Tag Archives: John C. Mannone

2020 Dwarf Stars Award

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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the 2020 Dwarf Stars winner and other top finishers.

Winner

  • “Standing Up,” by John C. Mannone, Nadwah: Poetry in Translation, December 2019.

2nd Place

  • [There are fossils] by Mark A. Fisher, Silver Blade 44.

3rd Place

  • 2015 Zinfandella by Denise Dumars, Dismal Oaks Winery Broadside, Spring 2019.

The award recognizes the best speculative poem of no longer than 10 lines (or no more than 100 words for prose poems) published in the previous year, and is designed to honor excellent scifaiku, tanka, cinquains, and other types of short poems that tend to be overshadowed in SFPA’s Rhysling Award competition.

Also in contrast to the annual Rhysling Anthology, Dwarf Stars is an edited anthology. SFPA encourages poets, poetry readers, and editors to submit or suggest eligible poems to the Dwarf Stars editor. This year’s anthology was edited by Robin Mayall. The winner was determined by a vote, with 96 members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association participating.

  • John C. Mannone
  • Mark A. Fisher
  • Denise Dumars
  • Robin Mayall

Winners bios

  • John C. Mannone is a Horror Writers Association Scholarship winner (2017) and has work appearing in North Dakota Quarterly, Foreign Literary Review, Pedestal, and many speculative journals like Space & Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Altered Reality Magazine. He won the Carol Oen Memorial Fiction Prize (2020) and was awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature. He served as the celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade, Liquid Imagination, and American Diversity Report. A retired university physics professor, John lives between Knoxville and and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
  • Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tehachapi, CA. His poetry has appeared in: Angel City Review, Mojave River Review, Altadena Poetry Review, Penumbra, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and many other places. His first chapbook, drifter, is available from Amazon. His second, hour of lead, won the 2017 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Chapbook Contest. His plays have appeared on California stages in Pine Mountain Club, Tehachapi, Bakersfield, and Hayward. He has also won cooking ribbons at the Kern County Fair.
  • Denise Dumars says that this poem and the Dismal Oaks Winery broadside it was published in would not have existed without s. c. virtes and the crazy wine country poems Denise and Scott decided to write after touring Temecula wine country with the best wine-tasting buddies ever: Deborah Kolodji, Naia, and Richard Potthoff. Anyone who would like a copy of the broadside please send SASE to Denise Dumars, PO Box 83, Manhattan Beach, CA 90267.

2017 Horror Writers Association Scholarships

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The Horror Writers Association has named its 2017 scholarship winners.

The scholarship, open to all horror writers (HWA membership is not required), is worth $2500, which may be spent on approved writing education over the two years following the granting of the scholarship.

The 2017 winner is:

John C. Mannone

John C. Mannone has work in Blue Fifth Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Peacock Journal, Gyroscope Review, Baltimore Review, Pedestal, Pirene’s Fountain, Event Horizon, Eye To The Telescope and others. He’s the winner of the 2017 Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian literature and the recipient of two Weymouth writing residencies. He has three poetry collections: Apocalypse (Alban Lake Publishing), nominated for the 2017 Elgin Book Award; Disabled Monsters (The Linnet’s Wings Press) featured at the 2016 Southern Festival of Books; and Flux Lines (Celtic Cat Publishing). He’s been awarded two Joy Margrave Awards for Nonfiction and nominated for several Pushcart, Rhysling, and Best of the Net awards. He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade, and Liquid Imagination. He’s professor of physics near Knoxville, TN. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com

This scholarship, worth $2,500, is open to female horror writers. It may be spent on approved writing education over the two years following the granting of the scholarship.

The late Rocky Wood, then HWA President, explained why the scholarship was created in 2014.

It is very clear to the HWA that there are unseen, but real, barriers limiting the amount of horror fiction being published by women. There are many fine women writers being published in our genre but we also see potential for the percentage of horror fiction being published by women to increase. This Scholarship, named after the great female horror writer, aims to encourage more female writers to enter our genre and to aid in the development of those already working within it. At the same time the HWA exists to extend the horror genre in all its aspects, so we are also establishing Horror Writers Association Scholarship, which is open to all our members, regardless of gender.

The 2017 winner is:

A.E. Siraki writes horror and dark fantasy novels and short stories.

The Dark Poetry Scholarship, first awarded in 2015, is designed to assist in the professional development of Horror and/or Dark Fantasy Poets. It is worth $1,250, which may be spent on approved writing education over the two years following the granting of the scholarship.

The 2017 winner is:

Ashley Dioses

Ashley Dioses is a writer of dark fantasy, horror, and weird poetry from southern California.  Her debut collection of dark traditional poetry, Diary of a Sorceress, is forthcoming from Hippocampus Press in October.  Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Spectral Realms, Weirdbook Magazine, and elsewhere.  Her poem “Carathis,” published in Spectral Realms 1, appeared in Ellen Datlow’s full recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Seven list. She has also appeared in the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase 2016 for her poem “Ghoul Mistress.”  She is an Active member in the HWA and a member of the SFPA.  She blogs at fiendlover.blogspot.com.

The Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship Fund for Non-fiction Writing provides grants for research and writing nonfiction relating to horror and dark fantasy literature. The amount is flexible. Membership in HWA is not a requirement.

The 2017 winners are:

Kelly Robinson
Stephanie M. Wytovich

  • Kelly Robinson is a freelance writer and researcher with a particular interest in silent horror films. Her bylines appear in magazines such as Rue Morgue, Smithsonian, History, and Mental Floss. Her feature story on lost horror films was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Award for excellence in classic horror research. She has produced and hosted eclectic events from underground theatre to an international conference on Jack the Ripper, and is the founder and host of Knoxferatu, a silent horror film event in Knoxville, TN. She is currently researching and writing a book on lost horror films from the silent era and beyond, and recently gave a presentation on lost horror silents at the Library of Congress’ Mostly Lost film workshop. Her essay “Where the Wild Roses Grow: The Strange Allure of Murder Ballads” will appear in the upcoming book Under My Thumb: Songs That Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them (Repeater Books, 2017).
  • Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous anthologies such as Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Shadows Over Main Street: An Anthology of Small-Town Lovecraftian Terror, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others.

Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, and An Exorcism of Angels. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press.

Her next poetry collection, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, is scheduled to be released October 2017 from Raw Dog Screaming Press.