Locus News

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

Best Hardcover Novel

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

Best First Novel

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

Best Juvenile/YA Novel

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

…Read More

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

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

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

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

French Novel

• WINNER: Aatea, Anouck Faure (Argyll)

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

Foreign Novel

• WINNER: Le Livre des …Read More

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

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

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MILESTONES

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

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

BOOKS SOLD

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

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

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

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

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

The …Read More

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

BestGerman SFNovel

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

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

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

Author of the Year

• WINNER: A.F. Steadman

• Elif Shafak

Fiction

• WINNER: Boleyn Traitor, Philippa Gregory (HarperFiction)

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

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

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

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

The Analog AnLab Awards finalists are:

Novella

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transworld has announced the launch 3AM Books, Penguin Random House's first dedicated horror imprint. The imprint will reflect the full range and ambition of horror today, bringing together established voices, bold new talent and a growing community of readers, according to The Bookseller.

Imprint leadership will include publishing director Rachel Winterbottom, editorial director Simon Taylor, editor Nicole Witmer, assistant editor Anna Carvanova, marketing executive Molly Openshaw, press officer Nina Lewis, …Read More

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Author and publisher Michael P. Spradlin, 65, died April 12, 2026.

Michael P. Spradlin was born and raised in Michigan. He worked at the Hearst Corporation for Avon Books and William Morrow, and later at HarperCollins. He wrote the Spy Goddess books, including Live and Let Shop (2005) and To Hawaii, with Love (2006); the Killer Species books, including Menace from the Deep (2013), Feeding Frenzy (2013), Out for Blood …Read More

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The five judges for the Philip K. Dick Award for works of science fiction published as paperback originals in the US during the year 2026 have been announced:

• Deji Bryce Olukotun, 1701 Anacapa St Unit 23, Santa Barbara CA 93101-1064; mobi files to starship@nigeriansinspace.com
• Adam Rakunas, 1431 26th Ave, Seattle WA 98122-3101; epub files to rak@giro.com
• Rebekah Sheldon, 817 S High St,Bloomington IN 47401-6160; pdf files to rsheldon@iu.edu
• Andrew …Read More

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We are pleased to announce that award-winning authors Sarah Gailey & Maggie Tokuda-Hall will be joining us as Emcees at the Locus Awards Weekend on May 29-31, 2026, in Oakland, California!We're delighted to welcome them both!

From their website: Sarah Gailey is a Hugo Award and British Fantasy Award winning, bestselling author of speculative fiction, short stories, and essays. They have been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and …Read More

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SF/F author eluki bes shahar, 69, died April 7, 2026 of sepsis.

Bes shahar was born in June 1956. She also wrote under the names Rosemary Edghill and James Mallory. Her debut novel, Speak Daggers to Her (1994), was the first in the Bast series, followed by Book of Moons (1995), The Bowl of Night (1996), omnibus Bell, Book, and Murder (1998), several short fiction pieces, and collection Failure of …Read More

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The shortlist for the 2026 Branford Boase Award for children's books has been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest includeGloam by Jack Mackay (Viking Books for Young Readers US; Rock the Boat UK) [amazon / bookshop] and Augmented by Kenechi Udogu (Faber & Faber Children's) [amazon / bookshop].

The Boase award is given annually to the author of an outstanding debut novel for children. The author and editor of …Read More

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Winners of the Tolkien Society Awards 2026 were announced on April 27, 2026. The awards recognize excellence in the fields of Tolkien scholarship and fandom, highlighting our long-standing charitable objective to 'seek to educate the public in, and promote research into, the life and works of' J.R.R. Tolkien. The society's trustees choose the shortlist, with winners chosen by the membership.

Best Book

• WINNER:The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien's …Read More

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