Here’s Lela E. Buis reading Star*Line, journal of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association.
If you want to see this series continue, send photos of your mask and social distancing reads to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com
(1) DON’T BE THAT AUTHOR. Brenda Clough’s list grows longer: “Ways to Trash Your Writing Career: An Intermittent Series”.
There are the really obvious ways to torch your career — rudeness to editors, for instance. And then there are the hidden trap doors. The one I am going to reveal today is truly obscure. It could be broadly described as meddling with the publication process. More specifically, you can enrage the publisher’s sales reps. Kill your book dead in one easy step! …
(2) AND DON’T BE THAT POET. F.J. Bergmann wrote and Melanie Stormm designed “How To Piss Off A Poetry Editor” for readers of SPECPO, the blog of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. Here’s the header —
(3) KGB READINGS ONLINE. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Benjamin Rosenbaum and Mike Allen Wednesday, July 15 in a YouTube livestream event. Starts at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Benjamin Rosenbaum’s short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, BSFA, Sturgeon, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards, and collected in The Ant King and Other Stories. His first novel, The Unraveling, a far-future comedy of manners and social unrest, comes out this October from Erewhon Books. His tabletop roleplaying game of Jewish historical fantasy in the shtetl, Dream Apart, was nominated for an Ennie Award. He lives near Basel, Switzerland with his family.
Mike Allen
Mike Allen has twice been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. His horror tales are gathered in the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated collection Unseaming, and in his newest book, Aftermath of an Industrial Accident. His novella The Comforter, sequel to his Nebula Award-nominated story “The Button Bin,” just appeared in the anthology A Sinister Quartet. By day, he writes the arts column for The Roanoke (Va.) Times.
Listen to podcasts of the KGB readings here.
(4) FUTURE TENSE. The June 2020 entry in the Future Tense Fiction series is “The Last of the Goggled Barskys,” by Joey Siara.
Transmitted herewith are excerpts from statements provided by members of the Barsky family regarding the incident with Hayden Barsky, age 11.
The true origins of KHAOS remain unknown….
It was published along with a response essay, “How Not to Optimize Parenthood” by Brigid Schulte, director of the Better Life Lab and author of the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, & Play When No One Has the Time.
Most parents are well-intentioned. We try to do the right thing, hoping to spare our children at least a measure of the pain or heartache we muddled through, to smooth the rough edges of life and give them every advantage to make it in an uncertain and often cruel world.
That’s at least the hope. In practice, no one really knows how to do that. So, particularly in America, where “winning” and the self-improvement dictate to “beat yesterday” are akin to sacred commandments, we have always turned to the experts for help. What does the science say? What are the neighbors doing? What book or podcast or shiny gadget will instantly make my child’s life easier? More joyful? Miraculous? And, perhaps most importantly, better than your kid’s?…
(5) LOCKDOWN MOVIE. “Quarantine Without Ever Meeting” – Vanity Fair profiles the filmmakers. Tagline: “The actors set up lights, did their own makeup, and ran the cameras. The filmmakers advised on Zoom. Somehow…it worked.”
…While Hollywood is struggling to figure out if it’s possible to make a feature-length movie in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, this group of independent filmmakers and actors have already done it. “The whole movie has been written, produced, packaged, shot within quarantine. Now we’re in postproduction, and I had a first cut of the whole film done on Friday,” said director and cowriter Simon. As The Untitled Horror Movie nears completion, its producers are finally announcing the secret project and seeking a distributor. It appears to be the first movie created entirely within the parameters of the lockdown.
The horror comedy is about a group of needy and desperate young stars from a once-popular TV series who learn, via video conference, that their show has just been canceled. Fearing obscurity, they decide to stay in the spotlight by making a quickie horror film—but while shooting it, they perform a ritual that accidentally invokes an actual demonic spirit. Mayhem follows. “We kind of described it going into it as Scream meets For Your Consideration,” Simon said.
(6) OFF THE COAST. In the Washington Post, Rob Wolfe says that Wizards of the Coast has banned seven Magic: The Gathering cards it says are “racist or culturally offensive” and promises a review of all 20,000 cards to find any other ones it deems questionable. “‘Racist’ and ‘culturally offensive’ images pulled from hugely popular trading card game”
The card had been around since 1994, tagged “Invoke Prejudice” by the world’s most popular trading card game. It showed figures in white robes and pointed hoods — an image that evoked the Ku Klux Klan for many people.This month, the company behind “Magic: The Gathering” permanently banned that card and six others carrying labels like “Jihad” and “Pradesh Gypsies.” Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of toy giant Hasbro, acknowledged the images were “racist or culturally offensive.”
“There’s no place for racism in our game, nor anywhere else,” the company said in a statement announcing its action.
With the country roiled by tensions and protests over African Americans’ deaths at the hands of police, the issues entangling Magic and its creators are unlikely to subside soon. The fantasy game of goblins, elves, spells and more boasts some 20 million players, and in pre-pandemic times, thousands flocked to elite international tournaments with hefty prizes. Players of color say they have long felt excluded in the white- and male-dominated community from the game’s top echelons, as well as employment at the company….
(7) WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. “A Better World ?” seems to be a kind of text-based game letting players choose among “Uchronies,” a French term that partakes of alternate history but is more fantastic in nature. I racked up a lot of karma in a hurry, sad to say.
The dates you can change are in yellow.
The dates you just changed are in pink.
Click on one of them to change the past!
Your current karma:0
See the list of Uchronies (cancels the current game)
It didn’t go well, I’d like to start over…
(8) ANOTHER TONGUE. James Davis Nicoll says there are a bundle of “Intriguing SFF Works Awaiting English Translations” at Tor.com.
I am monolingual, which limits me to reading works in English. One of the joys of this modern, interconnected world in which we’re living is that any speculative fiction work written in another language could (in theory) be translated into English. One of my frustrations is that, generally speaking, they haven’t been. Here are five works about which I know enough to know that I’d read them if only they were translated….
(9) I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP. Olav Rokne says, “Sometimes, you just want to ask the question nobody wants.” He passed along some of the hilarious responses.
(10) CARL REINER OBIT. The creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show and straight man to Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man,” died June 29 at the age of 98. The duo won a Grammy in 1998 for their The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000. (The New York Times eulogy is here.)
He shared the lead in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming and appeared in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He directed numerous movies, including several starring Steve Martin. In recent years he voiced characters in several genre animated TV shows — and Carl Reineroceros in Toy Story 4.
John King Tarpinian remembers:
He is not genre but his passing reminds me of the good old days. Back in the 80s, I was president of the largest Atari club consortium in the US. One of the members owned the Vine Street Bar & Grill. It was between Hollywood & Sunset. The first Wednesday of the month the guest jazz singer was Estelle Reiner. Ron Berinstein, club member and club owner invited me to come on Estelle’s nights to make sure the club was always full. The first time I went her husband, Carl, was also there. I learned that he always came…and that he’d have friends join them. Over the years everybody from Sid Caesar, Buck Henry, Neil Simon, Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks & more.
During Estelle’s break between sets Carl & whomever was also there would get up and entertain. Carl & Mel would do their 2000 Year Old Man routine but not the Ed Sullivan version but the version they’d do a parties. My ribs would be sore the next morning from laughing so hard.
Sid Caesar would come to Ray Bradbury’s plays. Imagine somebody being able to upstage Ray…who also would be laughing so hard.
(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
(13) COMICS SECTION.
(14) DOOMSCROLLING. I learned a useful new word from John Scalzi’s post “Check In, 6/30/20”.
…With that said, there’s another aspect of it, too, which I think I’ve been minimizing: it’s not just time on social media, it’s engagement when I am on it, and how social media is making me feel when I use it. The term “doomscrolling” refers to how people basically suck down fountains of bad news on their social media thanks to friends (and others) posting things they’re outraged about. It’s gotten to the point for me where, particularly on Twitter, it feels like it’s almost all doomscrolling, all the time, whether I want it to be or not.
(15) STANDING UP. David Gerrold’s unlocked Patreon post “I Stand With The Science Fiction Writers of America” may be a reaction to yesterday’s item about the publisher of Cirsova, and certainly gives emphatic support to SFWA’s recent statement about BLM.
…The BLM movement are not terrorists. They are not thugs. They are peaceful protesters, marching against industrial discrimination and system-entrenched bigotry. The demonstrators have actually caught looters and rioters and delivered them to the police.
It doesn’t matter how much the limousine-liberals preach equality if there are no serious efforts to redress the grievances of the disadvantaged.
If we truly are all in this together, then it behooves all of us to reach out to each other and create partnerships and opportunities. This isn’t preferential treatment. It’s a necessary bit of repair work to a damaged genre.
If we don’t talk about it, if we don’t take steps, if we don’t address it, then we are guilty of complicity. If the racism of the past was a product of its time, then let our attempts to redress the situation be a product of our time.
(16) BLOCKED OUT. Missed this in March: “Lego embraces the dark side with three helmet building kits”. And it’s not like I didn’t have time on my hands.
… These sets are up for preorder now from Lego at $59.99 and are set to ship on April 19.
With the Stormtrooper, you’re getting a 647-piece helmet-building set, complete with the blacked-out visor, two nodes on the bottom for speaking and stickers to complete the look. Similarly, the Boba Fett helmet will let you pay homage to the original Mandalorian. This set is 21 centimeters tall (a little over 8 inches) and has 625 pieces. You’ll be constructing each detail of the helmet, including the fold-down viewfinder that lets Boba easily track down his targets. (He is a bounty hunter, after all.)
(17) HAKUNA ERRATA. [Item by Daniel Dern.] In Pixel Scroll 5/27/20 Johnny Mnemonic B. Goode I’d said —
This in turn reminded me of one of my favorite songs by Chris Smither, “Henry David Thoreau” riffing on (same tune) Berry’s song. Oddly, even incomprehensibly, I find NO mention of it anywhere via DuckDuckGo nor Google, even though I’ve heard Smither sing it numerous times. (I also checked his discography.
It turns out that, while I have heard Chris Smither sing this song, he wasn’t the author. That was Paul Geremia, one of Boston/Cambridge’s wonderful acoustic blues musicians.
The song is on his Self Portrait In Blues album. (And on my ~2,800-song Spotify playlist, which is how, when it came around again this morning on the guitar, as it were, I realized my mistake.)
Here’s a so-so performance:
The song (and much of the album) is on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple, and elsewhere. Apple’s got a reasonable sample snippet.
(18) THE STAR VANISHES. The BBC says Alfred Hitchcock isn’t involved in “Mystery over monster star’s vanishing act”.
Astronomers have been baffled by the disappearance of a massive star they had been observing.
They now wonder whether the distant object collapsed to form a black hole without exploding in a supernova.
If correct, it would be the first example of such a huge stellar object coming to the end of its life in this manner.
But there is another possibility, the study in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society reports.
The object’s brightness might have dipped because it is partially obscured by dust.
It is located some 75 million light-years away in the Kinman Dwarf galaxy, in the constellation of Aquarius.
The giant star belongs – or belonged – to a type known as a luminous blue variable; it is some 2.5 million times brighter than the Sun.
Stars of this kind are unstable, showing occasional dramatic shifts in their spectra – the amount of light emitted at different wavelengths – and brightness.
(19) YOU WILL BELIEVE A…EH, NO YOU WON’T. NPR explains “How Snakes Fly (Hint: It’s Not On A Plane)”
Flying snakes like Chrysopelea paradisi, the paradise tree snake, normally live in the trees of South and Southeast Asia. There, they cruise along tree branches and, sometimes, to get to the ground or another tree, they’ll launch themselves into the air and glide down at an angle.
They undulate their serpentine bodies as they glide through the air, and it turns out that these special movements are what let these limbless creatures make such remarkable flights.
That’s according to some new research in the journal Nature Physics that involved putting motion-capture tags on seven snakes and then filming them with high-speed cameras as the snakes flew across a giant four-story-high theater.
How far they can go really depends on how high up they are when they jump, says Jake Socha at Virginia Tech, who has studied these snakes for almost a quarter-century. He recalls that one time he watched a snake start from about 30 feet up and then land nearly 70 feet away. “It was really a spectacular glide,” Socha recalls.
Part of the way the snakes do this is by flattening out their bodies, he says. But the snakes’ bodies also make wavelike movements. “The snake looks like it’s swimming in the air,” he says. “And when it’s swimming, it’s undulating.”
(20) BLOCKBUSTED. “With Big Summer Films Delayed, AMC Theatres Puts Off U.S. Reopening”.
The nation’s largest movie theater chain is delaying its U.S. reopening until the end of July because film companies have postponed release dates of two anticipated blockbusters.
AMC Theatres announced that a first round of approximately 450 locations will resume operations two weeks later than initially planned, to coincide with the updated August release dates of Warner Brothers’ Tenet and Disney’s Mulan.
“Our theatre general managers across the U.S. started working full time again today and are back in their theatres gearing up to get their buildings fully ready just a few weeks from now for moviegoers,” CEO Adam Aron said in a June 29 statement. “That happy day, when we can welcome guests back into most of our U.S. theatres, will be Thursday, July 30.”
The company said it expects its more than 600 U.S. theaters to be “essentially to full operation” by early August.
AMC Theatres made headlines earlier this month when it announced patrons will be required to wear masks, reversing course on a controversial reopening plan that had only encouraged them to do so.
(21) ALL THE SMART KIDS ARE DOING IT. “Famous New York Public Library Lions Mask Up To Set An Example”.
For the first time, the familiar marble faces outside the New York Public Library will be obscured by masks.
Patience and Fortitude, the iconic lion sculptures guarding the 42nd Street library, are wearing face coverings to remind New Yorkers to stay safe and stop the spread of COVID-19.
The masks arrived on June 29, and measure three feet wide by two feet tall, according to a library statement.
New York Public Library President Anthony Marx emphasized the symbolism of the aptly named lions, and said New Yorkers are similarly strong and resilient.
(22) NEVERENDING SENDUP. The Screen Junkies continue their look at oldies with an “Honest Trailer” for The Neverending Story, where they show that gloomy Germans created “a world of neverending misery.” They discovered that star Noah Hathaway subsequently played Harry Potter Jr. in Troll (1986) with Michael Moriarty playing Harry Potter Sr.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, JJ, Joey Eschrich, Rich Horton, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Michael Toman, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Daniel Dern, Darrah Chavey, Olav Rokne, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to wandering minstrel of the day Cliff.]
Jessica J. Horowitz and Rebecca Buchanan are the winners of the 2020 Rhysling Awards presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA).
The winners were chosen by SFPA members, with 112 votes cast.
The 2020 Rhysling Awards
Short Poem Category
First Place
Second Place
Third Place (tie)
Long Poem Category
First Place
Second Place
Third Place (tie)
[Via Locus Online.]
The 2020 Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) Poetry Contest opened today. Entries are being accepted through August 31 from all poets, including non-members of the SFPA. Poets may enter in three categories:
All sub-genres of speculative poetry are welcome in any form. Entries will be read blind. Winners will receive a $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, and $25 Third Prize in each category, as well as publication on sfpoetry.com. The contest fee is $3 per poem to enter.
The deadline to enter is August 31, and winners will be announced by October 1. To enter or learn more, see the submission guidelines on the official SFPA contest website.
This year’s contest judge is Neil Aitken, author of two books of poetry, Babbage’s Dream (Sundress 2017) and The Lost Country of Sight (Anhinga 2008), which won the Philip Levine Prize. His poetry chapbook Leviathan (Hyacinth Girl Press 2016) won the Elgin Award. Individual poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, American Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, Radar Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, and many other literary journals. He is the founding editor of Boxcar Poetry Review, curator of Have Book Will Travel, podcast host of The Lit Fantastic, and co-director of De-Canon: A Visibility Project.
[Based on a press release.]
The Science Fiction Poetry Association has finalized its 2020 Rhysling Award candidates, reports David C. Kopaska-Merkel. Eighty-four members nominated.
The Rhysling Award is given in two categories. “Best Long Poem” is for poems of 50+ lines, or for prose poems, of 500+ words. “Best Short Poem” is limited to poems of no more than 49 lines, or prose poems of no more than 499 words.
SFPA members have until June 15 to vote on the winners.
| Short Poems (77 poems) |
| “Abeona, Goddess of Outward Journeys, Pilots the Interstellar Ark” • Nisa Malli • Apparition Lit 7 |
| “Aliens declutter” • PS Cottier • Scifaikuest, August |
| “All-Father” • Vince Gotera • Dreams and Nightmares 111 |
| “Alternate Galatea” • Amelia Gorman • Liminality 21 |
| “Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee” • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Blood Moon” • Sara Backer • Polu Texni, November 24 |
| “The Book of Fly” • John Philip Johnson • Rattle 63 |
| “The Certainty of Seeing” • Michelle Muenzler • Polu Texni, 3 June |
| “Collie Dogs In Space” • Debby Feo • A Poet Explores The Stars, ed. J. Alan Erwine (Nomadic Delirium Press) |
| “Continuum” • G. O. Clark • Analog, September/October |
| “Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov’s SF, July/August |
| “Crimson Faces” • Maxwell I. Gold • Space & Time Magazine 135 |
| “The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring |
| “Disassembly at Auction” • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Mobius: The Journal of Social Change 30:4 |
| “Don’t Open the Box!” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P’rea Press) |
| “drag strip drag” • Francine P. Lewis • Eye to the Telescope 32 |
| “Eldritch Horror” • Katie Manning • Bowery Gothic I |
| “Encore” • Tim Jones • Big Hair Was Everywhere (ESAW) |
| “Fallen But Not Down” • Sarah Cannavo • Liminality 20 |
| “Fallen Star” • Clay F. Johnson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice |
| From “Moon Sonnet” • Lily Zhou • Poetry, May |
| “The Ghosts of Those” • Ron Riekki • Star*Line 42.2 |
| “The Girl who Loved Birds” • Clara Blackwood • Amazing Stories 3 |
| “Goddamn These Minotaurs” • Persephone Erin Hudson • paintbucket, November 10 |
| “haiku” • Juan M. Perez • haikuniverse, June 8 |
| “Halsted IV” • Jeff Crandall • Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October |
| “How to Care for Your Yesterday’s Camel” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation) |
| “How to Colonize Ganymede” • Mary Soon Lee • New Myths 48 |
| “How To Dance With Dark Matter” • Mary Soon Lee • Uppagus 37 |
| “Huitzilopochtli” • Lorraine Schein • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice |
| “If All the Seas Were Blood” • D. L. Myers • Oracles from the Black Pool (Hippocampus Press) |
| “The Journey” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, April 1 |
| “Lady Macbeth’s Green Gown” • Jacqueline West • Liminality 19 |
| “Mary Agnes Chase (1869–1963)” • Jessy Randall • Strange Horizons, December 9 |
| “Mary Poppins, 2100” • Cathy Tenzo • Typehouse 18 |
| “The Mother Searches for Her Own Story” • Mary McMyne • Strange Horizons, November 11 |
| “Mothsong” • John Philip Johnson • Liquid Imagination 42 |
| “My Ghost Will Know The Way” • Beth Cato • The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August |
| “New Stars” • F. J. Bergmann • Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest |
| “The Night the Unicorn Leapt from the Tapestry” • Kate Pentecost • Liminality 19 |
| “No Fairy Tale World” • Lisa Timpf • New Myths 47 |
| “The Nonpareils: As Told by the Woman in the Gingerbread House” • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Objects of Desire” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 113 |
| “Óòjí Íjè [Kola Journey]” • Uche Ogbuji • FIYAH Literary Magazine 11 |
| “The Planets? Sweet …” • Harris Coverley • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Phobos and Deimos” • W. C. Roberts • Chrome Bairn 82 |
| “Prayer on a Friday Morning” • L. R. Harvey • American Diversity Report, December |
| “A Purring Cat is a Time Machine” • Beth Cato • Daikaijuzine 1 |
| “Regarding me” • Michael H. Hanson • HWA Poetry Showcase VI |
| “Reparation” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11 |
| “Revisiting the origins of language” • Terrie Leigh Relf • Space & Time Magazine 133 |
| “Robert Goddard at Roswell” • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “The Root King’s Winter” • Jessica P. Wick • Enchanted Living/Faerie Magazine, Winter |
| “A Rose Waits” • Adele Gardner • Dreams and Nightmares 113 |
| “The Ruined Library” • Bruce Boston • Asimov’s SF, May/June |
| “The Sacrifices” • Mike Allen • Sycorax 2 |
| “Samsara” • Jason O’Toole • The Scrib Arts Journal, Fall |
| “Seven Reasons to Have Hope for a Better Future. Number Five Will Really Get You!” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February |
| “shoals of Miami” • Greer Woodward • Troutswirl, December 4 |
| “Singing Ghost” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February |
| “The Snow Globe” • Marge Simon • Polu Texni, 8 December |
| “The Solace of the Farther Moon” • Allan Rozinski • Weirdbook Annual 2 |
| “Sphere” • Francis W. Alexander • Scifaikuest XVI:1 |
| “Steampunk Christmas” • David Clink • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Styx” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11 |
| “Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5 |
| “Ten-Card Tarot, Pentacles Wild” • F. J. Bergmann • Eye to the Telescope 32 |
| “Three of Swords, King of Cups” • Ali Trotta • Fireside Fiction, July |
| “To Skeptics” • Mary Soon Lee • Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August |
| “The Unseen” • Fran Wilde • Fireside Fiction, March |
| “Wake Up, Little Stevie” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation) |
| “What You Hear When Your Best Friend Falls for a Supervillain” • Beth Cato • Star*Line 42.1 |
| “when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive |
| “Where Have the Space Heroes Gone?” • Darrell Schweitzer • Amazing Stories 77:1 |
| “The Wishing Clock of Gassytown” • Deborah Wong • Frozen Wavelets 1 |
| “Witch” • Mary Soon Lee • Polu Texni, October 21 |
| “The Wolfman and Space Girl” • Neil Sloboda • Neon 48 |
| Long Poems (49 poems) |
| “Afterlife” • F. J. Bergmann • Shoreline of Infinity 14 |
| “Borrower” • Cislyn Smith • Strange Horizons, July 29 |
| “Bright Record” • John W. Sexton • Polu Texni, April 8 |
| “Cannibal Rex” • Allan Rozinski • Anatomy of Hate, ed. Karen Otto (Alban Lake Publishing) |
| “Childhood Memory from the Old Victorian House on Warner” • Beth Cato • Uncanny 27 |
| “Children of the Trees” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, March 11 |
| “The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 28 |
| “The City That Changed Hands” • Maya Chhabra • Strange Horizons, December 23 |
| “Consumption” • Emma J. Gibbon • Eye to the Telescope 33 |
| “Crop Circles” • Lori R. Lopez • Deep Fried Horror, Mother’s Day Edition |
| “The Daily Freak Show” • Bruce Boston • New Myths 47 |
| “Driven” • Marcie Tentchoff • Outposts of Beyond VII:1 |
| “Eight Simulations for the Missing” • T. D. Walker • Small Waiting Objects (CW Books) |
| “Envoy” • F. J. Bergmann • Polu Texni, October 28 |
| “For My Daughter Who Will Ask for a Seismograph Implant” • T. D. Walker • Small Waiting Objects (CW Books) |
| “Fune-RL” • Emma J. Gibbon • Strange Horizons, 15 July |
| “Green Sky” • Herb Kauderer • Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing) |
| “Heliobacterium daphnephilum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Star*Line 42.3 |
| “If Love is Real, So Are Fairies” • Cynthia So • Uncanny 29 |
| “In The End, Only The Gods” • Christina Sng • Tales Of The Lost Vol. 1, eds. Eugene Johnson & Steve Dillon (Things in the Well) |
| “Inside My Belly” • Alessandro Manzetti • The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing) |
| “Keep My Course True” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 112 |
| “Lines Written by Moonlight at Whitby Abbey” • Clay F. Johnson • Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing) |
| “The Macabre Modern” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P’rea Press) |
| “Maculation” • F. J. Bergmann • Spectral Realms 10 |
| “The making of dragons” • Herb Kauderer • Altered Reality Magazine, January 30 |
| “The Mining Town” • Holly Lyn Walrath • 2019 SFPA Poetry Contest |
| “My Stories Are Hungry” • John C. Mannone • American Diversity Report, April 10 |
| “Nan-e” • Leon Mackenzie • Neon 49 |
| “Nocturnal Embers” • Lori R. Lopez • The Sirens Call 43 |
| “Obsidian” • Fungisayi Sasa • New Myths 46 |
| “Ode to the Artistic Temperament” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 42 |
| “Reincarnation” • John C. Mannone • Abyss & Apex 69 |
| “A Ride through Faerie” • Clay F. Johnson • Enchanted Conversation, September |
| “The Scarecrow’s Lover” • Alexandria Baisden • Abyss & Apex 72 |
| “The Scroll of Thoth” • Frank Coffman • The Coven’s Hornbook and Other Poems (Bold Venture Press) |
| “Scylla and Charybdis” • Wade German • Weird Fiction Review 9 |
| “Sea Witch From the Deep” • Ellen Huang • Apparition Lit 7 |
| “The Storm Witch” • Colleen Anderson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice |
| “Stormbound” • Marsheila Rockwell • Polu Texni, February 11 |
| “Sycophantam astrum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Eye to the Telescope 34 |
| “Tarot Times” • Bruce Boston • Illumen, summer |
| “tetrahedral edifices of a sticky rice realm” • D. A. Xiaolin Spires • Mithila Review, November 20 |
| “Treason” • Shana Ross • Liminality 20 |
| “the undrowned” • Catherine Kyle • Crab Fat Magazine, January |
| “why not?” • Gerri Leen • New Myths 49 |
| “witches we” • Adele Gardner • Bluff & Vine 3 |
| “The Wolf Isn’t The Only One Who Hides in Human Clothes” • Natalie Wang • Corvid Queen, January 5 |
| “The Woman Who Talks to Her Dog at the Beach” • Geoff Inverarity • Geist 113 |
[Thanks to F. J. Bergmann for the story.]
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association announced the winners of its 2019 Poetry Contest on October 15.
This year’s contest offered prizes in three divisions:
Speculative poets from around the world sent contest chair Do Nguyên Mai received 560 entries (99 dwarf-length, 248 short, and 113 long poems) from around the world.
The winners were chosen by Judge Nicole Oquendo.
Dwarf Form winning poem
Dark Matters by Angela Yuriko Smith
Short Form winning poem
The Fox and the Forest by Holly Lyn Walrath
Long Form winning poem
The Mining Town by Holly Lyn Walrath
[Note: I apologize,but WordPress will not reproduce the characters in the contest chair’s first name, so the Latin letters that appear most similar have been substituted.]
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association announced the 2019 Dwarf Stars winner and other top finishers on September 30.
Winner
2nd Place
3rd Place
The award recognizes the best speculative poem of 1–10 lines 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 are also encouraged to submit or suggest eligible poems to the Dwarf Stars editor. This year’s anthology is edited by John C. Mannone. The winner was determined by a vote, with 85 members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association participating.
[Via Locus Online.]
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the winners of the 2019 Elgin Awards for best collections of speculative poetry published in the previous two years. Named after SFPA founder Suzette Haden Elgin, awards are given in two categories: best chapbook and best full-length book.
2019 Elgin Award Results
Full-Length Book Category
Winner: War • Marge Simon & Alessandro Manzetti (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2018)
Second Place: Artifacts • Bruce Boston (Independent Legions, 2018)
Third Place: Witch Wife • Kiki Petrosino (Sarabande Books, 2017)
Chapbook Category
Winner: Glimmerglass Girl • Holly Lyn Walrath (Finishing Line Press, 2018)
Second Place: Built to Serve • G. O. Clark (Alban Lake, 2017)
Third Place: Every Girl Becomes the Wolf • Laura Madeline Wiseman & Andrea Blythe (Finishing Line Press, 2018)
This year’s Elgin Awards had 10 nominees in the chapbook category and 26 nominees in the full-length category.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association was established in 1978 and has an international membership. The 2019 Elgin Chair is Charles Christian, who also has served on the UK Society of Authors’ Poetry & Spoken Word Group committee, is on the British Haiku Society management committee, and for two years was a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel.Worlds: The 12 Rules.
[Via Locus Online.]
(1) HAUNTING VERSES. Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Halloween readings can be listened to at the link.
SFPA’s Halloween Poetry Reading shares our enjoyment of speculative poetry with a broader audience, increases awareness of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and promotes the individual poets who take part. All SFPA members are welcome to submit one audio file per person of themselves reading one of their spooky, haunting, ghoulish, or humorous Halloween or horror poems.
(2) HE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE. Timothy the Talking Cat chooses the nuclear option for an answer to the question “How Come Cats are All the Same Size?” at Camestros Felapton.
….Here I am at the Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire or “CERN” in Geneva. Only here at the pinnacle of modern sub-atomic particle research can scientists determine the minute differences in cat length. To better understand our question I have taken two dogs and placed them within the seventeen mile long Large Hadron Collider. Within this massive apparatus, the two dogs will be accelerated to extraordinarily high speeds until, somewhere close to the Swiss-France border the two dogs will collide resulting in a cascade of elementary dog-particles.
(3) ADDAMS CHOW. The International House of Pancakes is on the movie’s marketing bandwagon — “New! Addams Family Menu”.
(4) OH, WHAT A FINANCIAL WEB WE WEAVE. Anthony D’Alessandro, in the Deadline story “Spider-Man Back In Action As Sony Agrees To Disney Co-Fi For New Movie, Return To MCU: How Spidey’s Web Got Untangled” says that Sony and Disney made a pact whereby Disney puts up a quarter of the cost for the third Tom Holland Spider-Man film and gets a quarter of the profits, returning Spider-Man to the MCU for Spider-Man 3 and one other MCU film.
This is also a big win for Sony here in continuing a series that will likely give it another $1 billion-plus-grossing film along with an 8% distribution fee or higher. Additionally, the deal keeps intact the creative steering of Disney’s Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, who led two of the best and most profitable fan-pleasing pics in the Spidey film canon to $2 billion worldwide.
(5) TWILIGHT BEEB. BBC Radio 4’s documentary You’re Entering Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone is available to listen to at the website for another four weeks.
October 1959, America was deep into the ‘age of unease’ as viewers took their first steps into ‘another dimension, not only of sight & sound but of mind. Their ‘next stop, The Twilight Zone.
…Rod Serling, America’s most famous television playwright, astonished people with his announcement that he was to explore the realms of science fiction and fantasy in a new anthology show. Like Dennis Potter starting up Dr Who. But Serling, an impeccable liberal haunted by war, racial strife & the possibilities of nuclear Armageddon smuggled stories of conscience, doubt and possibility into 5 seasons of a remarkable show that has never died & has been revisited for a fourth time with Jordan Peele as host. In truth, nothing can match a realm of the American weird that Serling made uniquely his own.
In this special Radio 4 Extra documentary Alan Dein hears from Serling’s family, veteran directors Richard Donner & John Frankenheimer, actors Earl Holliman (star of the first ever episode) & Jean Marsh as well as the writers Jonathan Lethem & David Thomson & Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker. 2 Twilight Zone radio episodes accompany the documentary.
(6) JOKER AUDIENCE WARNING. Dell Cameron, in “U.S. Military Issues Warning to Troops About Incel Violence at Joker Screenings [Updated]” at Gizmodo, says the military has issued an warning to troops (which they obtained) saying that screenings of Joker could be attacked by incels and to be careful when attending them.
The U.S. military has warned service members about the potential for a mass shooter at screenings of the Warner Bros. film Joker, which has sparked wide concerns from, among others, the families of those killed during the 2012 mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado.
The U.S. Army confirmed on Tuesday that the warning was widely distributed after social media posts related to extremists classified as “incels,” were uncovered by intelligence officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
(9) FUTURE TENSE. At Slate, the new Future Tense story is Marcy Kelly’s “Double Spiral”. Tagline: “Read a new short story about genetic testing, privacy, and profit.”
She was lucky.
Lucky, and then unlucky, and then lucky again, she thought, guiltily, seeing this child on the subway.
It was obvious, instantly. The shape of his head. The low-set mouth. The boy’s mother turned toward Rada and she looked away, not wanting to be caught staring.
The response essay, “Crossing the Germline” is by Josephine Johnston, an expert on the ethical, legal, and policy implications of biomedical technologies.
…Primarily as a result of our seemingly benign interest in family trees, several U.S. companies have already amassed proprietary databases of DNA from 26 million customers. There are an estimated 15 million samples in Ancestry’s database, while 23andMe says it has tested 10 million customers. Having learned that a minority of traits, such as Huntington’s disease or cystic fibrosis, can be explained by single genetic differences, scientists are now bringing big data approaches to genome sequencing to calculate “polygenic risk scores” quantifying the likelihood that people will develop schizophrenia, graduate from high school, or score highly on IQ tests.
(10) PATREON. WIRED’s article “Jack Conte, Patreon, and the Plight of the Creative Class” by Jonah Weiner, a profile of Patreon creator Jack Conte, includes this interesting statistic —
The most popular musician on Patreon is the extremely online singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer, who has more than 15,000 patrons and doesn’t disclose her earnings.
…By and large, he (Conte) says, Patreon privileges those creators who tend toward higher-frequency output and whose fans regard them as (mistake them for?) dear friends. ‘Amanda Palmer loves her fans and they love her,,’ Conte adds. ‘They actually feel love for her. That’s a particular type of artists. Not every artist wants that vulnerable, close, open relationship with their fans. Like, really tactically: Do you run fan-art contests> Do you respond to comments on Twitter> Do you sell soap–do a weird fun thing with your fans then send them a thing in the mail, thanking them for what they contributed>’ If not, don’t count on making your rent via Patreon.
(11) TODAY’S CONSPIRACY THEORY. Someone who thought it would enhance the paranoid theme of his latest blog post asked why Dan Simmons’ official site today is displaying the message “We’ll be up and running soon” – essentially an “under construction” sign. The blogger wonders, did someone hack it to show displeasure about the author’s Thunberg comments? Maybe the blogger’s lack of research is what should be suspected. The Internet Archive shows this message has been on Simmons’ front page for over a year — https://web.archive.org/web/20180804122809/http://dansimmons.com/.
(12) SKELETON IN THE GARDEN. Yahoo! News learned the truth is out there – in this case, buried under a pile of dirt: “Family dig up Jurassic fossil hidden by ‘god-fearing’ Victorian ancestors for 170 years”.
A man whose Victorian ancestors buried a giant Jurassic fossil because it threatened their religious beliefs has put it on display 170 years later.
Cider brandy maker Julian Temperley knew that a Jurassic period 90 million-year-old ichthyosaurus fossil was buried in the garden at his family’s home in Thorney, Somerset.
But his god-fearing ancestors kept it hidden for years after its discovery in 1850, worried they would be ‘denying God’ by flashing it around.
When recent flooding forced him to dig the stunning relic up for good, Mr Temperley paid £3,000 for it to be cleaned – and he’s now having its image printed on his cider brandy bottles.
(13) FIGURES. Titan Merchandise previewed their DC Hero Titans, which will be showcased in Booth #2142 at New York Comic-Con starting October 3.
(14) MORE UNDERWATER REAL ESTATE. LAist heralds a new attraction in Downtown Los Angeles: “A Childhood Obsession Led To This New Atlantis-Themed DTLA Escape Room”.
There are more than 2,000 escape rooms across the country, with hundreds available here in Los Angeles. One of the most popular homes for escape rooms, Escape Room L.A., opens one of their most ambitious projects to date this weekend: Atlantis.
Escape room designer John Hennessy said that the idea for this room has been brewing for a long time.
…We went to a media preview and tried out the new game. The story begins with an eccentric professor who, like Hennessy, is obsessed with Atlantis. The professor has discovered how to open a portal to Atlantis, with your mission involving a search for the mysterious MacGuffin of the Poseidon Crystal.
You start inside the professor’s office, solving clues to activate his machine and open up the portal. The professor gifts your group with the ability to breathe underwater through a special hand stamp (just go with us here) and four Atlantean pendants.
Note: whenever you start out with an item in an escape room, you’re always going to need to use that item somewhere else. A door opens, and you’re whisked away to Atlantis.
[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, John A Arkansawyer, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson, who found one that was “Just right.”]
Nominations for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association’s Elgin Award have closed and Charles Christian, the 2019 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.
| Chapbooks (10 chapbooks nominated) |
| Built to Serve • G. O. Clark (Alban Lake, 2017) |
| Crossing Paths at Midnight • Alan Katerinsky (CWP Collective Press, 2017) |
| Dark Matters • Russell Jones (Tapsalteerie Press, 2018) |
| Death by Sex Machine • Franny Choi (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017) |
| Dispatches from the Mushroom Kingdom • Noel Pabillo Mariano (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2018) |
| Every Girl Becomes the Wolf • Laura Madeline Wiseman & Andrea Blythe (Finishing Line Press, 2018) |
| Glimmerglass Girl • Holly Lyn Walrath (Finishing Line Press, 2018) |
| Origami Lilies • Joshua Gage (The Poet’s Haven, 2018) |
| Pocket Full of Horror • Herb Kauderer (Written Image Press, 2018) |
| Screaming • John Reinhart (Lion Tamer Press, 2017) |
| Full-length Books (26 books nominated) |
| Absolute Zero • David Lunde (Mayapple Press, 2018) |
| Artifacts • Bruce Boston (Independent Legions, 2018) |
| Bleeding Saffron • David E. Cowen (Weasel Press, 2018) |
| The Bone Joiner • Sandi Leibowitz (Sycorax Press, 2018) |
| Candle & Pins • Jacqueline West (Alban Lake, 2018) |
| The Comfort of Screams • G. O. Clark (Alban Lake, 2018) |
| Cosmovore • Kristi Carter (Aqueduct Press, 2017) |
| Dame Evergreen: And Other Poems of Myth, Magic & Madness • Rebecca Buchanan (Sycorax Press, 2018) |
| Debudaderrah • Robin Wyatt Dunn (John Ott, 2018) |
| The Devil’s Dreamland • Sara Tantlinger (Strangehouse Books, 2018) |
| Entanglement • David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Kendall Evans (Diminuendo Press, 2018) |
| Flying Solo: The Lana Invasion • Herb Kauderer (The Poet’s Haven, 2017) |
| Future Anthropology • Jean-Paul L. Garnier (Space Cowboy Books, 2018) |
| I Am Not Your Final Girl: Poems • Claire C. Holland (Glass Poet Press, 2018) |
| If the Hero of Time Was Black • Ashley Harris (Weasel Press, 2018) |
| Invocabulary • Gemma Files (Aqueduct Press, 2018) |
| No Comet, That Serpent in the Sky Means Noise • Sueyeun Juliette Lee (Kore Press, 2017) |
| The Pastime Machine • Lester Smith (Popcorn Press, 2018) |
| Planet Hunter • Alan Ira Gordon (Alban Lake, 2018) |
| Poetry for the Neon Apocalypse • Jake Tringali (Transcendent Zero Press, 2018) |
| Recalibrating the Future • Herb Kauderer (Diminuendo Press, 2018) |
| Single Bound • Bryan D. Dietrich (Wordfarm Press, 2018) |
| Unmanned • Jessica Rae Bergamino (Noemi Press, 2018) |
| War • Marge Simon & Alessandro Manzetti (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2018) |
| Witch Wife • Kiki Petrosino (Sarabande Books, 2017) |
| The Year of the Witch • Shannon Connor Winward (Sycorax Press, 2018) |