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The winners of the2026 Sir Julius Vogel Awardshave been announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ).

Best Novel

• WINNER: Dancing in the Purple Rain, Judy L. Mohr (Black Wolf)

• Identical, Vanessa Di Gianni (Self published)
• The Deadly Life of Diana Penn, Shawn Inmom and Kirsten McKenzie (Squabbling Sparrows)
• How to Find a Nameless Fae, A.J. Lancaster (Camberion)
• Blade of the Wanderer, Steven …Read More

The winners of the 2025 Australasian Shadows Awards have been announced. The award is given by the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) for the finest in horror and dark fiction published by an Australasian within the calendar year.

Novel

• WINNER: Slashed Beauties, A. Rushby (Berkley) amazon / bookshop

• Black Soil White Bread, Madeleine D'Este (self-published) amazon / bookshop
• The Woman in the Well, Dmetri Kakmi (IFWG) …Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the winners of its annual prize for poetry. Poems were judged in three categories, listed below.

Dwarf Form (10 or fewer lines):

• WINNER: Unauthorized Territory , Michael Bailey

• Second Place: Communication Is Important , F. J. Bergmann
• Third Place: Untitled , Anna Cates
• Honorable Mention: Disillusioned Tribute , Joy Donnell

Short Form (10 to 50 lines):

…Read More

The winner, finalists, and honorable mentions for the 2026 Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction have been announced.

The winner is All the Tears from the River Below by Rida Altaf. Finalists are Qitmir by Eman Farhan and Dreams of Dying and Waking Men by Shahmeer Mahesar. The honorable mention is Diesel Raven by Abdul Kabir Qureshi.

The Salam Award, a short story award to promote science fiction and related genres …Read More

The Empire State Center for the Book has announced Lawrence Block and N.K. Jemisin as two of the three writers in 2026 to be inducted into the New York State (NYS) Writers Hall of Fame, along with Kay Thompson (posthumously). The Hall of Fame is presented alongside the NYS Writers Institute, a literary organization that enhances and celebrates literature, writing, and performance.

The 2026 Hall of Fame selection committee …Read More

Finalists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. Categories, authors, and books of genre interest include:

Fiction

• Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
• Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You, Julián Delgado Lopera (Liveright)
• Mad Eden, Morgan Thomas (MCD)

Young People's Literature

• Holloway, Elana K. Arnold (Clarion)
• When Tomorrow Burns, Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers)
• That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian …Read More

Guardians of the Well by Rose Strickman (In Another Time 6/25) has been announced as the winner of the 2026 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction. Other finalists include:

• Not a Fish , Andrew Dykstal (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 6/12/25)
• Half Life , Stephen Harper (Skull X Bones)
• The Last Mardi Gras , Raven Jakubowski (DreamForge Anvil6/1/25)
• The Teleporting Disaster …Read More

The Ignyte Awards Committee has announced the winners of the 2026 Ignyte Awards, which seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.

Outstanding Novel: Adult

• WINNER: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga) amazon/bookshop

• A Song of Legends Lost, M.H. …Read More

LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, was held August 27-31, 2026 at the Anaheim Convention Center and Hilton Anaheim & Anaheim Marriott Hotels in Anaheim, California. Guests of honor were novelist Barbara Hambly, cartoonist Colleen Doran, illustrator Tim Kirk, graphic novelist Stan Sakai, screenwriter Ronald D. Moore, fanzine editor Geri Sullivan, and engineer Anita Sengupta; special guests were NASA engineer Tracy Drain and authors Terese Mason Pierre …Read More

Winners of the French-language Prix Boréal have been announced.

Best Novel

• WINNER (TIE): Du ventre des montagnes, Fanie Demeule (Québec Amérique)
• WINNER (TIE): Entre nos mains, Elisabeth Vonarburg (Alire)

• Vespérale, Raphaëlle B. Adam & Ariane Gélinas (Alire)
• La maison du rang Lynch, Alexie Morin (Le Quartanier)
• L'herbe naïve, Esther Rochon (Alire)

Best Short Story

• WINNER: Autres Temps autres mers , Marie Labrousse (Solaris …Read More

David Shelley will give up his current role as head of an English language management structure on January 1 2027 to become executive chair of Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group. Accordingly, Ben Sevier is taking over as CEO of Hachette Book Group, moving on from his position as president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing.

Sevier stated, My decade leading the spectacularly talented teams across the Grand Central Publishing …Read More

Penguin Random House UK has announced an imprint for the new adult reader category, Dusk, focusing on romance, fantasy and crossover fiction. Carmen McCullough and Amina Parchment-Youssef will lead the imprint, which expects to publish it's first titles fall 2026.

McCullough told The Bookseller, Some of the most exciting energy in publishing today is coming from a generation of readers who don't see themselves, or their reading tastes, in traditional …Read More

The winners of the 2026 Colorado Book Awards were revealed at a ceremony located in Denver CO on September 26, 2026. Titles and authors of genre interest in categories with winners of genre interest include:

Science Fiction/Fantasy

• WINNER: Scorched Skies, E.J. Mellow (Montlake)

• Godwaker, Kendra Merritt (Blue Fyre)
• Redneck Revenant, David Slayton (Blackstone)

Mystery, Thriller & Horror

• WINNER: This is My Body, Lindsay King-Miller (Quirk)
…Read More

We, the Fleet by Alex T. Singer (Clarkesworld 5/25) is the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction story, presented by the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.

The second-place runner up was The Sack of Burley Cottage by Rich Larson (Reactor6/25/25). The third-place runner up was The Shadow on the Nest by Alaya Dawn …Read More

by Josh Heath

Read by the author  

Writing for games is a lot of fun. I’ve written a lot in the tabletop RPG industry, and a little bit on the video game side of things too. One of the less fun things is contracts. Your contract (you have one, right?) is probably the most important piece of paperwork you have. Your contract should lay out a lot of things (such as payment), and it should be very clear about who owns the intellectual property (IP) you are developing. A lot of creators over the years (in comics, TV, games, etc.) have not realized they were Work for Hire or Work Made for Hire and didn’t know what that means. Or they did know and are a little grumpy when they see no residual benefit from their creation years down the line. If you’re looking to work in the games industry, there are some things it’s helpful to know about Work for Hire before you start.

Rights, No Rights, and Things in Between

Most people working in games are contract freelancers, particularly in the TTRPG industry. If you’re one of the few full- or part-time employees working in games, you should also understand if you’re Work for Hire (probably) and how that impacts your ownership (or lack of it) around the things you’re developing. If you write words for someone else, you should always have a contract that details your rights as clearly as possible. This might be included in a standard employee document or it might exist as a separate IP document. 

Work for Hire: Usually No Rights

With a Work for Hire contract, you generally don’t have any rights to the IP you generate. The entity you work for, either an individual or a business, is the one who owns all the rights to the work you’ve developed. Legally speaking, they are the author, not you. There are a lot of nuances when it comes to IP, and I’m not a lawyer, so this is not, and is not intended as, legal advice and is for informational purposes only. My experience here is just from being a writer and a publisher. I’ve been on both sides of the Work for Hire contract.

You might be hired to write 20,000 words about a fantasy town, for example. That town may become super popular with fans. What if a movie or TV show, another game, or toys are made featuring your town? Under a Work for Hire contract, the company you worked for owns that town. It also profits from derivative media, and it can sell those rights in the future.

For a lot of projects, that’s fine. The large majority of games created, particularly in the TTRPG space, never go on to make any meaningful derivative media. When you work for hire, you help create something cool that people get to play in or with, and that gets you credits that often build up into more and more work. Nothing about this is bad. This is how nearly every writer gets their start in the games industry.

What About Rights?

When you create your own work, you own the rights to your creation. Some contracts, even if you work for hire, grant you some rights to your work as well. At minimum, you should always receive the right to credit for your work, even in a Work for Hire situation. Having your name on the product helps you get more work, proves you can work for others, and it’s nice to have your name on the game you helped create. There are some rare instances where ghost writing or non-credit is acceptable, but really, truly, they are so rare that I never recommend them to people. Always get your name on your work.

Contract Clauses to Consider

As a publisher who also works as a contract writer, I try to include a few of these clauses in contracts for my freelancers. You will almost always have to ask for them, but it never hurts to ask. I view these as modifications to a Work for Hire contract; some folks view them as functionally changing the contract into something that isn’t Work for Hire. Either way, it helps you decide if the project is right for you.

• Residual royalties for derivative media: This is often a clause that you can get in a TTRPG project, but much less common in a video game project. Derivative media can mean a lot of things: toys, movies, TV shows, games, cereal—basically anything that uses elements of the IP in a new product. It doesn’t have to be large, but this is a clause I really believe in. Even a 0.5 or 0.1 percent residual on derivative media can net you a lot of money if the project you’re working on hits the big time. I feel like this is a mandatory request, but it certainly isn’t something you’re guaranteed to get. Example clause: “If any derivative media is created using the work of [Writer/You], they will be due a royalty of [X percent] of gross proceeds from that project.” 
• Right to create derivative work: This is somewhat uncommon, but I’ve seen this clause before. It allows you to create additional projects of your own in the world you helped to create. This is particularly useful in TTRPG work, where you may want to develop an adventure, setting book, or support play material that builds on your previous work but doesn’t fit in a product the publisher is producing. Normally, the company who owns the work has the first right to publish it, and they have the right to refuse your publication of any derivative work completely. Example clause: “[Writer] has the right to produce derivative work, like adventures, supplements, and expansions based on their own material created for [Product/Product Line]. [Publisher] has the right to review and deny publication of this material and retains the right to purchase this work from [Writer] at the same or better rate paid for original work and publish said work.”
• Right of return for lack of publication: This is a weirder one, but one I recommend asking for too. In the somewhat rare case that your work never gets used, the right of return for lack of publication allows you to reuse the work you developed. This is particularly valuable if what you wrote is something discrete from the overall project. I did this with the very first TTRPG adventure I wrote. The publisher disappeared months after a successful Kickstarter, and three years later I reclaimed my rights to the adventure and published it. I had to email the publisher to make this request, and per my contract they had a set period to respond. If they had not responded at all, the rights would still have reverted to me. Example clause: “If [Work] is not published within [X Years, X months] then [Writer] may request the right to have their work returned to them without penalty or charge. This request must be made via email to [Address], and if no response is received within [X time] then [Publisher] is assumed to affirm the request. This work may then be published by [Writer] or any other entity, and [Publisher] will have no rights over that work in any form in the future.” There might also be a termination clause that ends the contract in these circumstances.

Hopefully this gives you a solid baseline around understanding your rights under Work for Hire. These sorts of projects are ideal for getting started in game writing. Good luck!

Explore more articles from Writing for Hire

 

Josh Heath is a tabletop games designer and the Chief Operations Officer of High Level Games. www.highlevelgames.ca He has worked for a bunch of different companies, including many work-for-hire situations over the years. He also acts as a coach to new tabletop game designers and writers looking to build relationships and experience in the industry.

The post Who Owns the Rights to the Work? appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

The longlists for the Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) have been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest in the Prose category include:

• The Mystical Mister Kay, Meihan Boey (Epigram)
• The Waiting Room, Choo Yi Feng (Epigram)
• Sister Snake, Amanda Lee Koe (Ecco)
• When They Burned the Butterfly, Wen-yi Lee (Tor)
• Be Your Own Bae, Daryl Qilin Yam (Epigram)
• Utama, Ng Yi-Sheng (Epigram)

The Prose judges are Kamal Al-Solaylee, …Read More

The Bookseller has announced the shortlists for the second annual British Audio Awards, also called the Speakies, a prestigious new awards dedicated to celebrating excellence in audiobooks and audio drama, brought to you byThe BooksellerandThe Stage. Categories, titles, and authors of genre interest include:

Science Fiction & Fantasy

• Femme Feral, Sam Beckbessinger, narrated by Imogen Church (Bloomsbury Archer)
• The Last Starborn Seer, Venetia Constantine, narrated by Maxim Ays …Read More

Union Square & Co. has launched Singularity, a new line of paperback novellas led by Union Square editorial director Mika Kasuga. They plan to publish 10-12 titles each year of high-impact, one-sitting fiction.

Works of genre interest scheduled for Fall 2026 include Zero Lives Remaining by Adam Cesare, a new edition of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, and The Waiter by Kwan …Read More

The six-title shortlist for the 2026 Booker Prize has been announced, with works and writers of genre interest including The End of Everything byM. John Harrison (Serpent's Tail) and The Disappearers by Marlon James (Riverhead).

Harrison, James, and other shortlisted authors receive£2,500. The winner, to receive £50,000, will be announced November 9, 2026.

For more information, including the complete longlist, see the Booker Prize website.

For previous titles of genre …Read More

by Eowyn Scott

Read by Robert Greenberger

Imagine breaking your arm while backcountry skiing. A hiker finds you, sees your injury, and informs you that skiing is dangerous, so it’s your fault you broke your arm. The hiker might be right, but pointing fingers doesn’t fix your broken arm, and you’ll likely wish they would just go away. Too many people approach climate change conversations like the hiker, focusing on the problem rather than the solution. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Especially not in fiction. 

Audience and Goal

When including climate change in your story, whether as part of worldbuilding or central to the plot, your first step should be to consider your audience and what you want them to take away from your story. Do you want to express your frustration by reminding politicians who’s at fault or do you want to give a climate-anxious reader hope and inspire them to action? 

Yale completed a study on how Americans think about climate change and found that we fall into six categories, going from most aware and most motivated to least aware and least motivated. They call this “Global Warming’s Six Americas.” 

According to Yale’s climate communication website, from 2015 to 2025, “the Disengaged, Doubtful and Dismissive audiences have remained relatively similar in size over the past decade.” And, as of 2025, 69% of Americans fell into the Alarmed, Concerned, and Cautious sections.

Knowing the Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive have remained stable for so long means they likely won’t be changing their mind or reading any climate fiction. So, for our cli-fi audiences, if you are looking to inspire your readers to act, focus on the Alarmed, Concerned, and Cautious because they are the ones who will have the most to gain from your story. Especially because among these groups, many don’t know what to do with their concern.

Less Fear, More Hope

Fear can be a powerful motivator. But as we saw in the Yale study above, more than two-thirds of the country is already afraid. So, consider what it might do to your audience if you lean into hope, rather than piling on more fear.

Don’t avoid showing the impacts of climate change and/or the steps that led to those impacts in your world. Sometimes the pain and struggle must be felt to be believable and have the kind of impact that moves your readers. But the causes should be a smaller percentage of your story. If you focus on the problem rather than the solution, you risk your reader shutting down, or at least shutting your book. If you want readers to feel empowered, give them hope and help them believe they can make a difference.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is an excellent example of a complex story that paints a very real picture of the devastating impacts of climate change, but the plot centers on a resilient family doing everything they can to survive, protect one another, and care for the island they inhabit. One of the characters says this very poignant quote: “Maybe we will drown or burn or starve one day, but until then we get to choose if we’ll add to that destruction or if we will care for each other.”

Solutions

Not all cli-fi should be utopian, but it can be an opportunity to showcase creativity and ingenuity. Fantastical solutions can inspire readers to create real-world advancements, much as sci-fi has led to many modern technologies (e.g., digital billboards from Blade Runner and smartphones from Star Trek). Enable people to visualize new possibilities, rather than fearing things they often cannot control.

The solarpunk subgenre showcases thriving societies where technology and nature grow in harmony. We don’t have to choose nature or technology. We can choose both. Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built depicts characters living harmoniously with nature on a moon after Earth was deemed uninhabitable due to climate catastrophe. However, the tone of the book is calm, contemplative, and hopeful.

If you want readers to build a better world, try showing them what that could look like. 

Genre Superpower

A superpower of sci-fi and fantasy is its ability to tackle tough topics in a digestible and entertaining way, as seen in this Climate Fiction Book List. SFF naturally creates a level of distance between the reader and the subject matter, so when you add suspension of disbelief on top of that, readers are more willing to engage with tough topics that might otherwise be triggering or stressful. 

N.K. Jemison’s Broken Earth trilogy is an example of apocalyptic cli-fi full of natural disasters, but follows characters whose magic allows them to manipulate the earth and fight back. By using a secondary world and infusing it with magic and unrelenting resilience, the story is more digestible than a comparable story would have been in contemporary fiction.

Conclusion

Be intentional with your audience and your goal when including climate change in your writing. Consider how you want to accomplish that goal and then use your genre to your advantage. 

For more resources on writing climate fiction, check out the Good Energy: A Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change. The website is geared toward screenwriters, but its resources could benefit any kind of writer.

Remember, don’t be like the hiker. Rather than enumerating where we went wrong, show how we could get it right. Portray resilient characters who have the power to make their worlds better, and maybe your readers will realize they have that power too.

Explore more articles from Writing from Science

Eowyn Conain Scott has an MFA in Creative Writing for Young People and was a resident at the Dylan Thomas Summer School in Wales. Her essay “Home Bittersweet Home” was a finalist in a Women on Writing essay contest. Her writing is informed by her BS in psychology, passion for the environment, and background as an educator. Eowyn completed NNOCCI’s five-week Climate Communications Crash Course and taught climate science at a research institute for three years. When she’s not writing or running a mentoring program for teens, she’s out exploring nature with her husband and pup.

The post Taking the Catastrophe Out of Climate Change: Using Fiction to Give Readers Hope appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.