The Speculative Literature Foundation has chosen Sohini Basak is the winner of the 2023 Gulliver Travel Grant. Basak’s winning piece is Fox in Rain.

Sohini Basak is a writer of fiction, poetry and the in-between. Her 2018 poetry collection We Live in the Newness of Small Differences was awarded the inaugural International Beverly Manuscript Prize. Her poems are featured in print anthologies from Penguin Press (India), Red Hen Press (USA), Emma Press (UK), and Math Paper Press (Singapore). Her fiction has been published in journals like 3 A.M. Magazine, Extra Teeth, The London Magazine, Out of Print, and Ambit. Most recent publications include essays in Speculative Nature Writing: An Anthology (Guillemot Press, UK) and Elementals (forthcoming from the Center for Humans and Nature Press, USA).  She has received the 2015 Malcolm Bradbury Grant for Poetry, a Toto Funds the Arts writing award (2017) and a Vijay Nambisan Sangam House fellowship (2022). Her website: sohinibasak.com

Since 2004, the Gulliver Travel Grant has sought to assist writers of speculative literature (in fiction, poetry, drama, or creative nonfiction) in their research. The grant awards one writer $1000 annually, to be used to cover airfare, lodging, and/or other travel expenses. For more information about the grant, click here.

Launched in January 2004 to promote literary quality in speculative fiction, the Speculative Literature Foundation addresses historical inequities in access to literary opportunities for marginalized writers. Our staff and board are committed to representing racial, gender, and class diversity at all levels of our organization. This commitment is at the heart of what the Speculative Literature Foundation stands for: equal access to create and advance science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature. We strive to enable writers at any stage of their career and of any age, any ethnicity, any gender expression, from any location and of any economic or social status, who want to learn about, or create within, the speculative arts. For more information, visit speculativeliterature.org.

The SLF is a 501(c)3 non-profit, entirely supported by community donations. If you’d like to be involved with our efforts, please consider joining us as a member for $2/month, at speculativeliterature.org/membership.

The Speculative Literature Foundation is partially funded by the Oak Park Area Arts Council, Village of Oak Park, Illinois Arts Council Agency, National Endowment for the Arts and Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation.

[Based on a press release.]