F. J. Bergmann Named SFPA Grand Master; Wins Lifetime Service Award

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has bestowed to honors on F.J. Bergmann, the SFPA Grandmaster Award and the President’s Lifetime Service Award.

The SFPA Grand Master Award recognizes the contributions in poetry that a person has made in their lifetime. Their superior skill and a body of work are testaments to talent and a resource for inspiring other poets and furthering knowledge of the genre.
 
The President’s Lifetime Service Award is given to an individual who has furthered the knowledge, appreciation, and acceptance of the speculative poetry genre, and who has served the SFPA in a significant volunteer capacity.  
 
Members vote on nominees for the Grand Master Award; and upon the President’s recommendation, the executive committee votes on the Lifetime Service Award candidate. F. J. Bergmann is the recipient of both awards for 2024.

She has served the SFPA behind the scenes for many years. She has been on the board, has been Elgin Chair, Rhysling editor, and does the layout and graphic design for the SFPA publications. She was webmaster for many years, and continues to be a pillar for the SFPA. Her ongoing, selfless volunteerism will inspire others to contribute to the genre and the SFPA. She has contributed to discussions and frequently posts about other poems and poets, spreading the love and knowledge of speculative poetry. She works as editor on other publications, and her body of work speaks for itself. She has won most of the SFPA awards as well as the contest and continues to write and contribute to the speculative poetry genre in many ways.

F. J. Bergmann

F. J. Bergmann is the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com), past editor of Star*Line, managing editor of MadHat Press (madhat-press.com), poetry editor for Weird House Press (weirdhousepress.com), and freelances as a copy editor and book designer. She lives in Wisconsin with a husband, intermittent daughters, cats and a horse, and imagines tragedies on or near exoplanets. Her writing awards include SFPA Rhysling Awards for both long and short poems and SFPA Elgin Awards for two chapbooks: Out of the Black Forest (Centennial Press, 2012), a collection of conflated fairy tales, and A Catalogue of the Further Suns, first-contact reports from interstellar expeditions, winner of the 2017 Gold Line Press manuscript competition. She was a Writers of the Future winner. Venues where her poems have appeared include Abyss & Apex, Analog, Asimov’s SF, and elsewhere in the alphabet. She has competed at National Poetry Slam with the Madison Urban Spoken Word slam team. While lacking academic literary qualifications, she is kind to those so encumbered. She thinks imagination can compensate for anything.

To date, the SFPA has conferred twelve Grand Master Awards. The previous eleven are:

  • Akua Lezli Hope (2022)
  • Mary Soon Lee (2022)
  • Linda D. Addison (2020)
  • Ann K. Schwader (2018)
  • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2017)
  • Marge Simon (2015)
  • Steve Sneyd (2015)
  • Jane Yolen (2010)
  • Ray Bradbury (2008)
  • Robert Frazier (2005)
  • Bruce Boston (1999)

[Based on a press release.]

2023 Elgin Award Winners

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) announced the winners of the 2023 Elgin Awards on September 23.

CHAPBOOK


1st place: The Last Robot and Other Science Fiction Poems by Jane Yolen (Shoreline of Infinity, 2021)

2nd place: Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets by Bruce Boston (Mind’s Eye Publishing, 2022)

3rd place: Cajuns in Space by Denise Dumars (2022)

BOOK

1st place: Some Disassembly Required by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (Diminuendo Press, 2022)

2nd place: The Saint of Witches by Avra Margariti (Weasel Press, 2022)

3rd place (tie): 

  • Elegies of Rotting Stars by Tiffany Morris (Nictitating Books, 2022)
  • Not a Princess, But (Yes) There Was a Pea & Other Tales to Foment Revolution by Rebecca Buchanan (Jackanapes Press, 2022)

2023 Elgin Award Finalists

Nominations for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association’s Elgin Award have closed and Morgan L. Ventura, the 2023 Elgin Award Chair reports the works named below are the nominees.

The award is named for SFPA founder Suzette Haden Elgin, and is presented in two categories, Chapbook and Book. Eligible for this year’s awards were works published in 2021 and 2022. SFPA members will have from July 1-September 15 to vote for the winners.

Chapbooks (18 chapbooks nominated)
body in motion • Gretchen Rockwell • (Perhappened Press, 2021)
The Book of Haibun: 26 Modern Interpretations of the Ancient Story/Verse Form • Herb Kauderer • (Written Image Press, 2022)
Cajuns in Space • Denise Dumars (self-published, 2022)
Charm for Catching a Train • Milena Williamson • (Green Bottle Press, 2022)
Creature Features • Noel Sloboda (Main Street Rag, 2022)
Horrific Punctuation • John Reinhart (Arson Press, 2021)
Curses and Recurses: Poems of Writing and Damnation • Herb Kauderer • (Written Image Press, 2021)
Ghosts, Trolls, and Other Things on the Internet • C. E. Hoffman • (Bottlecap Press, 2022)
hortus animarum • Sienna Tristen • (Frog Hollow Press, 2022)
In the Dead of Night • James Bryant • (self-published, 2021)
The Last Robot and Other Science Fiction Poems • Jane Yolen • (Shoreline of Infinity, 2021)
Lexicon of Future Selves • Gretchen Rockwell (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2021)
Messengers of the Macabre • LindaAnn LoSchiavo & David Davies • (Audience Askew, 2022)
space neon neon space • Luna Rey Hall • (Variant Lit, 2022)
Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets • Bruce Boston (Mind’s Eye Publishing, 2022)
Terror of the Zombie Zonnets: Season Three of Planet of the Zombie Zonnets • Juan Manuel Pérez • (House of the Fighting Chupacabras, 2022)
Time’s Arrow • Jean-Paul L. Garnier • (Space Cowboy Books, 2022)
Utopian Problems • Jean-Paul L. Garnier • (Space Cowboy Books, 2021)
Full-length Books (57 books nominated)
[…] • Ava Hoffman (Astrophil Press, 2021)
Amnita: The Legend of Amnita of the Amazon • Eleanor Arnason • (Crumb Fairy Press, 2022)
Black Widow • Louise Worthington • (Red Escape Publishing, 2022)
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head • Warsan Shire • (Penguin Random House, 2022)
Bounded by Eternity • Deborah L. Davitt • (Edda Earth, 2022)
Call Me Spes • Sara Cahill Marron • (MadHat Press, 2022)
The Cat Star and Other Poems • Terry A. Garey • (Crumbfairy Press, 2022)
Clock Star Rose Spine • Fran Wilde • (Lanternfish Press, 2021)
Crime Scene • Cynthia Pelayo • (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2022)
Crushed Velvet • Mark McLaughlin • (self-published, 2022)
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows • John Koenig (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
Eclipse of the Moon • Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications, 2021)
Elegies of Rotting Stars • Tiffany Morris • (Nictitating Books, 2022)
Escaping the Body • Chloe N. Clark (Interstellar Flight Press, 2022)
Flare, Corona • Jeannine Hall Gailey • (BOA Editions, 2022)
Flux Lines • John C. Mannone • (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2022)
Foundlings • Cindy O’Quinn & Stephanie Ellis • (2022)
The Ghettobirds • Bryant O’Hara (Frayed Edge Press, 2021)
Girls from the County • Donna Lynch • (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2022)
Glitter and Ghosts • Amy Zoellers • (Yuriko Publishing, 2022)
The Gravity of Existence • Christina Sng • (Interstellar Flight Press, 2022)
Halloween Hearts • Adele Gardner (Jackanapes Press, 2022)
The Hand that Wounds • David E. Cowen • (Weasel Press, 2022)
I Awaken in October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween • Scott J. Couturier • (Jackanapes Press, 2022)
I Dreamed a World • Colleen Anderson • (Lycan Valley Press, 2022)
Instrumentals: Book One • Jonel Abellanosa • (Lemures Digital Collection, 2022)
Mathematics for Ladies • Jessy Randall • (Penguin Random House, 2022)
Mobius Lyrics • Maxwell I. Gold & Angela Yuriko Smith • (Independent Legions, 2022)
Naming the Ghost • Emily Hockaday • (Cornerstone Press, 2022)
No Farther Than the End of the Street • Benjamin Niespodziany • (Okay Donkey, 2022)
No Quarter: A Novella in Verse • Amanda Worthington • (self-published, 2022)
Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing but Enough • Kyle Tran Myhre • (Button Poetry, 2022)
Not a Princess, But (Yes) There Was a Pea & Other Tales to Foment Revolution • Rebecca Buchanan • (Jackanapes Press, 2022)
Oblivion in Flux: A Collection of Cyber Prose • Maxwell I. Gold (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2021)
Odyssey • John Urbancik (Dark Fluidity, 2021)
The Odyssey of Star Wars • Jack Mitchell (Abrams Image, 2021)
Para-Social Butterfly • Šari Dale • (Metatron Press, 2022)
Psalms and Sorceries • Wade German • (Hippocampus Press, 2022)
The Rat King • Sumiko Saulson • (Dooky Zines, 2022)
The Saint of Witches • Avra Margariti (Weasel Press, 2022)
The Saints of Capitalism • Benjamin Schmitt (New Meridian Arts Literary Press, 2021)
Saving Shadows • Eugen Bacon (NewCon Press, 2021)
The Sibyl • Hamant Singh • (Partridge Publishing, 2022)
Sifting the Ashes • Michael Bailey & Marge Simon (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2022)
The Silence Inside the World • Earl Livings • (Peggy Bright Books, 2021)
Some Disassembly Required • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • (Diminuendo Press, 2022)
Songs of the Underland • Kurt Newton • (The Ravens Quoth Press, 2022)
Stone the Monsters, or Dance • Ken Poyner (Barking Moose Press, 2021)
Summoning Space Travelers • Angela Acosta • (Hiraeth Publishing, 2022)
The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void • Jackie Wang • (Nightboat Books, 2021)
Superheroes Take Over the World • Wendy Rathbone • (self-pub, 2022)
Tombstones • G. O. Clark • (Weird House Press, 2022)
Victims • Marge Simon & Mary Turzillo • (Weasel Press, 2022)
The Voice of the Burning House • John Shirley • (Jackanapes Press, 2021)
We’ve Been Here Before • Anne Carly Abad • (Aqueduct Press, 2022)
What appears in the dark • Pete Kelly • (Yuriko Publishing, 2022)
Where the Wolf • Sally Rosen Kindred • (Diode Editions, 2021)

2023 Rhysling Award Finalists

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the 2023 Rhysling Award Finalists.

There are two categories: Short poems of 11–49 lines (101–499 words for prose poems) and Long poems of 50–299 lines (500–1999 words for prose poems)

The selected poems will appear in the 2023 Rhysling Anthology and will be on the ballot for SFPA members to vote on beginning July 1.

SHORT POEMS (50 FINALISTS)

  • A Creation Myth, John C. Mannone, Songs of Eretz, Spring
  • A Spell for Winning Your Personal Injury Lawsuit, Marsheila Rockwell, Dreams and Nightmares 120
  • Biophilia, Sarah Grey, Strange Horizons, Fund Drive
  • Bitch Moon, Sarah Grey, Nightmare Magazine 118
  • Blå Jungfrun, Deborah L. Davitt, Strange Horizons, September 26
  • Black Pastoral: On Mars, Ariana Benson, Paranoid Tree 17
  • Cassandra as Climate Scientist, Jeannine Hall Gailey, California Quarterly 48:4
  • Dinner Plans with Baba Yaga, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, ed. Lindy Ryan (Black Spot Books)
  • Exulansis, Silvatiicus Riddle, Liquid Imagination 51
  • Field Notes from the Anthropocene, Priya Chand, Nightmare Magazine 116
  • First Contact, Lisa Timpf, Eye to the Telescope 44
  • Fracking-lution, Linda D. Addison, Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
  • Gosh, it’s Too Beautiful to Exist Briefly in a Parallel Planet, Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan, Strange Horizons, November 21
  • Harold and the Blood-Red Crayon, Jennifer Crow, Star*Line 45.1
  • If I Were Human, Marie Vibbert, Star*Line 45.2
  • In Stock Images of the Future, Everything is White, Terese Mason Pierre, Uncanny 46
  • Intergalactic Baba Yaga, Sandra Lindow, Dreams and Nightmares 122
  • Jingwei Tries to Fill Up the Sea, Mary Soon Lee, Uncanny Magazine 45
  • Laws of Exponents, John Reinhart, NewMyths.com 59
  • Leda Goes To The Doctor, Pankaj Khemka, Carmina Magazine, September
  • Lines to a Martian (Palabras a un habitante de Marte), Alfonsina Storni, Asimov’s Science Fiction, November/December
  • Medea leaves behind a letter, FJ Doucet, Star*Line 45.1
  • Mind Compression, Madhur Anand, Parasitic Oscillations (Random House)
  • Monitors, David C. Kopaska-Merkel (with Kendall Evans), Star*Line 45.1
  • Near the end, your mother tells you she’s been seeing someone, Shannon Connor Winward, SFPA Poetry Contest
  • Necklace, Carolyn Clink, Frost Zone Zine 6
  • New Planet, Kathy Bailey, Dreams and Nightmares 122
  • Old Soldier, New Love, Vince Gotera, Eye To The Telescope 45
  • On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland, Nicole J. LeBoeuf, Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
  • Petrichor, Eva Papasoulioti, Utopia Science Fiction, April/May
  • Pittsburgh Temporal Transfer Station, Alan Ira Gordon, Star*Line 45.2
  • Please Hold, Anna Remennik, NewMyths.com 58
  • Raft of the Medusa, Marge Simon, Silver Blade 53
  • Regarding the Memory of Earth, Angela Acosta, Radon Journal 1
  • Sabbatical Somewhere Warm, Elizabeth McClellan, Star*Line 45.4
  • Shipwrecked, Gretchen Tessmer, The Deadlands 12
  • Status Transcript, Lee Murray, A Woman Unbecoming, eds. Rachel A. Brune & Carol Gyzander (Crone Girls Press)
  • Strange Progeny, Bruce Boston, Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
  • Tamales on Mars, Angela Acosta, The Sprawl Mag, October
  • The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End, Pedro Iniguez, Star*Line 45.3
  • The Gargoyle Watches the Rains End, Amelia Gorman, The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)
  • The Long Night, Ryfkah, Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
  • The Optics of Space Travel, Angela Acosta, Eye to the Telescope 43
  • The Watcher on the Wall, Rebecca Bratten-Weiss, Reckoning 6
  • Time Skip, Alyza Taguilaso, The Deadlands 16
  • We Don’t Always Have to Toss Her in the Deep End, Jordan Hirsch, The Future Fire 62
  • Werewolves in Space, Ruth Berman, Dreams and Nightmares 121
  • What Electrons Read, Mary Soon Lee, Simultaneous Times 31
  • What the Old Woman Knows, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Listen to Her UNF, March 23
  • What Wolves Read, Mary Soon Lee, Uppagus 54

LONG POEMS (25 FINALISTS)

  • The Bone Tree, Rebecca Buchanan, Not a Princess, but (Yes) There was a Pea, and Other Fairy Tales to Foment Revolution (Jackanapes Press)
  • Corvidae, Sarah Cannavo, Liquid Imagination 50
  • The Dead Palestinian Father, Rasha Abdulhadi, Anathema: Spec from the Margins 15
  • Debris, Deborah L. Davitt, The Avenue, May 18
  • EMDR, Marsheila Rockwell, Unnerving Magazine 17
  • ex-lovers & other ghosts, Herb Kauderer, Cold & Crisp 518
  • field notes from an investigation into the self, Max Pasakorn, Strange Horizons, August 29
  • From “Poem without Beginning or End”, Vivek Narayanan, Poetry, May
  • Georgia Clay Blood, Beatrice Winifred Iker, Fantasy Magazine 80
  • Herbaceous Citadel, Avra Margariti, The Fairy Tale Magazine, January 4
  • How to Skin Your Wolf, G. E. Woods, Strange Horizons, December 19
  • Igbo Landing II, Akua Lezli Hope, Black Fire—This Time, ed. Kim McMillon (Aquarius Press)
  • Interdimensional Border Town, Lauren Scharhag, Unlikely Stories, August
  • Living in Rubble, Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
  • Machine (r)Evolution, Colleen Anderson, Radon Journal 2
  • The Machines Had Accepted Me For So Long, Angel Leal, Radon Journal 2
  • Matches, Rebecca Buchanan, Not a Princess, but (Yes) There was a Pea, and Other Fairy Tales to Foment Revolution (Jackanapes Press)
  • Mouth of Mirrors, Maxwell I. Gold, Seize the Press, June 14
  • My Great-Grandmother’s House, Madalena Daleziou, The Deadlands 11
  • Queen of Cups, Crystal Sidell, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December
  • The River God Dreams of Death By Water, Ryu Ando, Abyss & Apex 84
  • The Second Funeral, Kurt Newton, Synkroniciti 4:1
  • Spring, When I Met You (Spring, When I Woke), Gerri Leen, Dreams and Nightmares 121
  • The Thing About Stars, Avra Magariti, The Saint of Witches (Weasel Press)
  • Who Came from the Woods, Lev Mirov, Strange Horizons, January 3

2023 Rhysling Award Longlists

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has posted the Rhysling Award Long Lists of poems published in 2022. Juries for the long and short categories will now take these lists and narrow them down to 50 for the short category and 25 for the long category. The selected poems will appear in the 2022 Rhysling Anthology and will be on the ballot for SFPA members to vote on.

The jury will have their selections made no later than April 30. The Anthology will be sent shortly after that date, and voting will begin July 1.

SHORT POEMS (105 nominated poems)

  • After the Quest is Over • Lisa Timpf • Eye to the Telescope 46
  • Air Born • Brian U. Garrison • Corvid Queen, November 18
  • Angels • Frances Skene • Polar Starlight 6
  • Anima • Thomas Zimmerman • Pages Literary Journal, November 9
  • Animal House Speech • Dave Chandler • Failed Haiku 83
  • Anodized Titanium • Mary Soon Lee • Eye to the Telescope 44
  • Aswang Shaman Communing with Diwata for the First Time • Vince Gotera • Eye to the Telescope 46
  • Australopithecus • Jessica Lucci • How To Steal A Purse, April
  • bathroom chatter • Matteo L. Cerilli • Augur 5.2
  • Beneath Everything The Future Still Exists • Maggie Chirdo • Little Blue Marble: Warmer Worlds, ed. Katrina Archer (Ganache Media)
  • The Best Ambassadors • Adele Gardner • Felis Futura: An Anthology of Future Cats, ed. CB Droege (Manawaker Studio)
  • Big Brother, Little Brother, and the Sea • Geneve Flynn • Space & Time Magazine 142
  • Biophilia • Sarah Grey • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive
  • Bitch Moon • Sarah Grey • Nightmare Magazine 118
  • Bla Jungfrun • Deborah L. Davitt • Strange Horizons, September 26
  • Black Pastoral: On Mars • Ariana Benson • Paranoid Tree 17
  • Blond Date in a Laundromat • Mary Turzillo • Best of 22 (Ohio Poetry Association)
  • Bone November • Sandra Kasturi • The New Quarterly 164
  • Cassandra as Climate Scientist • Jeannine Hall Gailey • California Quarterly 48:4
  • The Closest Traitor • Richard Magahiz • Mobius: The Journal of Social Change 33:2
  • A Creation Myth • John C. Mannone • Songs of Eretz, Spring
  • Cursed • Lee Murray • The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)
  • Dark Neighborhood • Cindy O’Quinn • Chiral Mad 5
  • Dead in Orange Red • Jamal Hodge • Monthly Musings, May 9
  • Derelict Dreams • Bruce Boston • Dreams and Nightmares 121
  • Dinner Plans with Baba Yaga • Stephanie M. Wytovich • Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, ed. Lindy Ryan (Black Spot Books)
  • Domestic Tranquility • Brian U. Garrison • Radon Journal 2
  • Doppelganger • James Arthur Anderson • The Horror Zine, Fall
  • Draft • Lavina Blossom • Riddled with Arrows 5.4
  • The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End • Pedro Iniguez • Star*Line 45.3
  • Equus Aloft • Sterling Warner • Otoliths, February
  • Exulansis • Silvatiicus Riddle • Liquid Imagination 51
  • Fall Thunder • Michael Lee Johnson • Aphelion 278
  • Field Notes from the Anthropocene • Priya Chand • Nightmare Magazine 116
  • First Contact • Lisa Timpf • Eye to the Telescope 44
  • Fracking-lution • Linda D. Addison • Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
  • The Gargoyle • Amelia Gorman • The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)
  • Gosh, It’s Too Beautiful to Exist Briefly in a Parallel Planet • Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan • Strange Horizons, November 21
  • Harold and the Blood-Red Crayon • Jennifer Crow • Star*Line 45.1
  • Helianthus • Eva Papasoulioti • Solarpunk Magazine 5
  • Hip Gnomes • P S Cottier • AntipodeanSF 291
  • Hockey Night in Canis Major • Gretchen Tessmer • Kaleidotrope, January
  • Home from the Wizard Wars • Lyri Ahnam • Silver Blade 54
  • The Honorable Iris C. Thaumantos, Presiding • Marsheila Rockwell • Musings of the Muses, eds. Heather & S. D. Vassallo (Brigids Gate Press)
  • How to Build an Altar • Angela Acosta • Halloween SFPA Reading
  • If I Were Human • Marie Vibbert • Star*Line 45.2
  • In Stock Images of the Future, Everything is White • Terese Mason Pierre • Uncanny 46
  • In water • Soonest Nathaniel • Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize 2022 Award Finalists
  • Intergalactic Baba Yaga • Sandra Lindow • Dreams and Nightmares 122
  • It’s Not Utopian If There Are No Fat People • Jordan Hirsch • Utopia Science Fiction, December
  • Jingwei Tries to Fill Up the Sea • Mary Soon Lee • Uncanny Magazine 45
  • A Lacing of Lavendar • Carina Bissett • HWA Poetry Showcase IX
  • Laws of Exponents • John Reinhart • NewMyths.com 59
  • Leda Goes To The Doctor • Pankaj Khemka • Carmina Magazine, September
  • Letting Flowers Go • Alexander Etheridge • Liquid Imagination 52
  • Lines to a Martian • Alfonsina Storni • Asimov’s Science Fiction, November/December
  • The Long Night • Ryfkah • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
  • Medea leaves behind a letter • FJ Doucet • Star*Line 45.1
  • Medusa • Akua Lezli Hope • The New Verse News, November 18
  • Medusa Bringing Her Children Back Home • Salt • Patreon
  • MetaGender Machine • Linda D. Addison • Black Fire—This Time, ed. Kim McMillon (Aquarius Press)
  • Mind Compression • Madhur Anand • Parasitic Oscillations (Random House)
  • Monitors • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (with Kendall Evans) • Star*Line 45.1
  • Mother Wicked • Dyani Sabin • Strange Horizons, February 28
  • Near the end, you mother tells you she’s been seeing someone • Shannon Connor Winward • SFPA Poetry Contest
  • Necklace • Carolyn Clink • Frost Zone Zine 6
  • New Planet • Kathy Bailey • Dreams and Nightmares 122
  • Od’s Bodkin • Colleen Anderson • Space & Time Magazine 142
  • Old Soldier, New Love • Vince Gotera • Eye To The Telescope 45
  • On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland • Nicole J. LeBoeuf • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
  • The Optics of Space Travel • Angela Acosta • Eye to the Telescope 43
  • Petrichor • Eva Papasoulioti • Utopia Science Fiction, April/May
  • Pittsburgh Temporal Transfer Station • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 45.2
  • Please Hold • Anna Remennik • NewMyths.com 58
  • Pluto is Not a Planet • Jamal Hodge • SavagePlanets 2:3
  • Pumpkin Ash and Cypress Knees • Katherine Quevedo • Boudin: It Came from the Swamp
  • Raft of the Medusa • Marge Simon • Silver Blade 53
  • Reasons Why You Can’t Go Out to Play Alone • Victoria Nations • HWA Poetry Showcase IX
  • Regarding the Memory of Earth • Angela Acosta • Radon Journal 1
  • Robert Walton’s Penultimate Entry • Michael Hodges • Eye to the Telescope 47
  • Sabbatical Somewhere Warm • Elizabeth McClellan • Star*Line 45.4
  • Sector 431B • Jamal Hodge • SavagePlanets 2:3
  • Shipwrecked • Gretchen Tessmer • The Deadlands 12
  • Skies over Carson Sink • Joshua Gage • The Space Cadet Science Fiction Review 1
  • A Spell for Winning Your Personal Injury Lawsuit • Marsheila Rockwell • Dreams and Nightmares 120
  • Starfall • Melissa Ridley Elmes • Spectral Realms 16
  • Status Transcript • Lee Murray • A Woman Unbecoming, eds. Rachel A. Brune & Carol Gyzander (Crone Girls Press)
  • Strange Progeny • Bruce Boston • Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
  • Suburban Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia suburbiana • Jay Sturner • Not One of Us 69
  • Tamales on Mars • Angela Acosta • The Sprawl Mag, October
  • Tasted Like Pork • Pankaj Khemka • Ghostlight, Fall
  • Terrible Truths • Linda D. Addison • Daughter of Sarpedon: A Tempered Tales Collection, eds. Heather & S. D. Vassallo (Brigids Gate Press)
  • Time Skip • Alyza Taguilaso • The Deadlands 16
  • Transformation Sequence • Stewart C Baker • JOURN-E, September
  • The Veil • Anna Cates • Otoliths, February
  • Villagers • Tim Jones • a fine line, Autumn
  • Virgin Mary Meteorology • Patricia Gomes • Muddy River Review, Fall/Winter
  • Warming • Maria Zoccola • Nightmare Magazine 117
  • The Watcher on the Wall • Rebecca Bratten-Weiss • Reckoning 6
  • We Don’t Always Have to Toss Her in the Deep End • Jordan Hirsch • The Future Fire 62
  • Werewolves in Space • Ruth Berman • Dreams and Nightmares 121
  • What Electrons Read • Mary Soon Lee • Simultaneous Times 31
  • What the Old Woman Knows • Melissa Ridley Elmes • Listen to Her UNF, March 23
  • What Wolves Read • Mary Soon Lee • Uppagus 54
  • While Traveling Through Deep Space Aboard a Generation Ship • Terrie Leigh Relf • The Drabbun Anthology, eds. Francis W. Alexander & t. santitoro (Hiraeth Publishing)

LONG POEMS (69 nominated poems)

  • Ariadne Threads the Labyrinth • Adele Gardner • Dreams and Nightmares 120
  • Barn Cats • Adele Gardner • NewMyths.com 60
  • Beautiful • L. Marie Wood • Under Her Skin, eds. Lindy Ryan & Toni Miller (Black Spot Books)
  • The Birds Singing in the Rocks • Tristan Beiter • Strange Horizons, October 31
  • The Bone Tree • Rebecca Buchanan • Not a Princess, but (Yes) There was a Pea, and Other Fairy Tales to Foment Revolution (Jackanapes Press)
  • CONELRAD 1960 / COVID 2020 • T. D. Walker • Fireside Fiction, June
  • Corvidae • Sarah Cannavo • Liquid Imagination 50
  • Crossing Over • Frank Coffman • Liquid Imagination 52
  • Crow Daughter • Gabriela Avelino • Kaleidotrope, Summer
  • Dark Matter Resume • Lorraine Schein • A Coup of Owls 8
  • The Darkness • David E. Cowen • The Hand That Wounds (Weasel Press)
  • The Dead Palestinian Father • Rasha Abdulhadi • Anathema: Spec from the Margins 15
  • Debris • Deborah L. Davitt • The Avenue, May 18
  • Drowning in This Sunken City • Deborah L. Davitt • Strange Horizons, July 3
  • Eidolon Tetratych • Frank Coffman • Spectral Realms 16
  • EMDR • Marsheila Rockwell • Unnerving Magazine 17
  • ex-lovers & other ghosts • Herb Kauderer • Cold & Crisp, eds. Rachael Crawford, Shannon Kauderer, Andy Lee, & Lizette Strait (518 Publishing)
  • field notes from an investigation into the self • Max Pasakorn • Strange Horizons, August 29
  • The First 100 Days • John Reinhart • Star*Line 45.3
  • A Fit Place to Live • David E. Cowen • The Hand That Wounds (Weasel Press)
  • For You Were Strangers in Egypt • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Nightmare Magazine 122
  • From the Ninth Brane • John Mannone • Altered Reality Magazine, February
  • From “Poem without Beginning or End” • Vivek Narayanan • Poetry, May
  • The Frosty Voyage • Adele Gardner • Eye to the Telescope 46
  • Georgia Clay Blood • Beatrice Winifred Iker • Fantasy Magazine 80
  • Ghosting Our Steps • Luke Kernan • Anthropology and Humanism 47:2
  • Halloween Hearts (for Ray Bradbury) • Adele Gardner • Halloween Hearts (Jackanapes Press)
  • Herbaceous Citadel • Avra Margariti • The Fairy Tale Magazine, January 4
  • How to Skin Your Wolf • G. E. Woods • Strange Horizons, December 19
  • I am the Dragon • Elizabeth Fletcher • Spaceports & Spidersilk, October
  • If Houses Could Talk • Lori Lopez • The Sirens Call 59
  • Igbo Landing II • Akua Lezli Hope • Black Fire—This Time, ed. Kim McMillon (Aquarius Press)
  • In the Mirror’s Gap • Jeff Young • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
  • Interdimensional Border Town • Lauren Scharhag • Unlikely Stories, August
  • Like Thunder in My Head • Gerri Leen • The Fairy Tale Magazine, April
  • Lines of Non-Extension • Janis Anne Rader • Consilience, Autumn
  • Living in Rubble • Gerri Leen • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
  • Locks • Colleen Anderson • Abyss & Apex 84
  • Machine (r)Evolution • Colleen Anderson • Radon Journal 2
  • The Machines Had Accepted Me For So Long • Angel Leal • Radon Journal 2
  • Matches • Rebecca Buchanan • Not a Princess, but (Yes) There was a Pea, and Other Fairy Tales to Foment Revolution (Jackanapes Press)
  • A Message From Her Feline Self, Unborn, to Her Cousin, Whose Ancestors Were Once Wolves • Jessica Cho • Fireside Magazine, March
  • Mouth of Mirrors • Maxwell I. Gold • Seize the Press, June 14
  • My Avian Daughter Devours Meteors • Alicia Hilton • Ornithologiae, ed. Mark Beech (Egaeus Press)
  • My Great-Grandmother’s House • Madalena Daleziou • The Deadlands 11
  • On Meeting Kari Solmundarson of Burnt Njal on a Ghost Ship • Amelia Gorman • Nonbinary Review 27
  • One Last Perfect Night • Jill Trade & Joshua St. Claire • The Space Cadet Science Fiction Review 1
  • Persephone in January: A Chant Royal • LindaAnn LoSchiavo • Carmina Magazine, March
  • Photographing Sirens • F. J. Bergmann • SFPA Poetry Contest
  • The Possession • Anna Cates • Otoliths, June
  • Queen of Cups • Crystal Sidell • The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December
  • Questing Done Right: The Goblin Market • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
  • Resilience • Francesca Gabrielle Hurtado • Reckoning 6
  • The River God Dreams of Death By Water • Ryu Ando • Abyss & Apex 84
  • A Rounded Spell • Alessandro Manzetti • Kubrick Rhapsody (Independent Legions Publishing)
  • Seasonal Meat • Jamal Hodge • Chiral Mad 5
  • The Second Funeral • Kurt Newton • Synkroniciti 4:1
  • Spring, When I Met You (Spring, When I Woke) • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 121
  • Team Enrollment • Herb Kauderer • Scifaikuest, November
  • The Thing About Stars • Avra Magariti • The Saint of Witches (Weasel Press)
  • Thirteen Ways to Know You Are a Witch • John C. Mannone • Star*Line 45.4
  • A Tribute to the Ferryman • Ngo Binh Anh Khoa • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice
  • tzedek: the wild hunt • Elisheva Fox • Strange Horizons, November 7
  • Uncle Louie’s Farm • Skip Leeds • Pages Literary Journal, August 18
  • Virginia Dare Brooks • Francis Wesley Alexander • The Martian Wave III:1
  • The Whippoorwill • Lori Lopez • Spectral Realms 16
  • Who Came from the Woods • Lev Mirov • Strange Horizons, January 3
  • Wings • Jordan Hirsch • The Fairy Tale Magazine, February
  • Zombie Pirate Ghost • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 54

SFPA Issues New Rhysling Award Guidelines

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has implemented new guidelines for the organization’s best-known prize, the Rhysling Award.

The most significant changes are the addition of a jury to the process, and a rule to discourage entrants from also competing for two other SFPA prizes with the same poem.

JURY. SFPA members will continue to collectively create a list of nominees. The new Rhysling jury will select the finalists from their recommendations. SFPA members will still vote on the winners.

RANGE. The Rhysling Award will still be given in short and long categories, with the dividing point at 50 lines. However, there are now lower and upper limits to prevent “double dipping” into SFPA’s other awards, the Dwarf Stars and Elgin Award. Poems 10 lines and under are eligible only for Dwarf Stars. Poems 300 lines and over are eligible only for the Elgin.

The changes followed two rounds of surveying members and have been approved by SFPA’s executives.

Akua Lezli Hope and Mary Soon Lee Named SFPA Grand Masters

Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members have honored Akua Lezli Hope and Mary Soon Lee as their 2022 Grand Masters. Two Grand Masters were selected due to a tie vote by the membership.

Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope, a creator and wisdom seeker, has been in print since 1974 with over 450 poems published. She wrote her first speculative poems in the sixth grade and was a member of the SFPA in the 80s, appearing in Star*Line and Asimov’s back then. Her collections include Embouchure: Poems on Jazz and Other Musics (Writer’s Digest book award winner), Them Gone (Sundress Publications 2018) , Otherwheres: Speculative Poetry (2021 Elgin Award winner), & Stratospherics (micro-chapbook of scifaiku @Quarantine Public Library). A Cave Canem fellow, her honors include the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association award & multiple Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. She won a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts grant to create Afrofuturist, speculative, pastoral poetry.

She created Speculative Sundays, an online poetry reading series. She edited the record-breaking sea-themed issue of Eye To The Telescope #42 (www.eyetothetelescope.com) & NOMBONO: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators, the history-making first of its kind (www.sundresspublications.com/e-anthologies/nombono Sundress Publications, 2021). Her work has also been published in numerous literary magazines and national anthologies, including: Africa Risen (Tor, 2022), Black Fire This Time (2022), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The 100 Best African American Poems; Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora; Asimov’s Science Fiction; Gyroscope Review, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, SciFaikuest, Eye to the Telescope, The New Verse News, Breath & Shadow, The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop, The Cossack Review, Silver Blade Magazine, Stone Canoe, Panoply, Penumbra, About Place and Three Coyotes, among many others.

She is working on three new speculative poetry anthologies for 2023: Speculative Cats Volume 1 with LindaAnn Schiavo (speculativecats.com); Arboreal Dreams (speculativetrees.com); and Black Multiverse (blackmultiverse.org).

From Grand Master Akua Lezli Hope: “I am deeply honored and affirmed by this fabulous recognition. My first literature was speculative poetry as I learned and sang Mother Goose nursery rhymes, hand clap and jump rope chants. In elementary school I read Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984, and Alice in Wonderful. Jabberwocky cracked open a world of language’s possibilities to me. I wrote my first speculative poems in the sixth grade and for my 50th high school reunion, our literary magazine was shared and there were two of my science fiction short stores, both beginning with speculative poems.

“Speculative poetry, like its sibling speculative fiction, serves not only the imagination but the soul. It enables us to articulate the ineffable, to capture elusive as well as re/present the many issues, both transcendent and mundane that we struggle to understand and resolve. As a young poet, I was charged to SERVE VERSE and this award is a sweet acknowledgment on this journey. A lifetime member, I am so glad that the SFPA exists to support this work and grateful for the many volunteers who sustain and support this creative community. Thank you, dear poet mages, sages, magicians and technicians.”

Mary Soon Lee

Mary Soon Lee

Mary Soon Lee is a gifted fantasy and science fiction author of both stories and poetry. She has won the Elgin, Rhysling and Dwarf Star Awards as well as twice winning the AnLab Readers’ Award. Her has appeared in many speculative publications including Analog, Asimov’s, Daily Science Fiction, F&SF, Fireside, New Myths Penumbric, Rune, Star*Line, and Strange Horizons, Uncanny, as well as Science, among others. Her writing continues to raise the bar for poetry.

Winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, her stunning collection, The Sign of the Dragon is an epic fantasy told in poetry. She says “Of all the things I’ve written, it’s the one that matters most to me. It began with a single poem about a boy chosen by a dragon to be king. I meant the poem to be a standalone piece, but the boy stayed with me, and I returned and wrote more, and more, and more poems about him. Over three hundred poems in the end.” About her deft and lovely, Elemental Haiku “Lee has a magisterial ability to impart facts clearly, concisely and engagingly. In these short poems she succeeds in conveying the distinctive characteristics of each element, their inter-relationships, their applications and their role in history, be it on a human, planetary or cosmic scale.”

Her work has earned numerous awards throughout her career, such as her 2022 short Rhysling win for “Confessions of a Spaceport AI. Her work is always engaging and evocative. She has a dry wit about the messiness of transcendence, evolution, one more day. Her approach is always skillfully certain, but kindly even gentle, as you are plunged into the essence of being and not being, strife and peace. She is a prolific, talented, and insightful poet.

From Grand Master Mary Soon Lee: “I’m at a loss for words, which is awkward for a writer! I’m very grateful to everyone who voted and to everyone who has encouraged me as a poet, and I am very very honored by this award — all the more so as I am receiving it in the company of Akua Lezli Hope, whom I greatly admire.

“I would like to say something profound about what poetry, especially speculative poetry, means to me. I would like to do so, but I was diagnosed with cancer in August and, while the prognosis is hopeful, I am several months into chemotherapy and not yet past the hump of surgery and radiation.

“So I will simply say, with feeling, *thank* you.”

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 11/7/22 Make Me A Poster From An Old Pixel Scroll

(1) SFPA ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association has voted Colleen Anderson to be their next SFPA President. Anderson previously served SFPA as Vice-President.

The vote breakdown by percentages was:

Colleen Anderson – 38%
Christina Sng – 31%
Brian U. Garrison – 31%

Outgoing SFPA President Bryan Thao Worra, who held the office for six years, said:

I thank all of our members who took the time to vote this year, and I thank all of the candidates who ran for President. I welcome Colleen with joy and the confidence of having worked closely with her as the Vice-President of SFPA that she is at once familiar with our traditions and key elements of our organization, its bylaws, and our opportunities and challenges. I have no doubt that she will bring her talent and vision to making this an effective and dynamic organization that is inclusive and empowering, expanding the passion for speculative verse around the globe in all of its many forms. To all of the members of SFPA, past and present, please accept my gratitude for all that you have done in service to speculative poetry and the association. The last 6 years have been some of the most important and inspiring years of my life, and I enjoyed seeing how vibrant science fiction, fantasy, and horror poetry has continued to grow. I hope you all will continue to reach out to one another and the very best within us as writers and kindred spirits.

(2) DIAGRAM PRIZE SHORTLIST. “Oddest Book Title of the Year shortlist announced for The Diagram Prize 2022” reports The Bookseller.

A six-book shortlist has been released for the Bookseller Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. The winning title will be chosen by members of the public via an online vote, and a winner announced December 2.

The shortlisted titles are:

  • Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity and Symbolismby Michael Owen Jones
  • The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More by Ron Riekki
  • Jane Austen and the Buddha: Teachers of Enlightenment by Kathryn Duncan
  • RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on Teaching and Learning With RuPaul’s Drag Race by Lindsay Bryde & Tommy Mayberry
  • Smuggling Jesus Back into the Church by Andrew Fellows
  • What Nudism Exposes: An Unconventional History of Postwar Canada by Mary-Ann Shantz

The award was conceived in 1978 by Trevor Bounford and Bruce Robertson, co-founders of publishing solutions firm the Diagram Group, as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. There is no prize for the winning author or publisher, but traditionally a “passable bottle of claret” is given to the nominator of the winning entry. 

(3) TWITTER DEFECTIONS. How many are leaving? In an unpdate, John Scalzi says his Twitter following now has dropped by 3,000 since Musk took over.

(4) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Eileen Gunn and Stephanie Feldman at the KBG Bar on Wednesday, November9, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

EILEEN GUNN

Eileen Gunn writes short stories. Her fiction has received the Nebula Award in the US and the Sense of Gender Award in Japan, and has been nominated for the Hugo, Philip K. Dick, World Fantasy and James Tiptree, Jr. awards. She will be reading from new work.

STEPHANIE FELDMAN

Stephanie Feldman is the author of the novels Saturnalia and the award-winning debut The Angel of Losses. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Catapult Magazine, Electric Literature, Flash Fiction OnlineThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and The Rumpus.

Location: The KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003. (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs)

(5) AMAZING KICKSTARTER. New Amazing Stories, LLC publisher Kermit Woodall announced the “Amazing Stories Annual Special: SOL SYSTEM by Steve Davidson — Kickstarter” today.

The Amazing Stories Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign begins.  And once again, Amazing Stories hopes to harness the energy of the science fiction community to raise the funds to release a special issue featuring some of the biggest names in SF today speculating about the future of mankind in our solar system!

Stretch goals will be used to increase author and artist pay and to fund Amazing’s second ONLINE science fiction convention — AmazingCon II. There are also numerous contributor rewards, including copies of the special issue, some of our books and anthologies, AmazingCon convention tickets, and other exciting bonuses!

(6) BEEN THERE! Artist Kieran Wright tells Print Magazine how he fabricates small models of iconic LA buildings as a hobby. “Kieran Wright’s Miniature Models of LA Buildings Reflect His Big Love for the City”. I live only a couple of miles from one of his subjects, the Aztec Hotel. My barber shop is in the building. John and Bjo Trimble were volunteers involved in its restoration a couple of decades ago.

(7) SFF BIBLIOGRAPHY. Kenneth R. Johnson has produced another SF bibliography, “Futuristic Romances”. It’s been posted by Phil Stephenson-Payne on the Homeville website.  It documents a little-known series of Science Fiction paperbacks. 

(8) JOANNA RUSS FICTION. The Library of America’s “Story of the Week” is Joanna Russ’s “When It Changed” (1972), originally published in Again, Dangerous Visions.

…“There are plenty of images of women in science fiction. There are hardly any women.”

So concludes Joanna Russ’s often-reprinted essay, “The Image of Women in Science Fiction,” which first appeared in 1970 in the seventh and last issue of Red Clay Reader, a relatively obscure literary annual. Three years earlier, Russ had published her debut book, the sword-and-sorcery space adventure Picnic on Paradise, which was a finalist for the Nebula Award and a notable break from the conventions and stereotypes common in science fiction and fantasy during the previous decades. “Long before I became a feminist in any explicit way,” Russ told an interviewer in 1975, “I had turned from writing love stories about women in which women were the losers, and adventure stories about men in which men were winners, to writing adventure stories about a woman in which the woman won.”…

(9) MEMORY LANE.

1992 [By Cat Eldridge.] Next Generation’s “A Fistful of Datas” 

Spot meows and jumps onto Data’s console.
“Spot, you are disrupting my ability to work.”
After Data moves her to the floor, Spot meows and jumps back up.
“Vamoose, you little varmint!” in a Texan accent. 
— Next Generation’s “A Fistful of Datas” 

Oh let’s get silly. I mean really, really silly. Now understand before writing this essay on the Next Generation’s “A Fistful of Datas”  which aired thirty years ago on this date according to MemoryAlpha, that I rewatched it on Paramount + earlier today. 

MASSIVE HOLODECK SIZED SPOILERS FOLLOW. REALLY I MEAN IT. 

Patrick Stewart directed this silly affair.  The story by Robert Hewitt Wolfe with the actual  script by Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Brannon Braga. Now that we’ve got those details out of the way, let’s get to the story.  

We get such deliciously comical things as Data in drag, really we do. How we came to this is Worf reluctantly joins his son Alexander in a holodeck story in Deadwood along with Deanna Troi. 

Now that wouldn’t be a problem but Data proposes that they use his psitronic brain as a backup to the ship’s computer in case something goes. ( Huh? WTF?) While interfacing the two, an energy surge happens. (Love those surges — haven’t they ever heard of buffers?) 

Now it gets weird. Data suddenly, and really for no reason, is a pastiche of the Old West. A bit of this, a bit of that, a dollop of something else. 

Both the hologram town of Deadwood and all of the performers here in their Western garb are oh so perfect. 

Unfortunately for the Enterprise crew, the interactive characters physically resemble and have the same enhanced abilities as Data. Really Bad Idea.

WE ARE OFF THE HOLODECK NOW.

“A Fistful of Datas” is taken from Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, the Clint Eastwood film, the very first Spaghetti Western. The first title pitched was “The Good, the Bad and the Klingon”. Really it was. 

Brent Spiner in Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages said that “I had the chance to play five or six characters in a show and Patrick directed, which made it additionally fun. It’s certainly the most fun episode I’ve had to do and I would have liked to have done a show called ‘For a Few Datas More.’”

It has been rated one of the best Next Generation episodes with some comparing it to “Shore Leave”. It won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Drama Series.

It of course is available for viewing on Paramount +.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 7, 1910 Pearl Argyle. Catherine CabalI in the 1936 Things to Come as written by H.G. Wells based off his “The Shape of Things to Come” story. Being a dancer, she also appeared in 1926 The Fairy Queen opera by Henry Purcell, with dances by Marie Rambert and Frederick Ashton. Her roles were Dance of the Followers of Night, an attendant on Summer, and Chaconne. At age thirty-six, she died of a sudden massive cerebral hemorrhage while visiting her husband in New York. (Died 1947.)
  • Born November 7, 1914 R. A. Lafferty. Writer known for somewhat eccentric usage of language.  His first novel Past Master would set a lifelong pattern of seeing his works nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards as novels but generally not winning either though he won a Best Short Story Hugo for “Eurema’s Dam” at Torcon II. He received a World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has been honored with the Cordwainer Smith Foundation’s Rediscovery award. (Died 2002.)
  • Born November 7, 1950 Lindsay Duncan, 72. Adelaide Brooke in the Tenth Doctor‘s “The Waters of Mars” story and the recurring role Lady Smallwood  on Sherlock in “His Last Vow”, “The Six Thatchers” and “The Lying Detective”. She’s also been in Black MirrorA Discovery of WitchesFrankensteinThe Storyteller: Greek MythsMission: 2110 and one of my favorite series, The New Avengers. Oh and she voiced the android TC-14 in The Phantom Menace.
  • Born November 7, 1954 Guy Gavriel Kay, 68. So the story goes that when Christopher Tolkien needed an assistant to edit his father J. R. R. Tolkien’s unpublished work, he chose Kay who was then a student of philosophy at the University of Manitoba. And Kay moved to Oxford in 1974 to assist Tolkien in editing The Silmarillion. Cool, eh? Kay’s own Finovar trilogy is the retelling of the legends of King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere which is why much of his fiction is considered historical fantasy. Tigana likewise somewhat resembles Renaissance Italy . My favorite work by him is Ysabel which strangely enough is called an urban fantasy when it isn’t. It won a World Fantasy Award. 
  • Born November 7, 1960 Linda Nagata, 62. Her novella “Goddesses” was the first online publication to win the Nebula Award. She writes largely in the Nanopunk genre which is not be confused with the Biopunk genre. To date, she has three series out, to wit The Nanotech SuccessionStories of the Puzzle Lands (as Trey Shiels) and The Red. She has won a Locus Award for Best First Novel for The Bohr Maker which the first novel in The Nanotech Succession. Her 2013 story “Nahiku West” was runner-up for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and The Red: First Light was nominated for both the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her site is here.
  • Born November 7, 1974 Carl Steven. He appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as a young Spock, thereby becoming the first actor other than Leonard Nimoy to play the role in a live action setting. Genre one-offs included Weird ScienceTeen Wolf and Superman.  He provided the voice of a young Fred Jones for four seasons worth of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo which can be construed as genre. Let’s just say his life didn’t end well and leave it at that. (Died 2011.)

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Dinosaur Comics has all kinds of writerly advice about worldbuilding.

(12) TRANSPARENT LAYERS. Netflix dropped a trailer for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which begins streaming on December 23.

(13) A DIFFERENT HUGO. [Item by Olav Rokne.] I’ve not been able to track down a copy, but I figure that any adaptation of a Heinlein story is of interest. “Life –Line”.

Based on the 1939 short story by Robert Heinlein, Life-Line tells the story of an eccentric professor named Dr. Hugo Pinero, who sets in motion a future history with his invention that can accurately predict how long a person has to live.

(14) FORTIFIED FOOD. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Scientists at Kellogg’s determined that massive amounts of orangium and electricity have turned beloved characters Snap, Crackle, and Pop into one-eyed mutants!  Fortunately this shocking experiment proved abortive and the cereal was banished to the half-price aisle. “Kellogg’s Launches New Rice Krispies Shocking Orange Colored Cereal For The 2022 Halloween Season” at Chew Boom.

(15) WATCHING: THE TOP 10. JustWatch Top 10’s for October just became available after some glitches. These are the viewing rankings for the U.S.

Rank*MoviesTV shows
1Everything Everywhere All at OnceThe Peripheral
2The ThingDoctor Who
3Halloween III: Season of the WitchQuantum Leap
4Jurassic World DominionAvenue 5
5VesperThe Handmaid’s Tale
6Crimes of the FutureLa Brea
7Significant OtherThe X-Files
8AlienSeverance
9InterstellarOrphan Black
10Event HorizonResident Alien

*Based on JustWatch popularity score. Genre data is sourced from themoviedb.org

(16) ZOOTOPIA GETS SERIES. Disney Plus dropped this trailer for the sequel to Zootopia today: Zootopia+

“Zootopia+” heads back to the fast-paced mammal metropolis of Zootopia in a short-form series that dives deeper into the lives of some of the Oscar®-winning feature film’s most intriguing residents, including Fru Fru, the fashion-forward arctic shrew; ZPD dispatcher Clawhauser, the sweet-toothed cheetah; and Flash, the smiling sloth who’s full of surprises.

(17) ACROSS TIME. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Media Death Cult cracks the covers of these “MUST READ Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Books”.

…My personal recommendations for time travel time, Loop, Multiverse, hop in inter-dimensional pop-in stories. I’ve tried to keep the focus of the video on books where the wobbly elements are the essence of the story rather than something like Revelation Space or the later Ender’s Game books where obviously time dilation plays a big part of those stories but I don’t consider them first and foremost time travel books.

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The How It Should Have Ended gang takes on Jurassic World Dominion. 

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Olav Rokne, Lise Andreasen, Jeffrey Smith, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Randall M.]

SFPA’s 2022 Grand Master Nominees

Voting continues as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Five candidates are under consideration: Akua Lezli Hope, Deborah P Kolodji, Mary Soon Lee, Peter Payack, and Terry A. Garey.

Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope, a creator and wisdom seeker, has been in print since 1974 with over 450 poems published. She wrote her first speculative poems in the sixth grade and was a member of the SFPA in the 80s, appearing in Star*Line and Asimov’s back then. Her collections include Embouchure: Poems on Jazz and Other Musics (Writer’s Digest book award winner), Them Gone (Sundress Publications 2018) , Otherwheres: Speculative Poetry (2021 Elgin Award winner), & Stratospherics (micro-chapbook of scifaiku @Quarantine Public Library). A Cave Canem fellow, her honors include the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association award & multiple Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. She won a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts grant to create Afrofuturist, speculative, pastoral poetry.

She created Speculative Sundays, an online poetry reading series. She edited the record-breaking sea-themed issue of Eye To The Telescope #42 (www.eyetothetelescope.com) & NOMBONO: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators, the history-making first of its kind (www.sundresspublications.com/e-anthologies/nombono Sundress Publications, 2021). Her work has also been published in numerous literary magazines and national anthologies, including: Africa Risen (Tor, 2022), Black Fire This Time (2022), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The 100 Best African American Poems; Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora; Asimov’s Science Fiction; Gyroscope Review, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, SciFaikuest, Eye to the Telescope, The New Verse News, Breath & Shadow, The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop, The Cossack Review, Silver Blade Magazine, Stone Canoe, Panoply, Penumbra, About Place and Three Coyotes, among many others.

She is working on three new speculative poetry anthologies for 2023: Speculative Cats Volume 1 with LindaAnn Schiavo (speculativecats.com); Arboreal Dreams (speculativetrees.com); and Black Multiverse (blackmultiverse.org).

For further information, please see Akua’s website.

Deborah P Kolodji

Deborah P Kolodji served as president of the SFPA from 2006 – 2011. While president, she established the Dwarf Stars Award. Kolodji has also acted as editor or co-editor of multiple anthologies of speculative verse, including several volumes of the Dwarf Stars anthologies. She also co-founded Eye to the Telescope.

In addition to many awards and recognition for her haiku, Kolodji’s fantasy scifaiku “Basho After Cinderella (iii)” placed first in the 2013 Dwarf Stars Awards and was collected in Nebula Awards Showcase 2015. Her early writing included Star Trek inspired poetry for fanzines in the 1970s. Her poetry collections include Tug of a Black Hole (Title IX Press, 2021), Highway of Sleeping Towns (Shabda Press, 2016), Red Planet Dust (2007), and Symphony of the Universe (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2006), Unfinished Book (Shadows Ink Publications, 2006), and Seaside Moon (Saki Press, 2004).

She’s also generous with new poets and with giving back to the poetry community. She has increased the reach of short-form science fiction poetry in the mainstream haiku and senryu community, and is regularly consulted in this capacity:

www.poetrypea.com/s5e7-scifaiku-a-workshop-with-deborah-p-kolodji/

www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/31563c5175b2578b10d2826c6a4ca643.pdf
(see pgs 75-94)

In short, Debbie is a rock star in the short-form sci-fi poetry community!

For further information, please see Deborah’s website.

Mary Soon Lee

Mary Soon Lee is a gifted fantasy and science fiction author of both stories and poetry. She has won the Elgin Rhysling and Dwarf Star Awards as well as twice winning the AnLab Readers’ Award. Her has appeared in many speculative publications including Analog, Asimov’s, Daily Science Fiction, F&SF, Fireside, New Myths Penumbric, Rune, Star*Line, and Strange Horizons, Uncanny, as well as Science, among others. Her writing continues to raise the bar for poetry.

Winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, her stunning collection, The Sign of the Dragon is an epic fantasy told in poetry. She says “Of all the things I’ve written, it’s the one that matters most to me. It began with a single poem about a boy chosen by a dragon to be king. I meant the poem to be a standalone piece, but the boy stayed with me, and I returned and wrote more, and more, and more poems about him. Over three hundred poems in the end.” About her deft and lovely, Elemental Haiku “Lee has a magisterial ability to impart facts clearly, concisely and engagingly. In these short poems she succeeds in conveying the distinctive characteristics of each element, their inter-relationships, their applications and their role in history, be it on a human, planetary or cosmic scale.”

Her work has earned numerous awards throughout her career, such as her 2022 short Rhysling win for “Confessions of a Spaceport AI. Her work is always engaging and evocative. She has a dry wit about the messiness of transcendence, evolution, one more day. Her approach is always skillfully certain, but kindly even gentle, as you are plunged into the essence of being and not being, strife and peace. She is a prolific, talented, and insightful poet.

For further information, please see Mary’s website.

Peter Payack

Peter Payack is a harbinger of the future of science fiction poetry. And has been for the past fifty years. His science fiction poetry has consistently helped define the genre, having been published, for example, in Asimov’s Science Fiction for six decades, and co-winning the Rhysling award for the Best Science Fiction Poem of the Year in 1980. This was the much-anthologized Migration of Darkness, named by Quirk Books as the number one poem that unites science and art!

Payack brings into the 21st century the ancient Greek traditions of the “rhapsodes,” itinerant poets who would travel from festival to festival along the Greek coast, singing the Homeric hymns in the marketplace (agora), making the measured cadences of Homer accessible, understandable, and easier to memorize; sometimes even employing rhythm sticks to emphasize the measured cadences of the ancient text.

To Payack, the post-modern marketplace consists of the printed page, the night sky, subway walls, the Stonehenge monolith, telephone lines, orbiting satellites and, even consumable art (fortunes cookies). Indeed, one critic described Payack’s “lifelong mission to lift poetry off the printed page.” As one example, his STAR-POEMS! (as commissioned by M.I.T.’s Center for Visual Studies) has flown short science fiction poems in the night time sky over Boston, New York and Delphi Greece.

Michael Benedikt, The Poetry Editor of the Paris Review, has written, “Payack’s genuine concern for the place of Humankind in the cosmos is intermixed with much high wit.” The Boston Phoenix exclaimed, “To read Payack is to embark upon a philosophical wild ride designed to shake loose all your assumptions and open your eyes to new ways of seeing the universe.” The Harvard Crimson proclaimed: “Payack’s intellectual curiosity has led him to read about ancient Philosophy and modern science – knowledge he incorporates into the Payack Version of the Universe.” And The Boston Globe wrote “Peter Payack Blends High Tech with New Age,” and in another article called him “The Space Age Poet”.

This accessibility has led to his election as the first Poet Populist of Cambridge, Massachusetts. And there is good reason why he is – though his “Phone-a-Poem” collection is housed at Harvard’s esteemed Woodberry Poetry Room, Payack is no Ivy-tower elitist. You would you never find Payack holding court in a dissolute state at the local pub. He is too busy lecturing on courses in English and Scientific Communications at two of Boston’s fine universities.

For further information, please see Peter’s website.

Terry A. Garey

Beginning in the 1980s, Terry A. Garey has been one of the most influential organizers of the speculative poetry movement. A pioneering editor of speculative poetry, she served as the first poetry editor of Tales of the Unanticipated (1986 to 1991) and for Janus, and was active in WisCon from its 1977 inception, hosting well-attended poetry workshops in the 80s and 90s.

Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Dodeca, Uranus, Star*Line, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Raw Sacks, Paper Bag Writer, Dreams and Nightmares, Women en Large, and the critically acclaimed Burning With A Vision. Her anthologies, Time Gum, 1988, and Time Frames, 1991, are important introductions to the genre. Her particular oeuvre is an intergalactic variation on domestic fabulation where she used her own domestic experience as a launch pad for her poems and then showcased them as a founding member of the highly regarded poetry performance group Lady Poetesses from Hell. Of her four Rhysling nominations, she earned first place in 2013 for her short poem “The Cat Star” and first place in 1997 for her long poem “Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes.”

For further information, please see Terry’s website.

To date, the SFPA has conferred nine Grand Master Awards:

  • Linda D. Addison (2020)
  • Ann K. Schwader (2018)
  • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2017)
  • Marge Simon & Steve Sneyd (2015)
  • Jane Yolen (2010)
  • Ray Bradbury (2008)
  • Robert Frazier (2005)
  • Bruce Boston (1999)

Pixel Scroll 10/25/22 Mahna Mahna! Do Scroll The Pixels The Pixels Are The One Thing That Is True

(1) PULLING RANK. Amanda S. Green puts a blip on indie author’s radar screens. There’s been a change in what rankings Amazon displays to readers: “And so it goes” at Mad Genius Club.

…And Amazon has changed the rules without much fanfare when it comes to what rankings they show. According to another author who queried Amazon about what they were seeing, Amazon has shifted to a policy where only three category rankings will show on a product page. In other words, you can be in the top 10 in four or more categories but Amazon will only show three. As if that’s not bad enough, the categories I see might not be the same one you see because their bots choose which ones to show based on our browsing histories.

As a reader, I don’t see a big problem. As a writer, this is a huge problem….

(2) KINDLE STORYTELLER AWARD. The winner of Amazon UK’s 2022 Kindle Storyteller Award is a historical fantasy novel: King of War by Peter Gibbon.

The Kindle Storyteller Award is a £20,000 literary prize recognising outstanding writing. It is open to writers publishing in English in any genre, who publish their work through Kindle Direct Publishing. Readers play a significant role in selecting the winner, helped by a panel of judges including various book industry experts.

The 2022 Kindle Storyteller Award was open for entries between 1st May and 31st August 2022.

(3) SAY IT AIN’T SO! Syfy Wire has horrible news: “Disney+ lands future seasons of ‘Doctor Who’”.

If you want to watch the next incarnation of Doctor Who, you’re going to need a Disney+ subscription.

Disney announced Tuesday morning that it will be the new home for upcoming seasons of the classic BBC science fiction series in the United States and around the world, a major streaming acquisition for a streaming service that’s already home to major franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star WarsNcuti Gatwa, who will play the Fifteenth Doctor on the series, confirmed the news during an appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan this morning, according to a Disney press release…. 

(4) GATEWAY TO THE PAST. Young People Read Old SFF features a look at the Susan C. Petrey that ends her posthumous collection Gifts of Blood, which included essays by Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, and Kate Wilhelm.  What do the panelists think of this Hugo finalist?

October 2022’s Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists offers a story unusual in several ways. Firstly, I was utterly unfamiliar with Susan C. Petrey’s Hugo finalist story ​“Spidersong1”. A glance at Petrey’s ISFDB entry offers a grim explanation: Susan Petrey died in her mid-thirties, 5 December 1980. Most of her work seems to have been published posthumously, largely in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a magazine that for no good reason I did not read. 

In addition to her Hugo nomination, in spite of having just three stories in print (1979’s ​“Spareen Among the Tartars”, 1980’s ​“Spidersong”, and 1980’s ​“Fleas”), Petrey was nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer2. Petrey died before the results of the nomination were announced. In fact, Petrey was one of two authors present posthumously on the 1981 Astounding Award3; Robert Stallman died August 1, 1980. As far as I can tell, this is the only year any nominees, let alone two4, for the Astounding were nominated post-mortum. 

“Spidersong” is unusual in a third, far more positive way: it is still in print, for web-based values of in print. Spidersong can be read in Issue 54 of Light Speed Magazine….

(5) LIGHTS ON. Cora Buhlert calls this a “semi non-fiction spotlight” because it’s about an anthology that mixes fiction reprints with essays and commentary: Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women Volume 2 (1953 to 1957), edited by Gideon Marcus”.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

By 2018, I had read dozens of great stories by women in my trek through all the period science fiction magazines. That same year, I ran across A. J. Howells, who had started up a small press to republish The Office by Fredric Brown. His experience made me realize that it’s not too hard to start a press these days. Putting two and two together, it was obvious what my first project would be: a collection of all of my favorite stories by women from the era….

(6) THE NOT AT ALL JOLLY ROGER. According to this article from the Guardian, even Booker Prize winners have to deal with book piracy: “Booker prize winner urges people not to circulate pirated copies of his novel”.

Booker prize-winning author Shehan Karunatilaka has asked people not to circulate pirated versions of his novel.

Karunatilaka won the prize…for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In an Instagram story and a Facebook post two days after his win, Karunatilaka said it had “come to light that an unofficial and illegal” pdf version of his book was “doing the rounds on Sri Lankan social media”.

In his post, titled “Do not steal the moon”, the author wrote: “The book took seven years to write, with countless hours of research, craft and hard work poured into it. If you wish to support and honour Sri Lankan art, please do not forward pirated versions of the book and tell those who are circulating it to refrain from doing so.”…

(7) PREMEE MOHAMED Q&A: At the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog: “Interview with Premee Mohamed, author of the Beneath The Rising trilogy”.

UHBC Blog: …Do you think it’s possible to write near-future fiction and not include some time of climate change elements?

Premee Mohamed: Well, anything’s possible in fiction.

But suppose I wanted to write a murder mystery set in London in a fancy house in the middle of the city in 1942. In theory, I could write the entire book just about the murder mystery and these friends would have to solve it.

But in practice, if I didn’t mention World War II at any point or the Blitz or the bombs or people that they knew that had died in the war … it would feel very weird and I feel like the book would be kind of missing something enormous about the reality of London in 1942….

(8) KNOW THE TERRITORY. J. Dianne Dotson advocates for “The Ecology of World-Building“ at the SFWA Blog.

…Interactions between living organisms and their environments include abiotic and biotic factors. Abiotic factors are nonliving factors, such as the sun, wind, precipitation, slope, or substrate (whether rock or other substance). Biotic factors are those that are living, such as plants, fungi, protists, or animals. Think about how both living and nonliving elements in your world affect your characters.

Other considerations include predator–prey relationships in your worlds. An apex predator is a top predator in a food chain. If your world has creatures, assume that there are predator–prey interactions. Where does each creature in your world fit in a food chain? What happens when you take the top predator away? What sorts of population pressures do your characters face? Showcasing these factors in your fiction weaves a unique tapestry for your characters to inhabit….

(9) CALLING OUT FATPHOBIA IN SFF. [Item by Olav Rokne.] Writing at Tor.com, R. K. Duncan enumerates the ways in which SFF has been a space that marginalizes those who are large. “SFF’s Big Fat Problem” is an important piece for us to read and to think about, when we’re consuming and creating fiction. 

In my lifetime, SFF has become unimaginably more welcoming of my queer self than it was when I began to read. My fat self, not so much. This essay is a callout for everyone who feels they are a part of this community. Do better.

(10) FEARSOME FIVE. James Davis Nicoll counts up “Five Chilling Horror Novellas to Read This Fall” at Tor.com.

October is, as I noted in an earlier essay, a season for ghosts and ghouls.  Days are shortening, winter is coming (at least for us folks in the northern hemisphere). It’s a season for melancholy entertainment.

Of course, autumn is also a busy season—even if, like the overwhelming majority of my readers, you don’t have to worry about getting crops in. You might not have the time, or the inclination, to read something long (there will be plenty of time for that in the cold days ahead). Happily, novellas are there for you. You might want to try one or more of these five….

(11) MEMORY LANE.

1969 [By Cat Eldridge.] The Picasso Summer 

Back in the Summer of love or thereabouts, Mister Bradbury wrote the script for The Picasso Summer which by the time it was in the can had involved artist Pablo Picasso, French directors Francois Truffaut and Serge Bourguignon, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond,  animators Faith and John Hubley, composer Michel Legrand and Barbra Streisand. Even Bill Cosby was in the mix as his company produced it, as was another actor, Yul Brunner.

It’s based off his “In a Season of Calm Weather” short story which was first published in the January 1957 issue of Playboy. It was most recently, 2013, published by Bantam in his Medicine for Melancholy collection. 

SPOILERS OF A VERY PSYCHEDELIC NATURE FOLLOW. SENSITIVE MINDS SHOULD GO ELSEWHERE.

Bradbury wrote a most excellent script here. 

His story is that SF architect George Smith (as played by Albert Finney) is vacationing in France with his wife Alice (a very beautiful Yvette Mimieux) with the hopes of meeting Picasso. Why he wants to meet him is not explained. The back story is he is terminally weary of being an architect.

The young couple are turned away from the artist’s home, and a fight breaks out. George in a rather nasty mood goes off to Spain to meet Spanish bullfighting legend Luis Miguel Dominguín, who might be a friend of Picasso and might get him an introduction. He doesn’t. 

So Alice stays behind and alone in France, very miserable. Upon he returns, he apologizes for the quite bad vacation. They go for a final swim on the beach, utterly failing to notice Picasso playing in the sand with his family just a few hundred yards away as they stroll away from him into the sunset.

YOU COME BACK. WE’RE NOT DOING INTERESTING DRUGS ANYMORE. I THINK. 

I must stress that it includes some very trippy and quite lively animated sequences of Picasso’s work done up in the finest Sixties style possible. Groovy man!  It’s quite delightful and all goes superbly well for our couple in the end.

It was shot in 1969, partly re-shot and tooted into the vault in 1969, but not shown publicly until 1972. It doesn’t appear in the Warner Bros. release records because it never hit the theaters only to premiere in the States on CBS’s Late Nite Movie. Warner Bros put a clip from it up here. Please, please do not link to the many extended clips from the film including the animated sequences as they are clear violations of copyright as the film is still very much under copyright.

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 25, 1902 Philip Wylie. Writer of SF snd mysteries alike. Co-author with Edwin Balme of When Worlds Collide, his most important work, which was first published as a six-part monthly serial (September 1932 through February 1933) in the Blue Book magazine with illustrations by Joseph Franké. The novel was the basis of the 1951 film  of the same name that was produced by George Pal. (Died 1971.)
  • Born October 25, 1909 Whit Bissell. You most likely know him as Station Manager Lurry on “The Trouble With Tribbles”, but his major contribution to the SFF genre was being in all thirty episodes of The Time Tunnel as Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk. He also did one-offs on The InvadersI Dream of JeannieThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.Voyage to the Bottom of the SeaScience Fiction TheaterThe Incredible Hulk and The Outer Limits. And yes, in the Time Machine film. (Died 1996.)
  • Born October 25, 1928 Marion Ross, 94. Best remembered as Marion Cunningham on Happy Days but she does have some genre roles, including an uncredited appearance in The Secret of The Incas often cited as the inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Charlton Heston was adventurer Harry Steele. Anyone see it? Again uncredited, she’s in a Fifties version of Around the World in 80 Days. The Sixties are kinder to her as she starts getting credited for her work, first for being on The Outer Limits as Agnes Benjamin in “The Special One” episode followed by being Angela Fields in Colossus: The Forbin Project. To date, her last genre role was on the animated Galaxy as the voice of Doctor Minerva in “Gotta Get Outta This Place”. 
  • Born October 25, 1940 Janet Fox. Author whose stories appeared in countless genre zines and anthologies between the Seventies and mid-Nineties.  Her long fiction, mostly the Scorpio Rising series, was done as Alex McDonough. She’s also know for the Scavenger’s Newsletter which featured a number of noted writers during its run including Linda Sherman, Jeff VanderMeer and Jim Lee. (Died 2009.)
  • Born October 25, 1963 John Gregory Betancourt, 59. Writer known for his work in Zelazny’s Amber universe but who has written quite a bit of other franchise fiction including works in the Star TrekHerculesRobert Silverberg’s Time ToursDr. Bones and The New Adventures of Superman. Most of his original fiction was early in his career. He’s also edited in a number of magazines including Weird TalesAmazing StoriesH. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of HorrorAdventure Tales and Cat Tales. He even co-edited with Anne McCaffrey, Serve It Forth: Cooking with Anne McCaffrey. His Wildside Press has been nominated three times for World Fantasy Awards. 
  • Born October 25, 1971 Elif Safak, 51. Turkish writer with three genre novels, one written originally in Turkish (Mahrem), The Gaze in its English translation, and two written in English, The Architect’s Apprentice (which was translated into Turkish as Ustam ve Ben)  and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.
  • Born October 25, 1971 Marko Kloos, 51. Author of two MilSF series, Frontlines and The Palladium Wards. His Lines of Departure was nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel at Sasquan on a slate organized by the Sad Puppies. In reaction to this, Kloos withdrew the novel from consideration for the award. He was subsequently honored by George R. R. Martin for this decision. And that gets him Birthday Honors. Five of his books have been Dragon Awards nominees in the Best Military SF or Fantasy category.

(13) SOI HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES. The Society of Illustrators’ 2022 Hall of Fame Ceremony and Awards will catch up two years’ worth of inductees.

Since 1958, the Society of Illustrators has elected to its Hall of Fame artists recognized for their distinguished achievement in the art of illustration. 

Artists are chosen based on their body of work and the impact it has made on the field of illustration. 

2021 Hall of Fame Laureates

  • Braldt Bralds
  • Craig Mullins
  • Floyd Norman
  • Margaret Brundage
  • Jean Alexandre Michel André Castaigne
  • Walter Percy Day
  • Dale Messick

2022 Hall of Fame Laureates

  • Charles Addams
  • George Booth
  • Emory Douglas
  • Wendy and Brian Froud
  • Reynold Ruffins

(14) HUGO SWAG. Cora Buhlert recently received her 2022 Hugo finalist certificate and pin. You can see a photo here: “Look What the Mailman Brought Me”.

(15) SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY POETRY ASSOCIATION MILESTONE. Adele Gardner and Greer Woodward, Editors of the 2022 Dwarf Stars Anthology made a historic announcement about the poet who took second place in the 2022 Dwarf Stars Award for his poem “Colony.”

Jamal Hodge is the first black man to win or place in the competition. Though the editors are saddened that there have not been prior accolades for black men in the Dwarf Stars Award, we are so very glad that Jamal Hodge has broken this barrier and lifted us with the quality of his work.
 
Jamal Hodge is a multi-award-winning filmmaker and writer from Queens NYC who has won over 80 awards with screenings at Tribecca Film Festival, Sundance, and the Cannes Short Film Corner. As a writer, Hodge is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and the SFPA, being nominated for a 2021 & 2022 Rhysling Award for his poems “Fermi’s Spaceship” and “Loving Venus,” while placing second in the 2022 Dwarf Stars. His poetry is featured in the anthology Chiral Mad 5 alongside such legends as Stephen King and Linda Addison. His written work was featured in the historical all-black issue of Star*Line (43.4), Space and Time Magazine, Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters & Other Phenomena, Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, Savage Planets, and many others. https://linktr.ee/directorh
 
Hodge’s 2022 Dwarf Stars poem “Colony” is a poignant observation of humanity. Although scientists have developed technology superb enough to send people to Mars and establish a colony, human nature has remained unchanged. The fact that murder is one of the things that marks our humanity is not only tragic, but may well damage prospects for a hopeful future. The editors admired the way this powerful message was expressed in only 29 words.

(16) MIGHTY DIALOG. Book Riot’s Kate Scottanoints these as “23 of the Best The Lord of the Rings Quotes”.

Choosing the best quotes from The Lord of the Rings is difficult, because there are so many amazing lines in this fantasy epic. Nevertheless, here are 23 of my favorite The Lord of the Rings quotes.

First out of the gate:

“‘Why was I chosen?’ ‘Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf. ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’”

How can it be that my own favorite isn’t even on the list!

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Trailers: The Rings Of Power (Season 1),” the Screen Junkies say this Lord of the RIngs prequel has so many mysterious strangers show up in the first episodes that “It’s hard to keep up with the people who aren’t mysterious. Stop making me do homework to watch TV!” the narrator complains. He shows at least five clips where the cast are trying very very hard not to say they’re making rings that characters can be lords of. Noting this is an Amazon project, the narrator asks, “do the orc slaves get free two-day shipping?”

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Cora Buhlert, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jim Janney.]