Speculative Literature News
News from the Speculative Literature writing community, including items from Locus Magazine, SFWA, etc. Please contact us if you would like to suggest a news source.
The 13-title longlist for the 2026 Booker Prize has been announced, with works and writers of genre interest including:
The End of Everything, M. John Harrison (Serpent's Tail)
The Renovation, Kenan Orhan(Hamish Hamilton)
...
The North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation (NCSFF) has announced the winner for the 2026 Manly Wade Wellman Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy novels written by North Carolina authors.
- WINNER: T...
Winners for the2026 Imadjinn Awardshave been announced. Winners were selected by jury and announced at theImaginarium Convention, held July 17-19, 2026 at the Holiday Inn Louisville East in Louisville KY.
Best Science Fiction Novel
- WINNER: Dead to...
Fan and organizer Robin Johnson, 89, died July 6, 2026 in Ballarat, Australia of underlying causes after a fall.
Johnson was born March 9, 1937 and lived variously in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart, and Ballarat, as well as in England. He chaired the first Australian Worldcon in 1975 as well...
Dark Carnival, the second oldest science fiction bookstore in the US, will be celebrating its 50th anniversary on Saturday, August 1, 2026 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at its longtime location on Claremont Avenue in Berkeley, CA.
The sprawling establishment, which specializes in science...
Dr. Patrick Anthony Barbosa Brock
CoFutures
CoFutures
What do we do when we talk about Zoefuturism? This essay argues that Zoefuturism and CoFuturisms are not merely aesthetic or speculative categories, but infrastructural practices of collective world-making. I...
Russell Kirkpatrick, 65, died June 26, 2026 in Canberra Hospital. He was diagnosed with aggressive melanoma.
Kirkpatrick was born April 11, 1961 in Christchurch, New Zealand. He received a PhD in geography from the University of Canterbury and was at separate times a lecturer at the...
Titan US publicity director Katharine T. Carroll, 68, died June 28, 2026. The cause was attributed to aortic dissection.
Carroll was born Katharine Trowbridge in January 1958. She attended Manhattan Country School, Riverdale Country School, and Boston University and lived in New York City...
On July 20, the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted final approval of the $1.5 billion settlement proposed in class action suit Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, in which authors accused the Amazon-backed company of illegally obtaining and using their books...
Westercon 80, to be held in 2028 by the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) in conjunction withLoscon 54, will officially be the final Westercon after voters at its2026 business meeting ratified a motion to repeal its bylaws. Following Loscon 54/Westercon 80, the convention will be...
Following a careful review, Apex Magazine has removed the story Vigil of the Tenth Air from Apex #153 amid skepticism around the author's potential use of AI tools for its writing.
Though ultimately not selected for publication, a shortlisted story for Apex imprint...
Now Hiring:
Events Coordinator and Web Contractor
Events Coordinator and Web Contractor
Our team is growing!
SFWA is excited to announce two new positions as part of our continued commitment to creating meaningful...
Noidanlanka by J. S. Meresmaa (Myllylahti), is the winner of the 2026 Tähtifantasia Award, presented by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society for the best Finnish fantasy book published in the previous year. Other nominees were:
- Kuulotorvi, Leonora...
Matt Haig announced on Instagram plans to open a bookshop and coffee place called Golden, to be located in Brighton UK in the Seven Dials neighborhood, which according to Haig does not currently have a bookshop. The shop aims to open by Christmas.
Haig said,
My belief, as...
by Marlee Baldridge
Read by the authorReaders don’t always care about the finer details of orbital mechanics in deep space mining or the geophysics of a climate dystopia story, but they do care about...
Author Dafydd ab Hugh, 65, died in June 2026.
Ab Hugh was born David M. Friedman on October 22, 1960 in Los Angeles CA. He began writing SF/F as early as 1987 with Heroing: or, How He Wound Down the World, first of two books in the fantasy series Jiana. He wrote...
Our Heads Are Better Than AI: Working Together on Challenges in Industry
Dear writer,
Right now, the SFF online conversation is potent and proactive (read: FIERY). The topic? AI scammers, the increasing complexity of their scams, and the...
Author R.S. Belcher, 59, died July 11, 2026.
Rod Belcher was born May 2, 1967 in Roanoke VA. He graduated Virginia Commonwealth University, worked on a Masters degree in forensic science at The George Washington University, and worked as a newspaper and magazine editor, a reporter, and a...
Author and editor Mark J. McGarry, 68, died in May 2026 in Paris, France.
McGarry was born February 6, 1958 in Albany NY. He wrote Sun Dogs (1981) and Blank Slate (1984) as well as several genre works of short fiction published in magazines including ...
MILESTONES
ELEANNA CASTROIANNI is now represented by Arley Sorg of kt literary.
ERIN LATIMER, CORAL ALEJANDRA MOORE, and J.C. SNOW are now represented by JABberwocky Literary Agency.
...
The prize formerly known as the International Booker Prize has announced a partnership with Bukhman Philanthropies, which has made a generous commitment to fund the next 10 years of the International Booker Prize. The funding will double the prize awarded to the winning title from £50,000 to £...
Stephen King's 1982 collection Different Seasons (Warner) is the most recent book banned from all public schools in Utah after being removed in four school districts. Utah state law requires a book to be removed state-wide if a sufficient number of districts identify it as...
The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) announced the 2026 inductees to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame: Lois McMaster Bujold and Tim Burton were honored as creators. Metropolis and the X-Men franchise were also recognized as exceptional creations in genre media. Inductees are added to...
The Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS) has announcedA Kiss for Damocles by J. Kenton Pierce (Raconteur) [amazon / bookshop] as the winner of the Prometheus Award in the Best Novel category, honoring pro-freedom works published in 2025. Other nominees were:
- ...
SF poet and author Suzette Haden Elgin is the winner of the 2026 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, intended to bring attention to lesser-known SF and fantasy authors. Her first story publication, For the Sake of Grace , was in F&SF in 1969. She wrote several SF series leaning into...
The winners of the 2025 Shirley Jackson Awards for outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense, and dark fantasy fiction were announced Saturday, July 11, 2026 at Readercon 35 in Burlington MA, hosted by Readercon guests of honor P. Djèlí Clark and David Gerrold.
...
Now Hiring: SFWA Executive Director
Organization Overview
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization for published writers and industry professionals in the field of science...
Aware of other sub-genres that might sit alongside, overlap or appear to be similar to Zoefuturism, we welcomed contributions about them, to help shape our understanding of Zoefuturism relationally.
Below, Manda Scott and Denise...
Aware of other sub-genres that might sit alongside, overlap or appear to be similar to Zoefuturism, we welcomed contributions about them, to help shape our understanding of Zoefuturism relationally.
Below, Manda Scott and Denise...
The European Science Fiction Society (ESFS) announced the Hall of Fame Awards, Achievement Awards, and winners of the Chrysalis Awards for emerging talent.
The Hall of Fame Awards winners are:
Best Author
- WINNER: Luís Filipe Silva (Portugal) ...
Winners of the Heinlein Society's annual undergraduate scholarships for the 2026-2027 academic year were announced on July 7, 2026, Robert A. Heinlein's 119th birthday.
This year's winners are Riya Gupta, Nora Kane, Leslie Manga-Abomo, William Mar, and Evan Sturdivant. The scholarship...
Finalists for the 2026 Deutsche Science Fiction Preis, presented by Science Fiction Club Deutschland (SFCD), have been announced.
Best German-Language SF Novel
- We Burn the Sun, Anika Beer (Piper Verlag)
- ...
The five-title shortlist for the 2026 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic was announced July 6, 2026:
- The Works of Vermin, Hiron Ennes (Tor) amazon / bookshop
- Horsefly, Mireille Gagné, tr. Pablo Strauss (...
Author and historian JAMES RAY COMER, who wrote as J. Comer, 59, died in late April or early May 2026.
Comer was born August 5, 1966. He wrote several pieces of short fiction, including Soldier's Coat (2015), Scratch (2016), The Wooing of Etroklos (2016), Star Thistle (...
Three debuts, Danielle J. Jensen's The Inadequate Heir (Del Rey), K.M. Moronova's Once Upon a Demon's Heart (Bloom), and Jaymin Eve's Night Witch (Mira), each debuts on both the USA Today and Publishers Weekly lists.
Title Debut...
Author and editor TED WHITE, 88, died May 24, 2026. He was in palliative care.
Theodore Edwin White was born February 4, 1938. He contributed to SF fanzines at a young age and won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1968. He was assistant editor at F&SF ...
The North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation (NCSFF) has announced the finalists for the 2026 Manly Wade Wellman Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy novels written by North Carolina authors.
- The Unseen, Ania...
Simon & Schuster has announced that Atria Gallery Group will relaunch the Pocket Books imprint as a core romance imprint that will also publish additional genres including romantic thrillers, dark romance, and horror. Anh Schluep, who is joining Atria Gallery, will be vice president,...
The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association (CSFFA) announced three inductees to the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame for 2026: author Kelley Armstrong, author James Alan Gardner, and past president of Fanzine Writers of America Mike Glicksohn.
This year's jury...
Looking Back and Moving Forward
Dear writer,
We’ve had an incredible year at SFWA. We charted new Constellations and visited a Quasar on our professional journey to the latest Nebulas....
Starlog, the magazine devoted to visionary sci-fi and cutting-edge science, has announced its return to print for November 13, 2026. The magazine will be published annually; there will also be a weekly email newsletter, Lodestar.
Annalee Newitz will serve as editor-in-...
The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust has announced the shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, awarding a $25,000 cash prize to the author of a book that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula's own work.
The nine shortlisted titles are:
- ...
