Industry News Home
A. Lincoln, Simulacrum: Approaches to Reanimating the Great Emancipator
by Ben Nadler
Read by Maggie AyalaAlthough Abraham Lincoln’s life was cut short by a pro-Confederate terrorist in 1865, he has found continuing afterlives as a speculative fiction character trope. Over the past century, this figure has appeared in works by a range of writers, including Vachel Lindsay, George Saunders, Philip K. Dick, Rod Serling, and Tony Wolk.
Each of these works contains a different Abraham Lincoln. They are not the same character. Still, these Lincolns share a common origin, as each of their authors has found a way to use speculative fiction conceits to build their own Lincoln from historical record. What’s more, these conceits offer ways to displace Lincoln from history and bring him into contact with different times and realities. These encounters provide readers and writers of speculative fiction with new understandings of the past, present, and future of this country.
Abraham Lincoln, 1863. Photo from the Smithsonian Institution from United States, via Wikimedia Commons Why Lincoln?It is not incidental that Lincoln, of all US historical figures, has taken on this role. “The Great Emancipator” has long functioned as a liberatory figure in American culture. Historian Nina Silber notes that during the Great Depression, Lincoln “offered an imaginative repository” for hopeful responses to the era’s crises. He has filled a similar function for authors in the intervening decades.
Exploring how different writers have deployed Lincoln in their fictional narratives provides an understanding of Lincoln’s enduring cultural role. At the same time, comparing uses of this character trope by very different authors also provides insight into methods available to speculative fiction writers when working with the past. In these Lincoln examples, we see how the genre devices of hauntings, robotics, and time travel can all be used to access history.
To and From the CemeteryIn his 1914 poem “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight,” Vachel Lindsay writes: “Here at midnight, in our little town / A mourning figure walks, and will not rest.” The long-dead president, unable to sleep in his tomb, walks into downtown Springfield, Illinois. The current unfolding of World War I troubles him: “It breaks his heart that kings must murder still.”
A century later, the prominent slipstream writer George Saunders uses a similar conceit in his award-winning 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Saunders’s Lincoln leaves the White House in 1862 to enter a Georgetown cemetery inhabited by ghosts. The most recent arrival is Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie, killed by typhoid. The grieving president visits Willie’s crypt, holding him one last time. The ghosts observe the president throughout the night. Ultimately, the spirit of a formerly-enslaved man inhabits Lincoln’s body.
President Lincoln and Family Circle. Photo from Popular Graphic Arts, via Wikimedia Commons.A key problem that a fiction writer working with a well-known historical figure has to address is how to build an original character from historical records. Saunders has two solutions. In the cemetery chapters, the ghosts perceive Lincoln without preconceptions, such as when one observes: “An exceedingly tall and unkempt fellow was making his way toward us through the darkness.” In other chapters, however, Saunders leans into the textual record, montaging historical quotes (actual and fictive). For example, one chapter is constructed entirely of negative statements made about Lincoln by his contemporaries. This move plays with the tension between the historical Lincoln, the myth of Lincoln, and Saunders’s own character of Lincoln.
Your Next Stop: The Twilight Zone!Saunders’s fiction is indebted to the uncanniness of the original Twilight Zone TV series. Bardo, in particular, recalls the 1961 episode “The Passerby”, which depicts Northern and Southern soldiers trudging home at war’s end. The protagonist is a Confederate who comes to realize—in a classic Twilight Zone twist!—that he and everyone else on the road were killed in the war. Eventually, Lincoln himself rides down the road and tells a resistant Confederate widow, “I’m dead too. I guess you might say I’m the last casualty of the Civil War.” The conflict can finally be laid to rest.
Lincoln’s Tomb, Springfield, Illinois (approximately 1879). Photo from Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, via Wikimedia Commons.“The Passerby” aired as the Civil Rights Movement was gaining ground. Host and scriptwriter Rod Serling comments on the 20th-century end of segregation through his 19th-century characters, just as Lindsay comments on the violence of WWI through his wandering Lincoln. Because Serling’s Lincoln is a ghost who now exists outside mortal time, he can speak to audiences in different eras.
Mechanical StatesmenNot all speculative depictions of the Abe Lincoln character rely on the supernatural. In Philip K. Dick’s 1972 novel We Can Build You (originally serialized in Amazing Stories as A. Lincoln, Simulacrum), Lincoln and his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, are recreated as androids by an electronic piano company. This connects to Dick’s use of androids in other works, notably Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968), as well as to the real-world Lincoln robot Disney debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair.
Edwin M. Stanton. Secretary of War (between circa 1860 and circa 1865). Photo by Mathew Benjamin Brady, via Wikimedia Commons.Dick’s near-future novel touches on issues such as housing justice, corporate power, and lunar colonization, but its primary subject is mental illness (particularly schizophrenia). This concern is embodied in the robotic Lincoln, who exhibits the president’s notorious “melancholy.” “Lincoln was this way,” argues one of the android’s engineers. “He had periods of brooding.” Like Saunders’s, Dick’s depiction of historical figures draws directly on historical record: The androids are programmed with punch-tapes of real sources, such as Carl Sandburg’s exhaustive Lincoln biography.
Fourscore and Seven Years into the FutureRather than androids, Tony Wolk’s 2004 Abraham Lincoln: A Novel Life (the first in a trilogy), uses another established sci-fi mechanism to bring Lincoln into the 20th century: time-travel. Wolk is not as well-known as Dick, but he has his own role in sci-fi history, such as co-teaching workshops with Ursula K. Le Guin.
At the beginning of Wolk’s novel, Lincoln finds himself transported in the middle of the night from 1865 Washington, D.C. to 1955 suburban Chicago. “Suddenly,” Wolk writes, “there he was, on Howard Street, reeling, as if he were perched on the edge of a cliff, peering over.” As in many time-travel novels, such as Octavia Butler’s Kindred, the temporal leap isn’t fully explained, but the reader follows along for the journey.
The time-travel allows Lincoln to experience a few last moments of reprieve before his assassination. It also allows him to perceive Cold War America. Early on, he tries to wrap his mind around the atomic bomb by comparing it to a Civil War battle: “He was picturing the disaster with the Petersburg mine, but now above ground and engulfing a whole city, a Philadelphia, a Boston.”
To the AgesAs we enter new eras of American political and social life, the Lincoln trope will no doubt continue to be deployed by authors trying to make sense of our conditions. We will have to see what new Lincolns are brought to life in the decades to come. When the historical Lincoln was assassinated, Stanton famously stated, “Now he belongs to the ages.” Through his role in speculative fiction, he truly does.
Explore more articles from Writing from History
Ben Nadler is a writer working between New York City and the Philadelphia area, where he teaches English at Widener University. He is the author of The Sea Beach Line: A Novel and Punk in NYC’s Lower East Side 1981–1991. His next novel, Prairie Ashes, is forthcoming from American Buffalo Books. More at bennadler.com.
The post A. Lincoln, Simulacrum: Approaches to Reanimating the Great Emancipator appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.
2026 Crawford Award Submissions Open
The judges for the Crawford Award, which honors an author's first work of fantasy in book form, are soliciting books published in the year 2026. What qualifies as a book is flexible, including novels, novellas, poetry collections, short fiction, graphic novels, works in translation, or other work at the discretion of the judges. The Crawford Award will be given at the 2027 International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts …Read More
2026 Aldiss Award Longlist
The Aldiss Award, anannual award to acknowledge endeavours in literature and gaming, specifically around world building, in the science fiction & fantasy genre,'' has announced its 2026 longlist for worldbuilding in speculative fiction.
- Firstborn of the Sun, Marvellous Michael Anson (Michael Joseph)
- Dark Diamond, Neal Asher (Pyr)
- A Song Of Legends Lost, M.H. Ayinde (Orbit; Saga)
- The Second Death of Locke, V.L. Bovalino (Forever)
- Children of Fallen Gods, Carissa …Read More
Press Release March 27, 2026
Happy Nebula Season! The celebration continues.
On March 15, 2025, it was our privilege and delight to celebrate this amazing group of new finalists. For over 60 years, the Nebulas have recognized the best in speculative fiction writing, and that tradition continues with this year’s incredible cohort, which includes writers from more forms of SFF than ever before.
In 1965, we started with four categories. Want to know more? Last year, Past President Michael Capobianco gave us a brief history of “The First Nebula Awards”, which gives you a sense of how far we’ve come and how exploration has been part of the process since the start.
Over time, we came to celebrate speculative fiction across more forms. Sometimes new award categories stuck, and sometimes they fell away. As our History Committee pursues interviews with past presidents and Grand Masters this year, more of SFWA’s wild and wonderful Nebula lore will be added to our archives, and we can all deepen our understanding of this dynamic industry and its shifting priorities over the decades. As the board liaison for the History Committee, I can’t wait to dive deeper into the past, contextualizing it for current and future members.
But in every season of the Nebulas, one core truth prevails: We empower creators across our industry to KEEP ON WRITING. As I said in our finalist announcement, what a joy it is to now honor poetry and comics with Nebula Awards, and to bring them into the Nebula conversation.
Our Poetry and Comics Committees worked hard for the inclusion of these latest awards. Thank you to everyone who spearheaded this work, from the initial rules to final edits, to spreading the word about fantastic eligible works.
On SFWA.org, we’re rolling out new Nebula celebration spaces, like our Nebula Finalist Page, that will support readers and voters wanting to learn more about all the works on our ballot and the creative teams that support the writers listed there. The Nebula Award Reading Packet is now also available for voting SFWA Members, on the Action Items bar in our Membership Portal. Please remember that these materials are shared among SFWA members as a courtesy from publishers, and do not distribute any of their contents with the broader community.
The days of a simple flat ballot being the sum total of finalist representation are behind us.
This ballot is rich, multilayered, and diverse. We have tough decisions ahead of us as we log in to vote on our final choices. I’ve already read many of this year’s works myself, and I have been downloading the rest onto my Libby account, gathering friends to play some new games, and ordering new books and magazines from my local indie.
Launching a new award is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation.
When the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation and our Nebula Award for Game Writing first launched, they prompted the same questions about creative teams that are now raised by members of the greater comics community. It is not always easy to differentiate the writing from other key components in these mediums – like the incredible illustrations, lettering, titles, and coloring on these works of art.
At the same time, the Nebulas are SFF writers’ “Oscars”: awards chosen not by general fans, but by fellow writers celebrating the craft they know best. These writers are at the top of their craft, and it is our honor to celebrate their works at the Nebula Awards in June.
Still, we have work to do as we continue to build the genre and the teams that make these works shine!
Along with Finalist Cards that include more creators in the overview of each work on the ballot, we are working with our Comics Committee to honor artists at the Nebula Conference in Chicago this June, while celebrating the core focus of our writing organization’s awards.
We also invite your feedback via sarc@sfwa.org to support the rules committee’s upcoming review of Nebula procedures, since we now have three multimedia awards that will benefit from more consistent standards for representation.
We heard your feedback, and we thank you for taking the time to share it. The Board meets on April 9 to select a name that better represents the award’s purpose of honoring comics writing, but we are also already united in our belief that comics – like games, and dramatic presentations – are art forms where the sum of their parts is far more than words on the page.
While three of our comics finalists this year are written and created by authors who were also their own illustrators, creating a comic, graphic novel, or illustrated work is frequently a collaborative process. Many of the writing finalists for our inaugural Comics Nebula are part of truly spectacular teams, and we encourage you to check out what such collaborations can create.
The multimedia teams involved in Games and Dramatic Presentations also raised another conversation this year.
As you know, this was our first year asking writers if they had used LLMs in the writing of their works. The resounding answer was NO (with quite a few expletives thrown in, “FUCK no!” being my favorite), but the team approach to these art forms creates a different challenge for a writers’ organization trying to promote writer-focused awards. We are still waiting to hear back from Bradbury and Game finalists on award acceptance and their responses to the LLM question. Those entries are marked as provisional on the ballot.
Our industry is changing, but the rich history of SFWA’s Nebula Awards shows that it’s always been changing. That’s why SFWA is at its best when we approach new sites of creative tension with curiosity, in community, whenever they arise. With every new award and rule change, we need to support our core mission of writer uplift, advocacy, education, and defense.
We’re so glad to be celebrating this giant leap with Poetry and Comics with you.
And we stand firm in our commitment to keep growing with the needs of our genre community.
Keep writing – and reading!
The Final Nebula Ballot closes 11:59pm PDT on April 15. Support these writers and read their work (you’ll be glad you did)!
Write on,
Kate Ristau
SFWA President
The post Press Release March 27, 2026 appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.
2026 Seiun Awards Nominees
Hellcon, the 64th Japan Science Fiction Convention, has announced the finalists for the 2025 Seiun Awards (the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo Awards), honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan.
Best Translated Novel
- The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands, Sarah Brooks, tr. Yasuko Kawano (Hayakawa Bunko SF)
- The Book of Elsewhere, China Miéville & Keanu Reeves, tr. Masayuki Uchida & Rei Yasuno (Kawade …Read More
2025 Otherwise Award Winner
Luminous by Silvia Park (Simon & Schuster) is the winner of the 2025 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 author of the winning work will receive $200 in prize money and a medal, and will be honored at WisCon 2026, to be held online May 21-25, 2026.
The …Read More
2026 International Dylan Thomas Prize Shortlist
The shortlist for the 2026 International Dylan Thomas Prize has been announced. The six-title list includes genre books Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt (Jonathan Cape; Vintage) and Under the Blue by Suzannah V. Evans (Bloomsbury Poetry).
The annual Dylan Thomas prize, in partnership with Swansea University, awards £20,000 the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under. This year's judges are …Read More
2026 Imadjinn Awards Finalists
Finalists for the 2026 Imadjinn Awards have been announced. Categories, titles, and authors of genre interest include:
Best Science Fiction Novel
- Dead to Rights: A Car Warriors Autoduel Novel, Jay Barnson (Three Ravens)
- Frozen Echoes, Ed Downes (Undertaker)
- Bifrost Down, Jon R. Osborne (Seventh Seal)
Best Fantasy Novel
- The Blacksmith's Boy, Bruce Buchanan (Wild Ink)
- The Healer's Heir, Katie Fitzgerald (self-published)
- A Count of Courage, Nancy Moser …Read More
Hachette Pulls Shy Girl Over Suspected AI Use
Hachette Book Group has cancelled the upcoming US release and will discontinue the UK release of horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard after reviewing the text for signs of generative AI use.
Shy Girl was self-published in February 2025 and republished in November in the UK by Hachette imprint Wildfire. NielsenIQ BookData measured the UK sales at approximately 1,800 print copies. According toThe Guardian, the book was recently …Read More
James Patterson and Bookshop.org Prize Shortlist
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley (Erewhon) is one of the five titles shortlisted for the inaugural James Patterson and Bookshop.org Prize, a new literary prize celebrating debut authors, hand-selected by independent booksellers.
Titles, which must be full-length debut books published in the United States within the past 12 months, are nominated by booksellers working in qualifying independent bookstores. The winner and runner-up, which receive …Read More
2026 Carnegie Medals Shortlists
The shortlists for the 2026 Carnegie Medal for Writing and Carnegie Medal for Illustration, honoring UK books for children and young adults, were announced March 10, 2026. Titles and authors of genre interest include:
Carnegie Medal for Writing
- Ghostlines, Katya Balen (Bloomsbury Children's)
- Popcorn, Rob Harrell (Dial US; Piccadilly UK)
- The Boy I Love, William Hussey (Walker US; Andersen UK)
- Wolf Siren, Beth O'Brien (HarperCollins Children's)
- Twenty-Four Seconds from …Read More
2026 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award Finalists
Baen Books has announcedthe ten finalists for the 2026 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award.
- Thomas Butler
- Jason P. Crawford
- Joyce Frohn
- Liam Hogan
- Philip Levin
- Paul Malory
- Joel C. Scoberg
- Gideon Smith
- Tiffany Smith
- Wesley Stine
Winners receive a year's membership in the National Space Society, and the first place story will be offered publication on the Baen website at professional rates. According …Read More
Climate Fiction Prize 2026 Shortlist
The Climate Fiction Prize has announced its inaugural shortlist. Founded by Rose Goddard, Imran Khan, and Leo Barasi and supported by Climate Spring, the prize seeks to celebrate the most inspiring novels tackling the climate crisis.
Shortlisted titles and authors of genre interest include:
- Dusk, Robbie Arnott (Astra House US; Chatto & Windus UK; Picador Australia)
- Awake in the Floating City, Susanna Kwan (Pantheon US; Simon & Schuster …Read More
Christopher Caldwell Wins Crawford Award
The IAFA is pleased to announce that the winner of this year's Crawford Award isCall and Response (Neon Hemlock) by Christopher Caldwell.
The Crawford Award, given by the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts, recognizes an outstanding writer whose first fantasy book was published during the previous calendar year.
The judges were Joyce Chng, Eddie Clark, Joy Sanchez-Taylor, and Brian Attebery. Kelly Robson is award administrator. …Read More
2026 HWA Specialty Awards
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the recipients of its 2026 Specialty Awards.
Bad Hand Books is the recipient of the Specialty Press Award, given to a specialty publisher whose work has substantially contributed to the horror genre, whose publications display general excellence, and whose dealings with authors have been fair and exemplary.
The Richard Laymon President's Award, presented to a volunteer who has served the HWA in …Read More
2026 PEN America Finalists
PEN America announced the 2026 finalists for ten literary awards on January 29, 2026. The awards will confer nearly $350,000 to writers and translators. ... Spanning fiction, poetry, essay, translation, and more, these Longlisted books are dynamic, diverse, and thought-provoking examples of literary excellence. Awards, titles, and authors of genre interest include:
PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000)
- The Devil Is a Southpaw, Brandon Hobson (HarperCollins)
- Things in Nature Merely …Read More
2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize Shortlist
The 5-title shortlist for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize has been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest includeThe True Story of Raja the Gullible (And His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove),Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron), and Intemperance by Sonora Jha (HarperVia).
The winner will be announced April 23, 2026. The $35,000 prize is awarded to an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary …Read More
2026 Lambda Literary Awards Finalists
The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the finalists for the 38th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the Lammys ), celebrating the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books. Categories, authors, and titles of genre interest include the following:
LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction
- Volatile Memory, Seth Haddon (Tordotcom)
- Cry, Voidbringer, Elaine Ho (Bindery)
- Beings, Ilana Masad (Bloomsbury)
- Two Truths and a Lie, Cory O'Brien (Pantheon)
- Blood on Her Tongue, Johanna …Read More
New Imprint: Evil Twin
Zando announced the launch of Evil Twin, a new imprint focusing on horror, from psychological twists to supernatural terror and bone-chilling gore, in February 2026.
According to Publishers Weekly, Nancy Trypuc, deputy director of marketing at Zando, will be the publishing director. Masie Cochran, editorial director, and Hayley Wagreich, director of original development, will oversee acquisitions.
Zando CEO Molly Stern said,
As we have with Slowburn, Zando is building on …Read More
Tips on Feedback for Poetry
by Rebecca A. Demarest
Editor’s note: This article is a follow-up on the 2025 Seattle Worldcon panel “Giving and Receiving Feedback for Poets,” with panelists Dawn Vogel, F. J. Bergmann, Holly Lyn Walrath, Vanessa MacLaren-Wray and moderated by Rebecca A. Demarest.
Read by Michelle KnudsenWe’ve all been there: An acquaintance asks us to review a poem. If you’re anything like me, warning klaxons go off in the back of your head, and Admiral Ackbar screams about traps. Do you tell them what they want to hear? Are you going to be honest about how much you dislike the metaphor involving slug slime and new love? Let’s face it, poetry is an intensely personal and moderately subjective form of self-expression, which means the feedback we give (and receive) has the power to hurt.
So what do you do? Ink and run away? Take the plunge and give honest and constructive feedback? If you are brave enough to take the second option, here are some helpful tips to ensure that both of you walk away from the experience feeling satisfied.
Set ExpectationsWhether you’re sitting at a workshop roundtable or your aunt has mailed you a packet of poetry about her Shih Tzu, always start by setting expectations. Ask the poet what kind of feedback they are looking for. Here are some possible questions:
- What kind of feedback are you looking for today?
- Do you want my general impression of the piece or something more detailed?
- Do you want to know how it affects me?
- Do you want feedback on the success of various techniques you used?
Once you’ve established the kind of feedback they are looking for, make sure you also know the parameters around the piece you are reading:
- Is this poem for a particular publication or event?
- Did you use a traditional form for the poem?
- Is this poem referential or in response to something?
- Do you prefer written feedback on a separate document, in-line comments, or a conversation?
All of these questions help to adjust the way in which you approach critiquing to ensure that the feedback you give will actually be helpful.
“Don’t Be This Guy.” Poem and photo by Rebecca A. Demarest.Seriously, don’t be this guy. The comments are rude and entirely rooted in the editor’s view of what they believe should be on the page, not trying to edit for what the poet is going for. Framing Your Feedback
Once you know what aspects of the poem you are focusing on, the next step is framing your critique. Because poetry is often so personal, it is essential to frame your feedback with respect and care. If you have a long-standing relationship with the other party, you will develop a unique dynamic in which you might share feedback such as, “I’m not sure if it’s the turbulence on this flight or this stanza, but something is making me nauseous,” but outside of an established friendship, that sort of feedback is more often than not going to make someone mad.
Instead, lean in to phrasing your feedback as an opinion and/or a question:
- This metaphor didn’t work well for me. I didn’t quite understand what you were going for. What feeling are you trying to evoke?
- I lost the meter in this line; what if you switched these words around?
- With the title, I was expecting something different because of the connotations in my head for those words. What were you going for specifically?
Also note how that feedback is based on a concrete moment on the page. Specificity is a wonderful tool and should always be used when giving feedback. This is because general vibes such as “I liked it,” or “I’m not sure it’s ready,” don’t actually offer anything for a poet to address and can be frustrating. In addition, offering follow-up questions as part of the feedback can help the poet think about possible solutions to the perceived problems.
“Much More Productive.” Poem and photo by Rebecca A. Demarest.This editor has taken into account not only the poet’s note about form but has also offered universal comments (noted in-line for helpfulness) and opinion in the form of questions. A much better (and nicer!) editor. When You Ask for Feedback
If you’re the one asking for feedback, the first thing you need to ensure is that you are in the right headspace to receive folks’ opinions. Do not ask your work-friend what they thought about your poem at the end of a long workday where you skipped lunch. You’re hangry and tired, and anything Barbara from Accounting says at this moment is likely to be frustrating.
Instead, share your work only when you can honestly say you are ready to edit the poem. Cultivate in yourself a desire to make your poems shine. This may take some effort on your part to embrace the imperfect nature of writing. First drafts are—and should be—utter rubbish with a few hidden gems. Second drafts get better, and third, but you won’t ever know if the poem is communicating what you want it to say if you haven’t at some point shared it with other people.
That raises the question of motivation. Are you writing poetry for yourself in an effort to process heavy emotions? Then you likely don’t need or want intensive critique and should tell your readers that you’re sharing not for edits but for the sole satisfaction of having another person read your work. On the flip side, are you aiming for publication in literary journals around the globe? In that case, strap in and put on a poncho; you’re in the splash zone and about to get dirty. Prepare yourself to rip that poem apart again and again with the help of your fellow poets to polish it to a mirror-bright shine.
In all of this, remember that you and your fellow poets are sharing a piece of your soul with the world. Treat each other with kindness and respect, and together we can help one another’s work reach a brilliance that a poet alone struggles to attain. And if you’d like a fun suggestion to help you feel more comfortable giving and receiving feedback on poetry, I can personally recommend bribing your non-poet friends with their favorite food or drink and then workshopping your poem. The results can be hilariously—and unexpectedly—useful.
Explore more articles from SPECULATIVE POETICS
Rebecca A. Demarest (she/her) is an award-winning author, poet, playwright, book designer, and writing instructor living in Seattle, WA, with her husband and three muppets. Her work has appeared alongside authors like Cat Rambo, been dramatized for the stage and NPR, and her novels are available at your favorite bookstore. When not being held hostage by words, you can find her tending to her indoor jungle, crafting, sewing, playtesting tabletop role-playing games, and failing to teach her dogs new tricks. For more information on her work, please visit rebeccademarest.com or follow on BlueSky @writerlybliss.
The post Tips on Feedback for Poetry appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.
