New Editor-in-Chief Chosen to Steer SFWA’s Publications

Michi Trota is the The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s new Editor-in-Chief.

Trota is a four-time Hugo Award winner, British Fantasy Award winner, and the first Filipina to win a Hugo Award. She also has over 25 years of editorial and production experience in publishing and communications. Trota is co-editor of the upcoming WisCon Chronicles Vol. 12 with Isabel Schechter (May 2020) and served as Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy’s Managing Editor (2014-2019) and Nonfiction Editor (2019). Her nonfiction has been published in The Book Smugglers, Invisible: An Anthology of Representation in SF/F, and Chicago Magazine, and she was the exhibit text writer of Worlds Beyond Here: Expanding the Universe of APA Science Fiction (2018-2019) at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, WA.

Julia Rios (L), Michi Trota (R) at the Hugo Award Ceremoy at Worldcon in Helsinki (2017). Photo by Sanna Pudas.

Trota succeeds Neil Clarke, who stepped down earlier this year.  

SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal welcomed the new editor:

After a candidate search, the board selected Michi Trota to head our publications. We were all impressed with her vision and understanding of how the magazine could serve, not just the SFWA members, but the larger science-fiction and fantasy community. I am very much looking forward to working with her as we revitalize the Bulletin.”

The Editor-in-Chief is the official publisher of one of SFWA’s key communications vehicles, The SFWA Bulletin, and provides oversight and direction regarding SFWA publications and communications that help shape and maintain the organization’s reputation. This critical position is responsible to help facilitate SFWA’s goals and mission statement of informing, supporting, promoting, defending and advocating for its members.

Trota said:

I’m thrilled by this incredible opportunity to take the helm of SFWA’s publications. It’s an honor to step into the role of SFWA Editor-in-Chief and I look forward to working with Mary Robinette Kowal and the rest of the SFWA Board and staff.

She will be the 20th Editor-in-Chief in SFWA’s 54-year history, and is the first person of color to serve as the organization’s Editor-in-Chief.

[Based on a press release.]

8 thoughts on “New Editor-in-Chief Chosen to Steer SFWA’s Publications

  1. “the 20th Editor-in-Chief in SFWA’s 54-year history”

    Many congrats to Michi Trota, but as an ENTIRELY TRIVIAL (are we clear? trivial) point of nomenclature, I don’t think this is quite right. SFWA has long had an Editor of the SFWA Bulletin, which seems to have become the “Editor-in-Chief” of the SFWA Bulletin for the first time only two years ago, in 2017. I would be entirely happy to be corrected and find I’m in error about this!

    But as recently as 2016, the title was still “editor of the SFWA Bulletin.”

    https://www.sfwa.org/2016/01/sfwa-announces-new-sfwa-bulletin-editor/

    2015: https://www.sfwa.org/2015/12/position-available-sfwa-bulletin-editor/

    Etc., going backwards.

    Not that this in any way diminishes Michi Trota’s spiffy new position!

    And, to repeat, I’d be very happy to be corrected if I’m in some way confused about this.

  2. @Gary Farber: Was not the Editor in fact the chief, even if there were no subordinates? There are some cases where label-following is debatable (e.g., just how many centennials did BU celebrate, based on the founding dates of the components that formed it), but ISTM that this is not one of them.

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