wonderful resource for internal perspective, which includes a culture’s own biases. Historiography—the way history is written—is also shaped by biases when reading primary sources. When writing alt-history, these biases can mislead, but they can also be an intriguing font of ideas.

Wikipedia’s bibliography section is helpful for exploring primary sources. Due to Wikipedia’s editorial requirements, the online encyclopedia’s citations and references often point directly to texts that are freely accessible from Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive. While a crowd-sourced article shouldn’t be blindly trusted, Wikipedia’s citations are a reliable way to find primary and peer-reviewed sources.

When tracking down historical works not yet in the public domain, check if your local college or university offers free library cards to members of the community. In my own work, I’ve found this is the best way to access archaeological information about material culture, since accounts of excavations and other specialized publications are often prohibitively expensive. A library’s primary sources are most relevant when writing alt-history set during the last few centuries (for example, stories about vanquishing Nazi vampires). Many schools provide general access as part of community outreach. In-person shelf-skimming is valuable too, since the Library of Congress system uses precise topical organization.

The bibliography of a secondary source is also a strong tool for identifying primary sources. This tends to be how my own reading lists expand! Quality secondary sources rely upon direct citation of primary evidence during argument or analysis. Writers of alt-history should use these citations to immerse themselves in their period of interest.

When evaluating non-English sources—so, most sources when writing alt-history fiction—you also need to consider how the translation impacts your primary source. 

Two approaches to translating historical documents are prevalent:

1.     Direct translation
2.     Idiomatic translation

One isn’t necessarily better than the other. For example, Plato’s dialogues often contain ancient Greek puns. In some works—like the Cratylus—these plays on words constitute part of the argument! This situation is often confusing in direct translation. A translation that provides the “sense” of the primary source’s metaphors, colloquialisms, and puns may be more useful to the typical reader.

At the same time, the original phrasing can be a valuable resource for alt-history writers. Using contemporaneous metaphors adds historical verisimilitude to the story. Selecting a translation depends on the type of information you seek. For general historical perspectives, I find idiomatic translations more useful because they’re more readable while remaining descriptive of the emotions, opinions, and perspectives of the author. Direct translations are better when doing the work of writing once you’re already immersed and the prose will benefit from adopting the period’s figurative vocabulary.

Hunting for a culture’s idiosyncratic phrases is also a good way to identify its biases. For example, the phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” contains Christian biases around religion, status, and debt. Note, too, that—as this example demonstrates—biases aren’t always negative. Rather, biases are often merely ways a person’s culture helps them frame and comprehend the world. Recognizing biases in a primary source refines alt-history fiction by strengthening the writer’s characterization of people from that culture.

Of course, not all biases are neutral. Diversify your primary sources, seeking a variety of authorial perspectives, to expose yourself to a variety of biases. This avoids accidental reliance on a negatively biased source. Comparing multiple primary sources also identifies which biases are specific to an author, and which more broadly characterize a culture.

When writing alt-history, recognize bias in your primary sources and don’t avoid using it in your own stories. Alt-histories can change quite a lot about a historical period. For example, if writing an alt-history set in a third century Roman Empire where Christianity never emerged, Christian ideas will not have any historical impact on indigenous Greco-Roman religious institutions, and Jewish culture will also appear differently. Cultural structures that developed from Christian thought ought to be avoided in such a story.

Apart from bias, some primary sources are just plain incorrect. In the Classical world this is embodied by Herodotus, who claimed in The Histories that Egypt has flying snakes and that ants mine gold in India. However, Herodotus also provides useful information about the wars between Greece and Persia, supported by archaeological investigation. How can accurate and inaccurate information be teased apart?

Trick question—we write speculative fiction, after all.

When building an alternative history from primary sources, the need for historical accuracy is context-dependent, as other articles in this series will address. Accuracy is useful for immersion, but accurate inaccuracy also immerses the reader. Continuing from Herodotus, in an alt-history novel about the Persian wars, the Greeks might attribute the Great King’s wealth to gold-digging ants. (By Hades, that could even be true!)

Because primary sources lack the historian’s benefit of hindsight, they’re often focused on details that seem unimportant to modern readers. Even our own past contains “foreign” biases that may seem alien—compare current attitudes about women to those prior to the triumph of the Women’s Rights movements throughout the 1900s. The foibles of primary sources are also why you should read them, and read deeply, while writing alt-history. Incorporating period attitudes and beliefs into a story allows your words to paint a bold picture on the canvas of history.

Austin Conrad is a full-time writer and game designer best known for his indie RuneQuest publications. His work for other systems has been published by EN Publishing and Menagerie Press. Austin’s most recent release is “Treasures of Glorantha 2,” a compendium of magic items from an age of god-manipulating sorcerers and imperial dragons. You can learn more about Austin’s work on his website, akhelas.com.

The post Writing Alt-History? Read the Primary Sources appeared first on SFWA.

VIDA CRUZ-BORJA is now represented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency Ltd.

SCOTT WESTERFELD & JUS­TINE LARBALESTIER sold adult novel The Mortons – “The Secret History meets The Sopranos meets Saltburn,” – and a second book to Jeramie Orton at Pamela Dorman Books at auction via Jill Grinberg of Jill Grinberg Literary Management. UK rights sold to Rosa Schierenberg at Viking UK in a ...Read More

The winners of the 2024 Prix Utopiales and the 2024 Prix Utopiales Jeunesse have been announced. The prizes recognize work in the fantastic genres published or translated into French.

Prix Utopiales (Adult Literature)

• WINNER: Code Ardant, Marge Nantel (Les éditions Mnémos)
• Aux ordres, Louise Carey (L’Atalante)
• Sweet Harmony, Claire North (Le Bélial)
• L’Ost céleste, Olivier Paquet (L’Atalante)
• La Maison des Soleils, Alastair Reynolds (Le Bélial)