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.
Vector 299 (April 2024) issue on Modernisms is now available:
bit.ly/Vector299
Guest edited by Paul March-Russell. With...
Science Fiction and the DSTL at Coventry University
by Allen Stroud
This article was first published in Vector #297 in 2023. Since then, the work of the...
Clarion West's nine-month online Novel Writing Workshop is open for applications for its 2027 year. Premee Mohamed will be the instructor. The workshop will include class sessions, office hours, one-on-one meetings, and guest lectures.
The workshop will be held virtually from March...
TheSpeculative Literature Foundation is now accepting proposals for the Gulliver Travel Research Grant. The deadline is November 30, 2026. One grant of $1,000 is awarded annually, earmarked for airfare, lodging, and other travel expenses associated with non-academic research conducted by...
Winnersof the 2026 Prix Utopiales and Prix Utopiales Jeunesse, honoring the best SF published in France, were announced at Les Utopiales International Science Fiction Festival, held October 29 – November 1, 2026 in Nantes, France.
Prix Utopiales (Adult Literature)
...SF comics writer and artist Matt Howarth, 72, died October 5, 2026 of complications following a triple bypass.
Howarth was born in 1954. He became active in the fanzine space in 1969, co-founded Howski Studios with Tony Sciarra, and began drawing professionally soon after, publishing...
Boucherconhasannounced the winners of the 2026 Anthony Awards, honoring the best in crime fiction. Winners, along with their fellow nominees of SFF genre interest, include:
Best First Novel
- WINNER: Mask of the Deer Woman, Laurie L. Dove (...
Harper Collins UK has announced a New Adult imprint, Wildlit. The imprint will publish unabashedly bold, commercial and page-turning fiction, with romance as the thread that ties their titles together. Publisher Lindsey Heaven and publishing director Sarah Levinson will run the new imprint, with...
The Protopian Prize has announced the results of the inaugural year of its fiction contest for protopian original short fiction. The prize included two categories: the Democratic Futures Prize, for fiction imagining a positive future for humanity that foregrounds the potential of democratic...
The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation has announced the winners for the 2026 Arthur C. Clarke Awards (not to be confused with the literary award by the same name). Connie Willis has been awarded the Imagination in Service to Society Award, with the Foundation describing her as [o]ne of the world's...
Reactor Magazine has announced its first podcast,Read Receipts, a weekly show about speculative fiction, genre, and nerd culture. The podcast will be hosted by senior books editor Christina Orlando. Among weekly episodes will be monthly author roundtable discussions, themed...
The World Fantasy Awards winners were presented at a ceremony in Oakland CA, held on October 25, 2026, during the 2026 World Fantasy Convention.
Best Novel
WINNER: Once Was Willem, M.R. Carey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
- Audition for the Fox,...
Kathleen Hughes interviews Dave Bradley and Kelly Vero, the authors behind Myth-Made Machines: The Stories Behind Artificial Intelligence (...
The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust has announcedAudition by Pip Adam (Coffee House) [amazon / bookshop] as the winner of 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...
TheScience Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the winners of the 2026 Dwarf Stars Awards, for speculative poetry of 10 lines or fewer, the 2026 Elgin Awards, presented for the best speculative poetry book and chapbook, and the 2026 Rhysling Awards for speculative...
The winner of the 2025 Endeavour Award has been announced. The award recognizes a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors and published in the previous year.
- WINNER:The Antidote, Karen Russell (Knopf) amazon /...
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...
Two highly respected artists in the field, John Picacio and Donato Giancola, have stated online their frustrations with Must Read Magazines, after several rounds of email and online communications with the publisher regarding their boilerplate contract terms for artists. The publisher in its...
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 (...
