Industry News

The Bookseller has announced the winners of the 2025 British Book Awards. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

Fiction

• WINNER: James, Percival Everett (Mantle)

• Long Island, Colm Tóibín (Picador)
• Think Again, Jacqueline Wilson (Bantam)

Pageturner

• WINNER: Faebound, Saara El-Arifi (Harper Voyager)

• Daydream, Hannah Grace (Simon & Schuster)
• House of Flame and Shadow, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury)

Audiobook Fiction

• JOINT WINNER: Bunny vs Monkey

The winners of the 2025 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2024, have been announced.

French Novel

• WINNER: L’Ost céleste, Olivier Paquet (L’Atalante)

• Les Nuits sans Kim Sauvage, Sabrina Calvo (La Volte)
• La Maison des veilleurs, Patrick K. Dewdney (Au Diable Vauvert)
• Vallée du carnage, Romain Lucazeau (Verso)
• La Sonde et la taille, Laurent Mantese (Albin Michel)
• Conque

Dr. Heather Kathleen Forest Osborne (03 June 1981–20 September 2024) was a lifelong writer of short speculative fiction, a debut novelist, and a proud member of several fandoms. She was the Associate Editor of Foundation: The International Journal of Science Fiction published by the University of Liverpool, and a presenter at numerous conferences, including the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA). Dr. Osborne completed her doctorate in creative writing at the University of Calgary in 2018, after her time in England, and focused on Science Fiction Studies. Her short stories and creative nonfiction were included in several anthologies, most recently in 2021’s Seasons Between Us, and she published her first novel, Songbroken, in 2022.

Appreciative of life in all its facets, Dr. Osborne was a loving mom and wife who enjoyed the wilderness and a wide range of outdoor recreation. She loved being a teacher, loved storytelling, and mostly, loved sharing these things with others.

Aware of her own terminal illness, Dr. Osborne left us with her own joy:

“My favourite parts of this life was sitting down one-on-one with a student and discussing a concept, and seeing that ‘Oh!’ moment in their eyes when something clicked. That’s a feeling I’ve been chasing all my life as well! Learning is like climbing a spiral staircase—you will keep coming back around to the same ideas, but each time with a slightly higher understanding. I love that about learning and about teaching.” In her conclusion, she wanted us to know: “I’ve lived a full life with people I love.”

Heather Osborne lived 43 years.

The post In Memoriam: Heather Osborne appeared first on SFWA.

Winners for the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards have been announced. Winners of genre interest include Verdigris by Michele Mari, translated by Brian Robert Moore (And Other Stories) in the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation category, and Mia Couto in the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature category.

The finalists of genre interest were previously covered. The awards were announced live at the PEN America Literary Awards ...Read More

The DAG Foundation has announced the five finalists for its inaugural DAG Prize for Literature, which annually awards $20,000 to “an emerging prose writer whose work expands the possibilities for American writing.” Writers who have published one prose work in the US and who have not already won a major prize in literature are eligible to apply. Winners may use the prize money for “research, writing, editing, workshops, residencies, or ...Read More

The shortlist for the annual Arthur C. Clarke Award, celebrating the best science fiction novel published in the UK, has been announced.

• Private Rites, Julia Armfield (Fourth Estate)
• The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
• Extremophile, Ian Green (Ad Astra)
• Annie Bot, Sierra Greer (The Borough)
• Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK)
• Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock, Maud Woolf (Angry Robot)

The winner ...Read More

Author and editor Chris Barkley is suing former Hugo Awards administrator Dave McCarty in small claims court. Barkley explained in a statement on his GoFundMe page:

On February 5th, 2025, I traveled from Cincinnati, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois to for­mally file a lawsuit in Cook County Small Claims Court against David Lawrence Mc­Carty in the amount of $3000.00.

The reason for doing so was simple; I filed on behalf of ...Read More

Peter Morwood, 68, died on May 9, 2025 in Ireland. Morwood was a prolific fantasy author, and married to writer (and frequent co-author) Diane Duane for nearly 40 years; she survives him.

UK author Morwood was born Robert Peter Smith on October 20, 1956, changing his name as an adult to his mother’s maiden name in her honor. He graduated university in 1979 and worked in the UK civil service ...Read More

The 46th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA) took place March 19-22, 2025 at the Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel Lakeside, with the theme of ‘‘Night Terrors.’’ Academics, writers, publishers, editors, artists, students, independent scholars, and more participated in a weekend of conversation, papers, and events on the topic, with 363 guests attending (up from about 330 last year) and 160 people at the awards banquet. Silvia Moreno-Garcia ...Read More

Agent Eric Smith, for­merly of P.S. Literary, has launched a new agency, Neighborhood Literary. Rebecca Podos joins as senior agent, coming from Rees Liter­ary, and Donovan Levin joins as associate agent. “We’re a boutique literary agency headquartered in Philadelphia that focuses on adult fiction and non-fiction, as well as books for children.” For more, see the website.

Agent Kelly Sonnack has purchased Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and is now president. ...Read More

Finalists have been announced for the 2025 Prix Imaginales, honoring the best works of fantasy published in France.

French Novel

• Roman de ronce et d’épine, Lucie Baratte (Typhon)
• Kosigan, un printemps de sang, Fabien Cerutti (Mnémos)
• Une valse pour les grotesques, Guillaume Chamanadjian (Aux Forges de Vulcain)
• La Boutique des choses inavouables, Céline Chevet (du Chat Noir)
• Le Cycle de syffe, tome 4 : La maison

The Prado Museum has announced Mathias Énard and Helen Oyeyemi as the writers selected to participate in the “Writing the Prado” residency program. The program is a joint initiative by the Prado and the Loewe Foundation that “invites internationally renowned writers to engage with the museum’s collections and rich history as a source of inspiration for literary works that will be published by the museum and literary magazine Granta“.

The ...Read More

This post is updated from an earlier story.

Seattle Worldcon 2025 has been rocked by controversy in recent days.

Hugo Awards Administrator Nicholas Whyte released the following statement on May 5, 2025:

Effective immediately, Cassidy (WSFS DH), Nicholas Whyte (Hugo Administrator) and Esther MacCallum-Stewart (Deputy Hugo Administrator) resign from their respective roles from the Seattle 2025 Worldcon. We do not see a path forward that enables us to make further ...Read More

Frank Herbert (1920-1986) has been named the recipient of the third Infinity Award.

The award was created by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) to “posthumously honor acclaimed creators who passed away before they could be considered for a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. This new award aims to recognize that even though those celebrated worldbuilders, storytellers, and weavers of words are no longer with us, their ...Read More

The Short Mystery Fiction Society has announced the winners of the 2025 Derringer Awards. Winners of genre interest include Mike McHone for “Kargin the Necromancer” (Mystery Tribune 12/15/24) in the Flash Fiction category, Josh Pachter for “The Wind Phone” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine 9-10/24) in the Short Story category, and Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman for Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology (Level Best) in the Anthology category. In addition, O. ...Read More

Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom); Walking Practice by Dolki Min, translated by Victoria Caudle (HarperVia); In Universes by Emet North (Harper; Hutchinson Heinemann UK); and “Kiss of Life” by P.C. Verrone (Fiyah Winter ’24) are the winners of the 2024 Otherwise Award (formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award), given annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that “expand and explore our understanding of gender.”

The authors of the winning ...Read More

by Jessica Maison

If only there was an app for creator hook-ups, writers would all find the perfect artists and live happily ever after creating amazing comics. That’s how these apps are designed to work. Realistically, a writer would get too many swipe-rights from the wrong ones and a bunch of awkward DMs, leaving their script alone without a match. Fortunately, there are better ways to find an artist. Before a writer starts this process, it’s important that they approach the search with the right mindset. 

From the meet-cute to the printed comic, a writer’s approach to forming a relationship with an artist should be guided by the comic script’s function. A script is the tool to effectively communicate to the artist what needs to be drawn to tell the story. The reader is not the writer’s direct audience in comics—that is the illustrator. So, if a writer prefers to tell a story directly to the reader (totally understandable), the writer should stick to prose. They’ll be happier, and so will the readers. Comics are a different beast and must be handled with other rules of engagement. Think of the script as a spell cast over the creative team that then produces magic for the reader. This mindset will set the writer up for success when approaching artists and writing for them. 

Process pages from Forever Home published in Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell: Battle Royale anthology. Script by Jessica Maison, sketch and colors by Anna Wieszczyk. Letters by Joel Rodriguez.

Finding an artist for your story is stressful because it is so essential. An agency or publisher may pair up a writer and an artist in traditional publishing. However, that has been changing over the last few years. Publishers and agents increasingly want solo cartoonists or an already established team. In independent publishing, this team has, more often than not, formed on its own, and usually, the writer initiates this partnership.

Shel character design for Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters, written by Jessica Maison and illustrated by Anna Wieszczyk.

When preparing to begin, the writer needs to remember that the artist’s style must match their script’s tone and genre. This is one of the most important things to get right in this process. If the writer pairs up with the wrong type of artist or vice versa, the story will fall flat, and the comic will fail, no matter how well it is written. So, if it’s a dystopian comic script, the writer should look for an artist whose style and body of work engage those types of readers and fans. That rule applies to any genre. In comics, art excites the readers, so try to pick an artist who excites the readers of the script’s genre. As versatile as many artists are, it is still a good rule of thumb to pitch to artists who have done projects in or adjacent to the script world with an established fan base.

Discovering artists is rewarding but often complicated. First, the writer needs to read as many graphic novels and comics in the script’s genre as possible, both from the big publishers and the indie ones. Libraries, local comic shops, Webtoons, Tapas, GlobalComix, Cara, and comic conventions are all places to discover these books and artists. Based on that research, the writer then lists artists who would realistically engage in the script and with them. Through this process, the writer should also work to establish themselves in the comics community and build trust with other creators by participating in anthologies, online groups, crowdfunding sites, and events. Finding the right artist will be difficult without engaging with the comics community. 

The number one thing to remember when approaching artists is that they expect to get paid. Nothing will hurt a writer’s reputation more than expecting people to draw their story for free. It takes an artist hours to draw a comics page well, so it is disrespectful to ask an artist to illustrate for free, no matter how genius the writer or how amazing the script is. Never approach an artist with that expectation. Rather, when preparing to approach artists, create a budget that can be shared with them when they ask for it.

Inks by Anna Wieszczyk from Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters series.

Taking baby steps with this new collaborator is important, given the money and time involved. It’s risky to jump into a 200-page graphic novel with an artist after one great meeting. Taking the extra time to get to know the artist and how they work is well worth it.  Review their complete portfolio and body of work. Reach out to their references to discover more about their process and ability to meet deadlines.

Another best practice is to start small. For example, a writer can ask an artist to do character designs with compensation for the artist and a contract to protect both collaborators. This helps determine if the team works well together and whether the artist’s vision for the characters is the same as what the writer imagines. If that step goes well, the team graduates to a short project like the book’s opening or first issue, which would be helpful when pitching the project to publishers. Anthologies are also great for this method. Find an anthology in the script’s genre and ask the artist if they want to submit a story together. The writer may still need to pay the artist their page rate, or the artist may agree to do it for what the anthology pays, or just because they also want to have a story published in the anthology. 

Sequential art for Forever Home by Jessica Maison and Anna Wieszczyk, published in the Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: Battle Royale anthology.

At this point, a colorist and letterer may be brought onto the project, depending on the illustrator you hire. Some illustrators can pencil, ink, color, and letter a book. The all-in-one artist can simplify the process, but it is also way slower. More often, the illustrator will pencil and ink the comic’s pages, and a colorist and letterer will be necessary to complete them. Be sure to take the same time and care in getting to know these artists as you did with the illustrator. 

Process art from Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: La Llorona in the Machine, words by Jessica Maison, art by Anna Wieszczyk, and lettering by Joel Rodriguez.

Finally, establish an agreement that works for all parties, submit, and do the work together. These are not the only ways to connect with an artist or team of artists, but they are solid pathways to establishing a professional relationship without getting burned, while also pushing the project forward and/or expanding the team’s body of work. Once a creative relationship built on trust and experience has been established, it will be time to draw up the contract and dive into the more significant book.

When it all comes together, it’s magic, but it first takes diligence and patience to form those essential relationships with the comics’ other storytellers.

Explore more articles in THE COMICS PANEL series

Jessica Maison is a sci-fi, fantasy, and horror author, screenwriter, and comic creator. Plastic Girl is her coming-of-age ecopunk YA novel series set in a climate apocalypse. She is the writer of the award-winning graphic novel series Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters, and her short comics have been featured in anthologies such as Cthulhu is Hard to Spell and Nightmare Theater. She is an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award winner and Foreword INDIES Award nominee. Her sci-fi speculative short stories have been published by Terraform, and she is the founder of Wicked Tree Press.

The post Connecting with an Artist Is a Big Part of the Storytelling in Comics appeared first on SFWA.

Several authors and works of genre interest are among the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) 2025 Edgar Awards winners.

Best Young Adult

• 49 Miles Alone, Natalie D. Richards (Sourcebooks Fire)

Best Juvenile

• The Stolen Key, Margaret Peterson Haddix (Quill Tree)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award

• “The Jews on Elm Street”, Anna Stolley Persky (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine 9-10/24)

The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award

• The Mystery

James by Percival Everett (Knopf) won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category.

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (Viking), Mice 1961 by Stacey Levine (Verse Chorus), and The Unicorn Woman by Gayl Jones (Beacon) were finalists.

The Pulitzer jury said of James: “An accomplished reconsideration of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ that gives agency to Jim to illustrate the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for ...Read More

Krushna Dande is the recipient of the 2025 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.” Dande’s winning work is The Keeper of the Ship.

For more information, see the SLF website.

While you are here, please take a moment to support ...Read More