Locus News

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

TimeMagazine has released a list of 100 Must-Read Books of 2025. Works and authors of genre interest include:

• The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), Rabih Alameddine (Grove)
• Book of Lives, Margaret Atwood (Doubleday)
• Sweet Heat, Bolu Babalola (William Morrow)
• The Martians, David Baron (Liveright)
• Cursed Daughters, Oyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday)
• Moderation, Elaine Castillo (Atlantic/Viking)
• Pan, Michael Clune (Penguin)
• King of Ashes, S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• One …Read More

On October 1, 2025 Simon & Schuster announced the launch of Scarlett Press, a New Adult imprint dedicated to commercial, fast-paced, romance-forward books in all genres, geared to readers 18 and above, and its inaugural list of titles scheduled for Spring 2026, all of which are of genre interest.

The titles are Empire of Flames and Thorns, Marion Blackwood; City of Gods and Monsters, Kayla Edwards;Amid Clouds and Bones, Ella …Read More

Barnes & Noble has announced the finalists for its 2025 Book of the Year. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

• Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
• King of Ashes, S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• Katabasis, R.F. Kuang (HarperCollins)
• I Am Rebel, Ross Montgomery (Candlewick Press)

The winner was announced November 13, 2025. For more information, including the complete list, see the official announcement. …Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has named N.K. Jemisin the 42nd recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

SFWA President Kate Ristau said,

Jemisin is a celebrated speculative fiction author with multiple Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. A MacArthur fellow, she impacted an entire generation of new writers with her groundbreaking work. Her career has had an unbelievable impact on the direction of …Read More

VAISHNAVI PATEL is now represented by Jordan Hill of New Leaf Literary & Media. Patel sold contemporary fantasy We Dance Upon Demons, following a burnt-out reproductive health care worker, to Sareena Kamath at Saga Press via Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency.

OGHENECHOVWE DONALD EKPEKI is now represented by Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media.

ROBERT J. SAWYER will be a Writer in Residence at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced …Read More

For its 30th anniversary, Tachyon Publications hosted a celebratory party and reading, held Sunday, October 5, 2025 at the San Francisco Public Library in San Francisco CA. After light refreshments in the lobby, the Koret Auditorium opened at 3:00 p.m. for an SF in SF reading by Tachyon authors Joe R. Lansdale and Samantha Mills.

The San Francisco Public Library further commemorated Tachyon's 30th with an exhibit on the third …Read More

The StokerCon Governing Committee has announced the details of StokerCon 2026, or StokerCon 10. The convention will be held June 4-7, 2026 at The Westin Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh PA. Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite. In-person admission is $300 and virtual is $75.

The six Guests of Honor will be Linda D. Addison, Rachel Harrison, Billy Martin, John Shirley, James Tynion, and Ann VanderMeer.

The Governing Committee, including James Chambers, …Read More

Writer and organizer Celeste Rita Baker, 67, died October 30, 2025.

Baker was a Virgin Islander born July 29, 1958. She moved between St. Thomas and the US several times. She published short stories in The Caribbean Writer, khōréō, Lightspeed, F&SF, Moko Magazine, Strange Horizons, and more. Her work is also included in anthologies such as Genesis: An Anthology of Black Science Fiction (2010), People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy (2016), …Read More

The winners of the 2025 Prix Utopiales and the 2025 Prix Utopiales Jeunesse have been announced. The prizes recognize work in the fantastic genres published or translated into French.

Prix Utopiales (Adult Literature)

• WINNER: La dernière tentation de Judas, Philippe Battaglia (L'Atalante)

• Sous la brume, Yann Bécu (L'Homme Sans Nom)
• Le Mensonge suffit, Christopher Bouix (Au Diable Vauvert)
• Aatea, Anouck Faure (Argyll)
• Re:Start, Katia Lanero Zamora (Argyll)
…Read More

We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose (Melville House) is the winner of The Goldsmiths Prize, created in 2013 by Goldsmiths College at the University of London.

Other shortlisted authors and titles of genre interest include Helm, Sarah Hall (Faber) and The Expansion Project, Ben Pester (Granta).

The £10,000 prize is awarded to a book by a British or Irish author that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of …Read More