2020 Dwarf Stars Award

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 AnthologyDwarf 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.

Winners bios

  • John C. Mannone is a Horror Writers Association Scholarship winner (2017) and has work appearing in North Dakota QuarterlyForeign Literary ReviewPedestal, and many speculative journals like Space & TimeEye 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 BladeLiquid 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 ReviewMojave River ReviewAltadena Poetry ReviewPenumbraUnlikely 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.