Locus News

BizarroCon has announced the final ballot for the 2025 Wonderland Book Awards for Excellence in Bizarro Fiction.

Best Novel

• Kennel, Garrett Cook (Madness Heart)
• Apeship, Carlton Mellick III (Eraserhead)
• Nympho Shark Fuck Frenzy, Christine Morgan & Susan Snyder (Madness Heart)
• Starlet, Danger Slater (Ghoulish)
• Reality But More Fun, Madeleine Swann (Nictitating)

Best Collection

• The Expectant Mother’s Disinformation Handbook, Robert Guffey (Madness Heart)
• God Is

The winners of the 2024 Australasian Shadows Awards (previously known as the Australia 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: The Dead Spot, Caroline Angel (Red Cape)

• Remedy, J.S. Breukelaar (PS)
• Jasper Cliff, Josh Kemp (Fremantle)
• The Briar Book of

The nominees and honorable mentions have been announced for the Frank R. Paul Awards, which honor “outstanding work in book and magazine cover art.”

Best Book Cover

• Stephen Andrade for I Want That Twink Obliterated! by Robert Berg, Trip Galey & C.L. McCartney, eds. (Bona)
• Lulu Chen for The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (Bramble)
• Dan Dos Santos for Winter Lost by Patricia Briggs (Ace)
• Maurizio Manzieri for This Year’s

The shortlist for the 2025 Giller Prize, which honors “the best Canadian novel, graphic novel or short story collection published in English,” has been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

• We Love You, Bunny, Mona Awad (Scribner Canada)
• The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, Eddy Boudel Tan (Viking Canada)
• The Paris Express, Emma Donoghue (Harper Avenue)
• The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, Emma Knight

The winners of the 2025 Ditmar Awards for Australian SF have been announced.

Best Novel

• WINNER: The Underhistory, Kaaron Warren (Serpent’s Tail)

• Blood Covenant, Alan Baxter (Cemetery Dance)
• Ghost Cities, Siang Lu (University of Queensland Press)
• The Medusa Situation, Gabiann Marin (Clan Destine)
• The Escher Man, T.R. Napper (Titan)

Best Novella or Novelette

• WINNER: Ghost of the Neon God, T. R. Napper (Titan)

• Wilder

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

Fiction

• 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 Whaleship Esther, Ethan Rutherford (A Strange Object)
• Palaver, Bryan Washington (Farrar, Straus

The Green Mountain Book Festival has announced its return in October 2025, featuring John Scalzi and several speculative fiction authors from Vermont.

The 2025 festival will be held on Saturday, October 18 in Burlington VT. The program “will include book signings, a writing workshop, panels about humor and worldbuilding in science fiction, and a mainstage interview with John Scalzi.”

Featured authors include Craig Alanson, William Alexander, M.T. Anderson, Emily Hamilton, ... Read More

A Wisconsin judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by Scarlett Pavlovich against Neil Gaiman and his estranged spouse Amanda Palmer, with charges including human trafficking, assault and battery, infliction of emotional distress, and negligence, on procedural grounds.

The judge writes that while “Pavlovich’s allegations are serious and disturbing… the issue before the court is not whether Pavlovich’s allegations are true.” Gaiman has asserted that the case does not belong in ... Read More

Quirk Books has been acquired by Andrews McMeel Universal as of October 1, 2025. The deal sees Quirk Books become an imprint of Andrews McMeel Publishing, which will publish Quirk’s backlist and frontlist titles. Penguin Random House Publisher Services will continue to sell and distribute Quirk titles.

Quirk founder and publisher, Dave Borgenicht, remains publisher of the Quirk Books imprint, and reports to the AMU president and CEO, Kirsty Melville.... Read More

Baker & Taylor, “the largest supplier of library content, software and services to public and academic libraries in the U.S.,” has announced plans to shut down their business. The company “also provide sales, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution support to small and mid-sized publishers” through their Publisher Services business.

According to a Publishers Weekly article, at a town hall meeting on October 6, 2025, Baker & Taylor owner and CEO Aman ... Read More

Seattle Worldcon 2025, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, was held August 13-17, 2025 at the brand-new Summit expansion to the Seattle Convention Center in a warm and muggy Seattle WA. Guests of honor were musician Alexander James Adams, artist Donato Giancola, engineer and costumer Bridget Landry, poet laure­ate Brandon O’Brien, and author Martha Wells. Registration provided figures of 7,177 in-person warm bodies from 59 different countries, at least 2,500 ... Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has published a web page for frequently asked questions about the Bartz v Anthropic lawsuit settlement. It covers basic information about the suit, what works are included, how to make a claim, how money will be distributed, and other information.

SFWA states that “[o]ur Legal Affairs committee and Communications Office will help you navigate questions about the evolving settlement.” SFWA has created ... Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the winners of the 2025 Elgin Awards, presented for the best speculative poetry book and chapbook, and the 2025 Rhysling Awards for speculative poetry. The Elgin Awards winners are:

• FIRST PLACE: Mexicans on the Moon, Pedro Iniguez (Space Cowboy)

• Second Place: Surrealia, Miguel Mitchell (Gnashing Teeth)
• Third Place: The Dark Between The Twilight, Jamal

The Goldsmiths Prize, created in 2013 by Goldsmiths College at the University of London, has released its 2025 shortlist. Authors and titles of genre interest include:

• Helm, Sarah Hall (Faber)
• The Expansion Project, Ben Pester (Granta)
• We Live Here Now, C.D. Rose (Melville House)

The £10,000 prize is given for a book by a British or Irish author that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of ... Read More

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the winners for the 37th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”), celebrating “the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books.” Winners of genre interest include:

LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction

• WINNER: Metal From Heaven, August Clarke (Erewhon)

• The Palace of Eros, Caro De Robertis (Primero Sueño)
• Markless, C.G. Malburi (Levine Querido)
• The Sunforge, Sascha Stronach (Saga)
• Bury Your Gays, Chuck Tingle

The National Endow­ment for the Arts has canceled all the creative writing fellowships awarded for 2026. Grant win­ners were notified by email that the writing cat­egory had been “withdrawn by the Agency.” The recipients, all published prose writers and poets, were to receive up to $50,000 each. The NEA state­ment said it “is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage ... Read More

“The Carcosa Pattern” by Conrad Loyer (Fiyah 10/24) 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 “Swarm X1048 – Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, ‘6’” by F.E. Choe (Clarkesworld 3/24). The third-place runner up was “Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!” by TJ ... Read More

The 14-title longlist for the 2025 Giller Prize, which honors “the best Canadian novel, graphic novel or short story collection published in English,” has been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

• Other Worlds, André Alexis (McClelland & Stewart)
• We Love You, Bunny, Mona Awad (Scribner Canada)
• The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, Eddy Boudel Tan (Viking Canada)
• Sugaring Off, Fanny Britt, translated by Susan Ouriou

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

Best Novel

• WINNER: No winner announced

• Magnétisme, Paule Blanchette (Lux & Nox)
• La perle verte, Amélie Bougie (Lux & Nox)
• Le fléau d’Angarie, Julie Desjardins (Lux & Nox)
• Ashara: La quête de la Lumière, Marie-Ève Rondeau (Essor-Livres)
• Le centre-ville des morts, Éric Thériault (Lo-Ély)

Best Short Story

• WINNER: “Bercer les voûtes”, Ariane Gélinas (Les Six Brumes)

The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the 2025 Dwarf Stars Award winners. The Dwarf Stars honor the best speculative poem of one to ten lines published in the previous year.

• WINNER: “Perish and Live Forever”, Pedro Iniguez (Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future)
• Second Place: “[old junkyard]”, Ngô Bình Anh Khoa (Star*Line Spring ’24)
• Third Place: “[warp drive folds spacetime]”, Jean-Paul L.