Locus News

The Cercador Prize has announced Jazmina Barrera's The Queen of Swords, translated by Christina MacSweeney (Two Lines), as its 2025 winner. The $1000 prize recognizes works of literature in translation as selected by a committee of independent booksellers based across the United States.

The Cercador Prize bookseller committee, chaired by Emily Tarr, wrote in a statement shared on Instagram,

The Queen of Swords, presented here in a lyrical translation …Read More

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has declined to hear the appeal of the plaintiffs in Little v. Llano County, who sought to challenge the removal of 17 works from public libraries in Texas, with authors of genre interest including Lauren Myracle and Maurice Sendak.

In May 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that reversed more than 40 years of precedent in constitutional law, …Read More

The winners of the African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) 2025 Nommo Awards, given to works by Africans as defined by the ASFS and Nommo Awards Guidelines, were announced at a the 2025 Aké Arts & Book Festival Welcome Ceremony in Lagos and livestreamed on YouTube on November 20, 2025.

Best Novel

• WINNER: Womb City, Tlotlo Tsamaase (Kensington)

• The Smoke That Thunders, Erhu Kome (Norton Young Readers)
…Read More

Winners of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards, voted on by users of the site, have been announced. Winners of genre interest include:

Romantasy: Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros (Red Tower) 298,565 votes

Fantasy: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab (Tor) 102,408 votes

Science Fiction: The Compound, Aisling Rawle (Random House) 45,287 votes

Horror: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (Berkley) 59,603 votes

Young Adult Fantasy & Sci-Fi: Sunrise …Read More

The second annual Future Creation Workshop in Chongqing, held October 13-22, featured many improvements over the first workshop. What remained the same was the gathering of aspiring writers from around China to pursue dreams of publishing their work in their home country and the West. This year's distinguished faculty included Chinese writers Wu Yan, Jiang Bo, Bao Shu, Ling Chen, Cheng Jingbo, and Deng Siyuan as well as international …Read More

The 51st World Fantasy Convention, held in combination with British Fantasycon, was held October 30 - November 2, 2025 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Brighton Metropole in blustery Brighton UK. Guests of honor were author Suniti Namjoshi, artist Vincent Chong, and publishers Vivian Cheung & Nick Landau, with toastmaster Joanne Harris and horror laureate Ramsey Campbell. Life Achievement Awards winners were Juliet Marillier and Michael Whelan. There were two …Read More

The 2026 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF), which will fund travel for a North American fan to the 2026 Eurocon in Germany, is open for nominations until February 1, 2026, 23:59 Pacific North West time.

TAFF was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and popular [science fiction] fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean across the Atlantic. Since that time TAFF has …Read More

The Clarion Workshop in San Diego CA has announced the instructors for its 2026 session: Andy Duncan, Elizabeth Hand, Grady Hendrix, Sarah Pinsker, Abbey Mei Otis, and Erin Roberts.Jac Jemc is faculty director.

The workshop will be held June 28, 2026 – August 8, 2026 at UC San Diego. Applications for the workshop opened on December 1, 2025 and close February 15, 2026. For more information, see the Clarion website. …Read More

The Odyssey Writing Workshop has announced its online classes for 2026.

Melissa Scott will teach Worldbuilding in Fantastic Fiction from March 5 - April 2, 2026.

Barbara A. Barnett will teach All the World's a Page: Adapting Acting Techniques to Strengthen Your Fiction from Feburary 24 - March 24, 2026.

Barbara Ashford will teach One Brick at a Time: Crafting Compelling Scenes from March 3-31, 2026.

Applications to participate are …Read More

The LAcon V organizers have announced that Terese Mason Pierre will be a special guest for the 84th World Science Fiction Convention. Pierre is an acclaimed Canadian writer who has worked to platform members of equity-deserving communities, chief programming officer and an editor for Augur Society, and editor of anthology As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories (House of Anansi). Pierre said,

I am so excited to participate …Read More

Playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard, 88, died November 29, 2025 in Dorset, England.

Stoppard was born as Tomáš Sträussler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic, on July 3, 1937. His family fled the imminent Nazi occupation and his mother, Martha, married a major in the British army, Kenneth, who adopted her children. They eventually came to live in England in 1946. Stoppard worked as a journalist and theater and …Read More

The LAcon V organization team has announced via email that the 2026 Hugo Awards will feature Best Poem as its additional category.

LAcon V chair Joyce Lloyd said,

Speculative poetry has a long and storied tradition. Arguably the first works of speculative fiction were epic poems like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. We're pleased to invite the membership of this Worldcon to nominate and vote on their favorite …Read More

Canadian SF writer Jean-Louis Trudel, 58, died November 17, 2025.

Trudel was born in Toronto, Ontario. He began publishing short fiction in French as early as 1984. He wrote several genre works in English, and more have been translated. His short fiction and poetry has appeared in Asimov's, On Spec, Polar Borealis, Star*Line, The 2022 Rhysling Anthology, collection The Snows of Yesteryear (2017), and many others. He was a long-time …Read More

The Sidewise Award for Alternate History has announced a change in the judging panel beginning with the reading list for 2025 and 2026.

Three judges will be added to the panel: Andrea Horbinski, Alana Phelan, and Arturo Serrano. Returning judges include Matt Mitrovich, Kurt Sidaway, and Steven H Silver. Judge Olav Rokne is stepping down from the role.

Sidewise Awards judges read submissions, including novels and short stories, throughout …Read More

Clarion West has announced that the 2026 Summer Six-Week Workshop will run virtually from June 21-August 1, 2026. The instructors will be Tara Campbell, Indrapramit Das, David Thomas Moore, and Rebecca Roanhorse.

Tuition is $3,600, and full and partial tuition scholarships will be available for application for those with financial need. Applications for the workshop will open on December 1, 2025.

For more information, see the Clarion West website. …Read More

Winners have been announced for the Frank R. Paul Awards, honoring outstanding work in book and magazine cover art.

Best Book Cover

• WINNER: Maurizio Manzieri for The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 8 by Allan Kaster, ed. (Infinivox)

• Stephen Andrade for I Want That Twink Obliterated! by Robert Berg, Trip Galey & C.L. McCartney, eds. (Bona)
• Lulu Chen forThe Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (Bramble)
…Read More

The judges for the 2026 World Fantasy Awards have been empaneled.

The judges will read and consider eligible materials from 2025 between now (November 24, 2025) and April 30, 2026. Any materials not received by all five judges and Peter Dennis Pautz after April 30 will receive little or no consideration.

Judges:

• Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
  Graduate College
  Alexander Park Drive
  Lancaster University
  Lancaster LA2 0PF
  …Read More

Sean Markey, publisher of Psychopomp,The Deadlands, andFantasy Magazine, has announced that Psychopomp will no longer be publishing novellas or novelettes, nonfiction on Psychopomp is on hiatus, and Fantasy Magazine will go on hiatus after its December issue.

Markey wrote,

The biggest reason we've arrived at this point is the most obvious one: funding....

Making a long story short:

• we did not sell enough copies of novellas to make it …Read More

Winners for the National Book Awards (NBA) were announced at the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony on November 19, 2025. Genre authors and works in categories with winners of interest include:

Fiction

• WINNER: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), Rabih Alameddine (Grove)

• A Guardian and a Thief, Megha Majumdar (Knopf)
• The Antidote, Karen Russell (Knopf)
• North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the …Read More

The American Library Association (ALA) has announced the shortlists for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence for the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year with three fiction and three non-fiction titles.

Titles of genre interest in the fiction category include:

• The Unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses (Scribner)
• We Do Not Part, Han Kang, translated by Paige …Read More