The winner of the 2023 Dell Magazines Award For Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing was announced on February 15. The award goes to the best unpublished and unsold science fiction or fantasy short story submitted by a full-time undergraduate college student.

Winner: Sam Wilson of Chapman University for “blooming beating hearts”

First Runner-up: Olivia Garcia of Chapman University for “Of the Known Universe”

Second Runner-up: Rona Wang of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology for “The Glass Foxkit”

Third Runner-up: Simon Herz of Swarthmore College for “The River People”

Honorable Mentions

• Jazmin Collins from Arcadia University for “A Practical Guide to Housesitting for North American Witches”
• Jadyn Straigis of Goucher College for “The Ivory Peak Hotel”
• Emely Menjivar of Chapman University for “Blind Faith”
• Simon Herz from Swarthmore College for “Gone Up in Fog”
• William Romero of Vanderbilt University for “The Great Blue Heron of the Mississippi”

The winner receives a $500 award and will be invited to the IAFA annual International Conference on the Fantastic in mid-March in Orlando, FL. The winning story will be published in print or online by Asimov’s Science Fiction. (The Dell Award was formerly known as the Isaac Asimov Award.)

The award was started in 1992 by Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine editor Sheila Williams and science fiction writer and journalism professor Rick Wilber who are the co-judges. It is co-sponsored by Dell Magazines and the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts and supported by the Graduate Program in Creative Writing: Low-Residency MA/MFA in Genre Fiction at Western Colorado University.