Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members have honored Ann K. Schwader as their 2018 Grand Master.

Ann K. Schwader

Ann K. Schwader is a two-time Rhysling Award winner (short form 2010, long form 2016) and a two-time Bram Stoker Award Finalist for her weird/dark SF poetry collections Dark Energies (P’rea Press 2015) and Wild Hunt of the Stars (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2010.

Schwader is SFPA’s eighth Grand Master, joining David C. Kopaska Merkel (2017), Steve Sneyd and Marge Simon (2015), Jane Yolen (2010), Ray Bradbury (2008), Robert Frazier (2005) and Bruce Boston (1999).

She shared her early inspirations with the Innsmouth Free Press in a “poetic interview”:

IFP: A pondered start:
Noteworthy fears and verse?
Name key roads you sought.

AKS:The dark in science/science in the dark
Of minds too blind to see the beast inside
Each one of us. Was HPL dead right?

The straightest path is Avon’s bard, although
A “fatal interview “with E. St. V.
Millay marked out my first uncertain trail….

A lifelong resident of the Rocky Mountains, Schwader lives in Westminster, CO.

[Thanks to F.J. Bergmann for the story.]