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.
LAcon V, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, received 2,492 valid ballots (two paper), up from 1,962 at Seattle Worldcon 2025. There were 1,488 nominating ballots received (six paper), up from 1,338 last year.
The procedure for counting nominations remains the E Pluribus Hugo...
MILESTONES
REBECCA MATTE has joined kt literary. She was previously at Bradford Literary Agency.
MEGAN LALLY is now represented by Joanna Volpe of New Leaf Literary & Media. Lally's romantic gothic horror To Death, We Dance...
Qilin Press has established the Linda D. Addison Speculative Poetry Fellowship, an award that,
supports BIPOC poets developing unpublished and in‑progress speculative poetry collections. The fellowship awards $1000 to one poet whose work demonstrates visionary depth, thematic...
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
- Pascal Blanche for Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vol. 3...
Editor, critic, and publisher Malcolm Edwards, 76, died October 3, 2026. He had Parkinson's disease.
Malcolm John Edwards was born December 3, 1949 in London, England. He received a degree from the University of Cambridge. He worked at several publishing houses, including Gollancz from...
Must Read Magazines has issued a statement shared by Analog Science Fiction and Fact on Bluesky in response to public criticism by John Picacio, Donato Giancola, Victoria Strauss, and others about its contract terms for artists.
According to the statement,
We previously...
The British Fantasy Society (BFS) has announced the winners of the 2026 British Fantasy Awards:
Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
- WINNER: Upon a Starlit Tide, Kell Woods (Tor US; Titan UK)
- A Song of...
Dragon Con was held at multiple hotels and AmericasMart in downtown Atlanta GA from September 3-7, 2026. The Dragon Awards ceremony was held Sunday at 4:00 p.m. (See page 6 for the winners.) A fan-focused event with great attendance, Dragon Con also offered more than 30 event...
The winners of the2026 Sir Julius Vogel Awardshave been announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ).
Best Novel
- WINNER: Dancing in the Purple Rain, Judy L. Mohr (Black Wolf)
- ...
The winners of the 2025 Australasian 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 Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the winners of its annual prize for poetry. Poems were judged in three categories, listed below.
Dwarf Form (10 or fewer lines):
- WINNER: Unauthorized Territory , Michael Bailey
- ...
The winner, finalists, and honorable mentions for the 2026 Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction have been announced.
The winner is All the Tears from the River Below by Rida Altaf. Finalists are Qitmir by Eman Farhan and Dreams of Dying and Waking Men by Shahmeer Mahesar. The honorable...
The Empire State Center for the Book has announced Lawrence Block and N.K. Jemisin as two of the three writers in 2026 to be inducted into the New York State (NYS) Writers Hall of Fame, along with Kay Thompson (posthumously). The Hall of Fame is presented alongside the NYS Writers Institute, a...
Finalists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. Categories, authors, and books of genre interest include:
Fiction
- Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
- Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You...
Guardians of the Well by Rose Strickman (In Another Time 6/25) has been announced as the winner of the 2026 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction. Other finalists include:
- Not a Fish , Andrew Dykstal (Beneath Ceaseless Skies...
The Ignyte Awards Committee has announced the winners of the 2026 Ignyte Awards, which seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward...
LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, was held August 27-31, 2026 at the Anaheim Convention Center and Hilton Anaheim & Anaheim Marriott Hotels in Anaheim, California. Guests of honor were novelist Barbara Hambly, cartoonist Colleen Doran, illustrator Tim Kirk, graphic...
Winners of the French-language Prix Boréal have been announced.
Best Novel
- WINNER (TIE): Du ventre des montagnes, Fanie Demeule (Québec Amérique)
- WINNER (TIE): Entre nos mains, Elisabeth Vonarburg (Alire) ...
David Shelley will give up his current role as head of an English language management structure on January 1 2027 to become executive chair of Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group. Accordingly, Ben Sevier is taking over as CEO of Hachette Book Group, moving on from his position as president and...
Penguin Random House UK has announced an imprint for the new adult reader category, Dusk, focusing on romance, fantasy and crossover fiction. Carmen McCullough and Amina Parchment-Youssef will lead the imprint, which expects to publish it's first titles fall 2026.
McCullough told The...
The winners of the 2026 Colorado Book Awards were revealed at a ceremony located in Denver CO on September 26, 2026. Titles and authors of genre interest in categories with winners of genre interest include:
Science Fiction/Fantasy
- WINNER: Scorched...
We, the Fleet by Alex T. Singer (Clarkesworld 5/25) 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 The...
The longlists for the Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) have been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest in the Prose category include:
- The Mystical Mister Kay, Meihan Boey (Epigram)
- The Waiting Room, Choo Yi Feng (Epigram) ...
The Bookseller has announced the shortlists for the second annual British Audio Awards, also called the Speakies, a prestigious new awards dedicated to celebrating excellence in audiobooks and audio drama, brought to you byThe BooksellerandThe Stage. Categories...
Union Square & Co. has launched Singularity, a new line of paperback novellas led by Union Square editorial director Mika Kasuga. They plan to publish 10-12 titles each year of high-impact, one-sitting fiction.
Works of genre interest scheduled for Fall 2026 include ...
The six-title shortlist for the 2026 Booker Prize has been announced, with works and writers of genre interest including The End of Everything byM. John Harrison (Serpent's Tail) and The Disappearers by Marlon James (Riverhead).
Harrison, James,...
Longlists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. Categories, authors, and books of genre interest include:
Fiction
- Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
- Red Ants, Kimberly Blaeser (...
Montréal 2027, the 85th World Science Fiction Convention, has added Linda D. Addison and Cory Doctorow as guests of honor. Doctorow will be toastmaster for Montréal 2027.
Addison and Doctorow join previously announced guests of honor Chris Barkley, Jeph Jacques, Yves Meynard, and...
The National Book Foundation hasannounced that it will present Salman Rushdie with the 2026 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL) at this year's National Book Awards Ceremony on November 18, 2026. Author Kiran Desai will present the award.
The DCAL Medal was...
MILESTONES
WENDY N. WAGNER is stepping down as editor-in-chief of Nightmare Magazine and senior editor of Lightspeed to focus on her own writing. Founding editor John Joseph Adams will resume the role at Nightmare starting with the...
The Sunburst Award Society hasannounced Helen Marshall, author of The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death (Titan) [amazon / bookshop], as the winner of this year's Sunburst Awardfor Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.
Other shortlisted...
The Indiana Authors Awards have announced the 2026 winners. The awards celebrate the best books by Indiana authors written in eight different categories and published during the previous two years. Works from the Genre category follow.
Genre
- WINNER: ...
The HWA (Horror Writers Association) has undergone several changes throughout August and early September. Many of these changes were announced via video message by the organization's president, Lisa Wood, as well as a September 6 text update on their Facebook page.
- Due to timing...
The August 30 LAcon V WSFS business meeting voted to censure and place bans of varying lengths on four officials for their actions related to the 2023 Worldcon : Dave McCarty, the 2023 Hugo administrator, Yao Chi, a 2023 Hugo co-administrator, Shi Chen, a 2023 Worldcon co-chair, and Ben Yalow,...
Dream Foundry, a non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts, hasannounced the winners for its 2026 contests.
Writing Contest
- N.A. Blair (First Place)
- Natalie Anai Nowo Lydick (Second...
Baen Books, an independent publisher of military science fiction and fantasy, has announced the creation of a new short story award, named in honor of the author David A. Drake. The reward is in addition to their currently sponsored awards, the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award and Jim Baen Memorial...
The shortlist for the2026 Prix Utopiales(honoring the best SF published in France) has been announced.
- Heureux comme jamais,Guillaume Chamanadjian (Aux forges de Vulcain)
- Spectres, Thomas Gunzig (Au diable Vauvert)
- ...
Wolf Moon, Antler Moon by A. C. Wise (Reactor 1/13/25) is the winner of the 2026 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fictionfor stories that are irreplaceable, that inspire, enlighten, and entertain.
Other finalists were:
- Concerning the Multiplicity of Children...
The winners of the 2026 Dragon Awards were presented at Dragon Con, held September 3 – September 7, 2026 in Atlanta GA.
Best Science Fiction Novel
- WINNER: Operation Bounce House, Matt Dinniman (Ace)
- God's Junk...
