Sunburst medallion.

The Sunburst Award Committee has published the 2018 longlist for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.

The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is an annual award celebrating the best in Canadian fantastika published during the previous calendar year. Winners receive a medallion that incorporates the Sunburst logo. Winners of both the Adult and Young Adult Sunburst Award also receive a cash prize of $1,000, while winners of the Short Story Sunburst Award receive a cash prize of $500.

The Sunburst Award takes its name from the debut novel of the late Phyllis Gotlieb, one of the first published authors of contemporary Canadian speculative fiction.

Adult Fiction

• Janie Chang, Dragon Springs Road [HarperCollins Canada]
• Joey Comeau, Malagash [ECW]
• David Demchuk, The Bone Mother [Chizine Publications]
• Cory Doctorow, Walkaway, [Tor/Forge]
• Kristyn Dunnion, Tarry This Night [Arsenal Pulp]
• Omar El Akkad, American War [Penguin Random House]
• Terri Favro, Sputnik’s Children [ECW]
• Barbara Gowdy, Little Sister [HarperCollins Canada]
• Fonda Lee, Jade City [Little, Brown Book Group]
• Elan Mastai, All Our Wrong Todays [Penguin Random House]
• Ahmad Danny Ramadan, The Clothesline Swing [Harbour Publishing]
• Emma Richler, Be My Wolff [Penguin Random House]
• Eden Robinson, Son of a Trickster [Penguin Random House]
• Adam Sternbergh, The Blinds [HarperCollins Canada]

Young Adult Fiction

• S.M. Beiko, Scion of the Fox [ECW]
• Kate Blair, Tangled Planet [Dancing Cat Books]
• Charis Cotter, The Painting [Penguin Random House]
• Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves [Dancing Cat Books]
• Catherine Egan, Julia Defiant [Penguin Random House]
• Ashley Graham, All the Stars Left Behind [Entangled Publishing]
• Fonda Lee, Exo [Scholastic]
• Lesley Livingston, The Valiant [HarperCollins Canada]
• Kari Maaren, Weave a Circle Round [Tor/Forge]
• Wendy Orr, Dragonfly Song [Allen and Unwin]
• Ursula Pflug, Mountain [Inanna Publications]

Short Story Fiction

• Nathan Adler, “Valediction at the Star View Motel” [Love Beyond Body, Space and Time, Bedside Press]
• Rebecca Campbell, “On Highway 18” [The Magazine for Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2017]
• Peter Darbyshire, “Casual Miracles” [Has the World Ended Yet? Wolsak & Wynn]
• David Demchuk, “Dragoi” [The Bone Mother, ChiZine Publications]
• Kate Heartfield, “Not Valid for Spain” [49th Parallels, Bundoran Press]
• Claire Humphrey, “Yellowcat” [Grain Magazine #44.3, Spring 2017]
• Sandra Kasturi, “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” [The Sum of Us, Laksa Media]
• Rich Larson, “Spiked” [Abyss & Apex, June 2017]
• Karin Lowachee, “Meridian” [Where the Stars Rise, Laksa Media]
• Rati Mehrotra, “Hacker’s Faire” [Cast of Wonders #239, March 2017]
• Matt Moore, “Goodbye is that Time Between Now and Forever” [The Sum of Us, Laksa Media]
• Julie Paul, “The Expansion” [Chapbook, The Rusty Toque]
• Kate Story, “Animate” [Cli Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change, Exile]
• Naru Dames Sundar, “The Weight of Sentience” [Shimmerzine #40, November 2017]
• Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, “Gone Flying” [The Sum of Us, Laksa Media]

The Sunburst Award official shortlist will be announced in late June. Sunburst Award winners will be announced in Fall 2018.

The Jurors for the 2018 Sunburst awards are:

• Novel Jury: Megan Crewe, Kate Heartfield, Dominik Parisien, Halli Villegas, and Heather Wood.
• Short Story Jury: Candas Jane Dorsey, Emily Pohl-Weary, and Alexandra Renwick

[Via Locus Online.]