Pixel Scroll 11/13/23 Yesterday, Upon A Scroll, I Met A Pixel Who Wasn’t There

(1) MAYBE “COYOTE” ISN’T DEAD YET. “I’m feeling better!”Deadline reports “Coyote vs. Acme: Warner Bros Showing Pic to Amazon, Apple For Acquisition”.

Screenings are being set up this week for streamers Amazon Prime Video, Apple and Netflix to check out and potentially acquire Warner Bros‘ axed Looney Tunes movie Coyote vs. Acme after the studio’s phone ran off the hook the entire weekend from angry filmmakers and talent reps over their third feature film kill after Batgirl and Scoob Holiday Haunt!

The more egregious Hollywood sin with Coyote vs. Acme is that it’s a finished film was intended for a theatrical release, while the other two movies were still in the works.

Of those kicking the tires, even though no deals have been drafted, I hear Amazon is a leading contender given the fact that Courtenay Valenti, the Head of Film, Streaming and Theatrical for Amazon Studios and MGM, was a big champion and linchpin for the movie while she was President of Production and Development at Warner Bros. All of this boils down to Head of Amazon Studios Jen Salke’s signoff, I understand. During the pandemic, Prime Video acquired Sony’s family titles Hotel Transylvania 4 and Cinderella, among other movies. Amazon has been known to take finished films off the table for $100M and turn them into events for Prime Video….

(2) SFPA OFFICER ELECTION RESULTS. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association has tallied the votes and announced that starting January 1, 2024, John Philip Johnson will be SFPA Secretary and Jordan Hirsch will be SFPA Treasurer.

(3) ULTRAMAN ARRIVING IN 2024. “The First Ultraman: Rising Trailer Looks Incredible” says Yahoo!

Ultraman is one of Japan’s biggest superheroes – both figuratively and literally – but outside of Japan the hero’s popularity hasn’t quite hit fever pitch. Netflix’s newest film could change all that, if the first trailer for Ultraman: Rising is anything to go by, as it looks absolutely incredible.

Netflix released the first trailer for the CG animated film Ultraman: Rising last night, as part of its annual Geeked Week celebrations. The trailer shows off a rebooted Ultraman, a gigantic super-powered hero that’s the powered-up form of baseball superstar Ken Sato.

As the story goes, Ken comes back to Japan to take up his duties as the biggest superhero on the planet, promptly defeating a large, dragon-like kaiju. In the trailer, he retrieves a mysterious orb from the monster, only to discover it’s an egg — and it hatches into the child of his greatest foe…

(4) LEARNEDLEAGUE CALENDAR. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Here are LearnedLeague One-Day Special quizzes scheduled for 2024, that relate to SF and fantasy. Some are specifically SFF-related, some are genre-adjacent. I’ll list both.

SFF-related:

  • Spaceballs: The One-Day Special!  Jan 9
  • The Sandman  Jan 10
  • The X-Men   May 8
  • Folk Horror Films  May 13
  • Science Fiction Homeworlds  Jul 20
  • Mars in Popular Culture  Jul 23
  • Studio Ghibli  Jul 23
  • Faerie Tale Theatre  Aug 6
  • Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere  Aug 7
  • Murderbot for Everyone  Aug 21
  • Elemental Masters (probably? Mercedes Lackey has a series with that title, but it could be about something else with a similar name)  Oct 7
  • The Silmarillion   Oct 10 (we’ve had 3 quizzes already about The Lord of the Rings, so now we move on to The Silmarillion)
  • Godzilla  Oct 14
  • Just Audio Horror Pairings  Oct 16
  • Jurassic Park  Oct 17
  • Just Images Portals  Oct 28
  • Romance Novels 3: Super Friendly Monsters  Oct 31
  • Science of Science Fiction 2  Nov 4
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation  Nov 7

Genre-Adjacent:

  • Polyamory  Jan 12
  • Video Game Weaponry  Jan 22
  • Homestuck  Feb 7
  • Year of the Dragon (possibly? not 100% clear what this one is about)  Feb 8
  • Secret Identities  Mar 25
  • DuckTales  Apr 9
  • Nanotechnology  Apr 10
  • Chemicals I Won’t Work With  Apr 13
  • Asteroids  Apr 15
  • Horror Hosts  Apr 15
  • Fictional Religions  May 15 (not clear how this will differ from Fictional Theology)
  • Science Theater  Jul 15
  • Tintin Comics  Jul 18
  • Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy  Oct 10
  • Mercury 7 Astronauts  Nov 7

I’m particularly looking forward to Cosmere, Homeworlds, Murderbot, and Science of SF. (I was part of a 10-way tie for champion of the first “Science of Science Fiction” quiz.)

(5) WHO MAY GIVE YOUNG VIEWERS THE CREEPS? “Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies issues warning to parents ahead of anniversary specials” and The Independent boosts the signal.

Doctor Who’s returning showrunner Russell T Davies has issued a warning to parents about “dark” and “violent” content in the show’s forthcoming episodes.

… Of the three episodes, series opener The Star Beast, which airs on 25 November and centres on a furry creature called a Meep (voiced by Miriam Margolyes), is the most child-friendly, Davies explained.

“It is like a great big Pixar family film, like a bank holiday film – all the family watching, lots of laughs, a funny monster,” he said.

However, the following two episodes will not be appropriate for children, Davies warned. “The second one, Wild Blue Yonder, is darker. Not scary – it’s genuinely weird,” he said.

“We do very scary stuff. Some stuff is quite violent. It’s not for children, it’s about children.”…

(6) LOKI SEASON 2 BOX SCORE. Deadline has the viewership numbers: “’Loki’ Season 2 Finale Pulls In 11.2M Views, +3% From Opener”.

Marvel Studios’ season 2 finale of Loki went out with a blast attracting 11.2M global views over three-days, which is +3% from the season 2 first episode 3-day draw of 10.9M.

Loki‘s season 2 kickoff was the second most-watched season premiere this year on Disney+, behind March’s season 3 premiere of The Mandalorian.

The finale of the Marvel Studios series—which concluded last Thursday—was only behind the season three finale of The Mandalorian, which wrapped up its season in April….

(7) OUROBOROS Q&A. “Ke Huy Quan Discusses Loki Season 2 Finale & His Marvel Entry” at Deadline. Beware spoilers.

DEADLINE: It’s so great to get to talk with you about Loki. You haven’t really been able to talk about your role, due to the actors strike. What have you been waiting to say?

KE HUY QUAN: When I decided to become an actor again, [being part of the MCU] was at the top of my wishlist…They all welcomed me with wide open arms, and I was so happy. I was patiently waiting for the show to come out so we can go and celebrate it and tell the fans. Then, of course, the strike happened. I just want to tell everybody how proud of the show I am. How happy I am with it. And working with Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, the entire Loki family has just been incredible. We made this last year in London. I was there for four months, my wife and I were there. It was one of the best four months of my life. I’ve done a few shows before, and this was the first time where I didn’t want it to end. I was so happy. In fact, I’ll tell you this. We were scheduled for reshoots this February, and I was waiting. My wife and I were looking forward to spending more time in London and with our Loki family. And all of a sudden we were told, ‘Oh, we don’t need any reshoots. It’s all good.’ I was kind of disappointed. I was actually disappointed that we didn’t get to go back because of how much fun we had… So we made history. We make history two times. One is the first series of Marvel getting a second season and the second is the first time a Marvel show didn’t have any reshoots. I’m so proud of that….

(8) MICHAEL BISHOP (1945-2023). Beloved sff author Michael Bishop died November 13, the day following his 78th birthday, after a prolonged stay in hospice care. His daughter made the announcement on Facebook.

…It is with great sadness (and yet relief for my dad) that I post with the news that Daddy breathed his last breath early this morning with my mom by his side. He is at peace and free from pain AND we miss him terribly already….

He made such an immediate and strong impression on the field that he was presented DeepSouthCon’s Phoenix Award for lifetime achievement in 1977, less than a decade after his first work was published.

By the time his career was over, Bishop was a 17-time Nebula finalist, winning Best Novelette for “The Quickening” in 1982 and Best novel for No Enemy But Time in 1983. He was also a 9-time Hugo finalist, though never won.

His versatility was proven by the other awards he received. His short story “The Pile” won a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Unicorn Mountain won the Mythopoeic Award for Best Fantasy in 1989. His poem “For the Lady of a Physicist” won a 1979 Rhysling Award. He was also a four-time Locus Award winner.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 13, 1850 Robert Louis Stevenson. Author of Treasure IslandStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the New Arabian Nights collection of short stories.  Internet Movie Database gives over three hundred productions that have been based off of his works. What are your favorite ones? And I’m not even going to get into the deeps of genre fiction based off just the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll as I know Theodora Goss was making use of that story in one of her series and Simon R. Green had Hydes in his Nightside series. Not to mention Bugs Bunny… (Died 1894.)
  • Born November 13, 1887 A. R. Tilburne. Pulp artist who by 1938 was selling cover illustrations to Short Stories and Weird Tales such as the November 1938 issue of the latter, and in the 1940s he also drew many interior story illustrations for Weird Tales. In 1947 he painted the cover for H. P. Lovecraft’s The Lurking Fear, published by Avon paperback books. (Died 1965.)
  • Born November 13, 1888 Philip Francis Nowlan. He’s best known as the creator of Buck Rogers. While working in Philadelphia, he created and wrote the Buck Rogers comic strip, illustrated by Dick Calkins. Philip Nowlan working for the syndicate John F. Dille Company, later known as the National Newspaper Service syndicate, was contracted to adapt the story into a comic strip. The Buck Rogers strip made its first newspaper appearance on January 7, 1929, but the first appearance of “Anthony Rogers” was actually in Amazing Stories in August of 1928 in the “Armageddon—2419 A. D.” Story there with cover illustration by Frank R. Paul. (Died 1940.)
  • Born November 13, 1945 Pierre Pelot, 78. A French writer who wrote fourteen science fiction novels and seven horror novels including space operas. Only But What If Butterflies Cheat? (its English translation title) is available in English so far. It’s part of the might exist The Child Who Walked on the Sky / But What If Butterflies Cheat? omnibus as I failed to find it anywhere including Amazon and any of the places that resell books online. He was nominated for a dozen Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire Awards winning two. 
  • Born November 13, 1955 Brenda Clough, 68. She was nominated for a Hugo at ConJosé for her “May Be Some Time” novella. I’m very fond of her fantasy Averidan series. Though very much not genre, I recommend her A Most Dangerous Woman, a sequel to The Woman in White by Wilkie Collin. It’s a serial on Realm which you can find at the usual suspects. 
  • Born November 13, 1957 Stephen Baxter, 66. Ok I’m going to confess that the only thing I’ve read that he’s written is the Long Earth series with Terry Pratchett.  I’ve only read the first three but they are quite great SF!  Ok I really, really need your help to figure out what else of his that I should consider reading.  To say he’s been a prolific writer is somewhat of an understatement and he’s gotten a bonnie bunch of awards as well though no Hugos.  It’s worth noting that Baxter’s story “Last Contact” was nominated for a Hugo for best short story at Denvention 3 as were The Time Ships as L.A. Con III, “Moon Six” novellette at BucConeer, “On the Orion Line” novellette  and “The Gravity Mine” short story at the Millennium Philcon, and finally “The Ghost Pit” short story at ConJosé.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Speed Bump checks the shelves of an interesting library.
  • Thatababy has a strange way of getting rid of autumn leaves.
  • Wallace the Brave gives a teacher a novel excuse.
  • Tom Gauld made a design with you in mind.

(11) HORRENDOUS PROBLEMS IN IRON FLAME PRINT BOOKS. Publishers Lunch learned that “Entangled Is Working On A Solution to ‘Iron Flame’ Misprints”.

Entangled Publishing said in a statement that it’s working to correct misprints in the new Rebecca Yarros novel Iron Flame that published on November 7. Entangled reportedly indicated the book sold more than half a million copies on its release day, and some of the copies had irregularities including damaged pages, missing pages, upside down pages, and more, which readers catalogued on TikTok.

In a statement to Variety, the company acknowledged that the misprints “have caused disappointment among those who eagerly awaited this release.” They write, “In keeping with our values of quality and responsibility, we are committed to making this right. We are actively working with our distribution partner to create a solution for those who wish to exchange their copy but are unable to do so at their original retailer. Our printing company is also working to produce the additional copies needed to facilitate this process. Entangled Publishing appreciates the patience and support of our readers as we work to swiftly resolve this issue. More details will be available on our social media platforms in the coming weeks.”

(12) AI COPYRIGHT LAWSUIT NEWS. Publishers Weekly reports“Judge Will Toss Part of Authors’ AI Copyright Lawsuit”.

At a hearing last week, a federal judge said that he will dismiss part of the lawsuit filed by a group of authors including comedian Sarah Silverman that claims Meta’s Llama AI application infringes their copyrights.

According to Reuters, judge Vince Chhabria said the authors’ allegations that text generated by Llama infringes their copyrights simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. “When I make a query of Llama, I’m not asking for a copy of Sarah Silverman’s book—I’m not even asking for an excerpt,” Chhabria observed, noting that, under the authors’ theory, a side-by-side comparison of text generated by the AI application and Silverman’s book would have to show they are similar.

However, the judge said he will not dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the authors will be allowed to amend and refile their claims. Furthermore, a core claim of the suit—that Meta’s use of unauthorized copies to train its AI model is infringing—remains.

The judge’s decision was not unexpected. As PW reported in July, multiple lawyers said that the authors’ copyright claims face long odds in court.

The proposed class action suit before Chhabria was filed on July 7 by the Joseph Saveri Law Firm on behalf of authors Christopher Golden, Richard Kadrey, and comedian Sarah Silverman, just days after the Saveri firm filed a similar suit on behalf of authors against Open AI, with authors Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad as named plaintiffs (though Awad has since withdrawn). A third group of authors represented by another firm (with authors including Michael Chabon, David Henry Hwang, Matthew Klam, Rachel Louise Snyder, and Ayelet Waldman among others) filed a lawsuit in August….

(13) TOY-BASED MOVIE GETTING ANOTHER CHANCE. “‘Masters of the Universe’ Movie Eyes New Home at Amazon” reports Variety.

In “Masters of the Universe,” He-Man’s nemesis is the evil wizard Skeletor. In Hollywood, his greatest threat has been a list of studio partners that have sidelined him from the big screen for nearly two decades. 

The blond barbarian, based on a popular set of Mattel toys, may finally win the day. Amazon MGM Studios is in serious talks to mount a live-action “Masters of the Universe” movie from Adam and Aaron Nee, the writing and directing team behind “The Lost City,” according to multiple insiders. Conversations are taking place with Amazon after Netflix dropped a planned version of the Nee brothers film in July….

(14) TERMINATOR BEGINS AGAIN. Yahoo! says“Terminator is back with a new anime series coming to Netflix”.

Netflix is giving the Terminator franchise the anime treatment in a new series that’s set to hit the streaming platform “soon.” The company dropped the first teaser for Terminator: The Anime Series this weekend during its Geeked Week event. Details so far are scant, but we do know it’ll be produced by Production IG, the Japanese animation studio behind the original Ghost in the Shell movie and spinoff TV series.

Terminator: The Anime Series will take us back to August 1997, when the Skynet AI becomes self-aware and turns against humans. While there is no information on the cast just yet, Variety reports the series will feature entirely new characters….

(15) THESE GHOSTS ARE ON THE CASE. Variety is there when “’Dead Boy Detectives’ Netflix Series Drops First Trailer”.

The “Dead Boy Detectives” series is officially set to air on Netflix after originally being set up at Max.

The show, based on characters created for DC by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner, was originally ordered to series at Max back in April 2022. However, it was reported earlier this year that it would be moving to Netflix due to the fact it did not fit the new direction for Max-DC content being spearheaded by James Gunn and Peter Safran.

The official description for the eight-episode series states, “Do you have a pesky ghost haunting you? Has a demon stolen your core memories? You may want to ring the Dead Boy Detectives. Meet Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), ‘the brains’ and ‘the brawn’ behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts… who solve mysteries….

(16) MOON UNIT. “Rebel Moon Trailer: Part One A Child of Fire Kicks Off Zack Snyder Epic”Variety provides the introduction.

Netflix has debuted an explosive new trailer for Zack Snyder‘s “Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire,” set for a limited one-week theatrical release on Dec. 15 and a wide streaming release on Netflix on Dec. 22.

Snyder’s epic space adventure film stars Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Cleopatra Coleman and Cary Elwes. The story centers on a young woman living on the outskirts of a galaxy who must find a group of warriors to save the galaxy from an invasion from a tyrant. Snyder revealed to Total Film that “Rebel Moon” takes place in the same universe as another Netflix film of his, “Army of the Dead,” though one is set in outer space and the other in apocalyptic Las Vegas….

[Thanks to SF Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, David Goldfarb, Kathy Sullivan, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

2023 SFPA Poetry Contest Winners

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the winners of its 2023 Poetry Contest.

The contest offered prizes in three divisions:

  • Dwarf (poems 1-10 lines [prose poems 0-100 words])
  • Short (11-49 lines [prose poems 101-499 words])
  • Long (50 lines and more [prose poems 500+ words])

This year’s Speculative Poetry Contest judge, Michael Arnzen, selected the winning pieces and honorable mentions from a pool of more than 460 anonymized entries.

LONG CATEGORY

WINNER

  • METAMORFISH – Randall Andrews

Second Place

  • NIGHTMARE IN BLUE – Kurt Newton

Third Place

  • WAKE UNTO DEATH – Lori R. Lopez

SHORT CATEGORY

WINNER

  • ABRAHAM LINCOLN ADDRESSES THE NATION BEFORE HE IS EXECUTED BY INTERSTELLAR INVADERS – Kate Boyes

Second Place

  • EMBRYO WAREHOUSE – Amber Winter and Joshua St. Claire

Third Place

  • A JAR OF CHERRIES – Jay Caselberg

DWARF CATEGORY

WINNER

  • CALCINATION – Colleen Anderson

Second Place

  • WHAT GHOSTS DIDN’T DO – Mary Soon Lee

Third Place

  • OPEN WINDOW – Michael Nickels-Wisdom

HONORABLE MENTIONS. Honorable mentions in the 2023 Speculative Poetry Contest go to poems by fifteen authors which are listed here.

PRIZES. The winners will receive a $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, and $25 Third Prize in each category. Read the nine prizewinning poems (three in each length category) alongside the judge’s comments here.

[Based on a press release.]

2023 Rhysling Award Winners

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 appear in the 2023 Rhysling Anthology which can be purchased here.

SHORT POEMS

First Place

[Tie]

  • “Harold and the Blood-Red Crayon” by Jennifer Crow, Star*Line 45.1
  • “In Stock Images of the Future, Everything is White” by Terese Mason Pierre, Uncanny 46

Second Place

  • “Bitch Moon” by Sarah Grey, Nightmare Magazine 118

Third Place

[Tie]

  • “First Contact” by Lisa Timpf, Eye to the Telescope 44
  • “The Gargoyle Watches the Rains End” by Amelia Gorman, The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)

Short Poem Honorable Mentions

  • “Field Notes from the Anthropocene” by Priya Chand, Nightmare Magazine 116
  • “Near the end, your mother tells you she’s been seeing someone” by Shannon Connor Winward, SFPA Poetry Contest
  • “Dinner Plans with Baba Yaga” by Stephanie M. Wytovich, Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, ed. Lindy Ryan (Black Spot Books)

LONG POEM CATEGORY

First Place

  • “Machine (r)Evolution” by Colleen Anderson, Radon Journal 2

Second Place

  • “The Bone Tree” by Rebecca Buchanan, Not a Princess, but (Yes) There was a Pea, and Other Fairy Tales to Foment Revolution (Jackanapes Press)

Third Place

  • “Igbo Landing II” by Akua Lezli Hope, Black Fire—This Time, ed. Kim McMillon (Aquarius Press)

Long Poem Honorable Mentions

  • “Herbaceous Citadel” by Avra Margariti, The Fairy Tale Magazine, January 4
  • “Living in Rubble” by Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
  • “The Thing About Stars” by Avra Magariti, The Saint of Witches (Weasel Press)

PRESENTING THE SHORT POEM WINNERS

Shy and nocturnal, Jennifer Crow has never been photographed in the wild, but it’s rumored that she lives near a waterfall in western New York. Her work has appeared in a number of print and electronic venues, including Uncanny Magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Wondrous Real and Analog Science Fiction. Curious readers can catch up with her on Bluesky @writerjencrow.bsky.social.

Terese Mason Pierre is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in Uncanny, Star*Line, and Fantasy Magazine, among others. Her poetry has been nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the Aurora Award, and the Ignyte Award. She is one of ten winners of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize, and was named a Writers’ Trust Rising Star. Terese is the co-Editor-in-Chief of Augur Magazine and the author of chapbooks, Surface Area (Anstruther Press, 2019) and Manifest (Gap Riot Press, 2020). Terese lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Sarah Grey’s poetry and short fiction have appeared in LightspeedNightmare, Uncanny, Strange HorizonsFantasy Magazine, and elsewhere. She has degrees in Art History, Medieval Studies, and law, speaks multiple languages poorly, and enjoys world travel and roller skating. She lives in California with her family and an excessive quantity of cats.

Lisa Timpf is a retired HR and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario. Her speculative poetry has appeared in New Myths, Star*Line, Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend, Polar Borealis, and other venues. Her collection of speculative haibun poetry, In Days to Come, is available from Hiraeth Publishing. You can find out more about Lisa’s writing projects at http://lisatimpf.blogspot.com/.

Amelia Gorman spends her free time exploring forests and fostering dogs. Read her fiction in Nightscript 6 and Cellar Door. Read her poetry in Dreams & Nightmares and Vastarien. Her chapbook, the Elgin-winning Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, is available from Interstellar Flight Press. Her microchapbook, The Worm Sonnets (2023), is available from The Quarter Press.

PRESENTING THE LONG POEM WINNERS

Colleen Anderson lives in Vancouver, BC and has a BFA in writing. A multiple award nominee, her work has been widely published in seven countries, in such places as Lucent DreamingHWA Poetry Showcases, and the award-winning Shadow Atlas and Water: Sirens, Selkies & Sea Monsters. “Machine (r)Evolution” is part of Tenebrous Press’s 2023 Brave New Weird. She is author of two poetry collections, I Dreamed a Worldand the just released The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams. She served as a 2023 HWA Poetry Showcase judge and co-taught a poetry workshop through Crystal Lake. 
www.colleenanderson.wordpress.com

Rebecca Buchanan is the editor of the Pagan literary ezine Eternal Haunted Summer and is a regular contributor to ev0ke: witchcraft*paganism*lifestyle. She has published short stories, novelettes, and poems in a wide variety of venues, most speculative in nature. When she is not writing, she is baking chocolate chip cookies and avoiding yard work. A complete list of her publications can be found at Eternal Haunted Summer.

Akua Lezli Hope, a Grand Master of Fantastic Poetry (SFPA), is a paraplegic creator & wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, & wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, adornments & peace. She wrote her first speculative poems in the 6th grade and has been in print since 1974 with nearly 500 poems published. Her collections include Embouchure: Poems on Jazz and Other Musics (Writer’s Digest book award winner), Them Gone, & Otherwheres: Speculative Poetry (2021 Elgin Award winner). A Cave Canem fellow, her honors include the NEA, two NYFA fellowships, Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association award & multiple Best of the Net, Rhysling, Dwarf Star & Pushcart Prize nominations. She won a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts grant to create Afrofuturist, speculative, pastoral poetry. She created the Speculative Sundays Poetry Reading series. She edited the record-breaking sea-themed issue of Eye To The Telescope #42 & NOMBONO: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators, the history-making first of its kind (Sundress Publications, 2021). Her short fiction is included in the ground-breaking speculative anthology Dark Matter, and in the new, celebrated, Africa Risen anthology (Tor 2022,) among others. She founded a paratransit nfp in her small town that needs a vehicle. She exhibits her artwork regularly, practices her soprano saxophone, and dreams of access and freedom in the ancestral land of the Seneca.

[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 Dwarf Stars Winners

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association‘s Dwarf Stars 2023 award winners, as voted by SFPA members, were revealed today by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Miguel O. Mitchell, editors of the 2023 Dwarf Stars Anthology.

The award recognizes the best speculative poem of 1–10 lines (or up to 100 words for prose forms) published in the previous year. It was created to honor excellent scifaiku, tanka, cinquains, and other types of short poems that examine speculative themes which tend to be overshadowed in SFPA’s Rhysling Award competition.

WINNER

(Tie)

  • “Believe the Graves” by Rasha Abdulhadi
  • “In Perpetuity” by Bruce Boston

SECOND PLACE

  • “Excerpt from a Proposal for the New City” by Alyssa Lo

THIRD PLACE

(Tie)

  • “As Slow as Starlight” by Kim Whysall-Hammond
  • “Surviving” by Sumiko Saulson
  • “Trichotillomania” by Warsan Shire

HONORABLE MENTIONS

  • [diameter pi the lake solves for moon] by Kat Lehman
  • “A Vision of the Future” by J. Y. T. Kennedy

2023 Dwarf Stars Finalists

The 2023 Dwarf Stars Anthology contents have been finalized, which constitutes the shortlist for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association‘s Dwarf Stars award. The poems were selected by editors David Kopaska-Merkel and Miguel O. Mitchell, Ph.D.

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.

Brief biographies of the contributing poets are here. A copy of the Dwarf Stars anthology is included with SFPA membership. It is also available for purchase here.

The cover art is by Pamela Gordimer.

SFPA members have until August 31 to vote their favorite short-short poem from the anthology and determine who will receive the Dwarf Stars Award.

Some poems have a title, others are identified by a phrase from their first line placed in brackets:

ANTHOLOGY TABLE OF CONTENTS

(105 poems)

[abducted by aliens now I feel needed] • Ken Slaughter • failed haiku 74
[absentmindedly] • Nick Hoffman • Scifaikuest, February print
AI can’t believe it’s not human • Ken Slaughter • failed haiku 74
[ancient archives] • Helen Ogden • failed haiku 74
Another Day, Another Year • Ann Christine Tabaka • American Diversity Report, 3/20
As Slow as Starlight • Kim Whysall-Hammond • Frozen Wavelets 7
Aurum • Mariel Herbert • The Sirens Call 60
[bedtime story…] • Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta • horror senryu journal, 12/12
Believe the Graves • Rasha Abdulhadi • The Deadlands 16
A Bird in Hand • Shelly Jones • Octavos, 2/21
Bureaucratic • Mahaila Smith • Long Con Magazine, October
Bury Me Under Fallen Stars • Victoria Nations • Autumnal Equinox: Harvest, 9/14
[butterfly effect] • Colleen Anderson • Utopia, June/July
Cancer Surgery on Half a Shell • Mariel Herbert • Carmina Magazine, September
The Changing Face of Fear • Lisa Timpf • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
[charged particles] • Deborah P Kolodji • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
[chill Halloween evening] • xeno-unit (teri santitoro) • Scifaikuest November online
[cocktail hour] • Greg Schwartz • Star*Line 45.4
[a corpse] • Anna Cates • Five Fleas, 10/9
The Cosmologist Dreams of Venus • Aaron Sandberg • Space & Time Magazine 142
The Cover-Up • Randall Andrews • Star*Line 45.4
Curse of the Clock • Joe Haldeman • Asimov’s SF, November/December
Dark Secret Garden • Max Bindi • The Horror Zine, October
Date Night • Melissa Ridley Elmes • Spectral Realms 16
[deep-space mission] • Ngo Binh Anh Khoa • Scifaikuest, May print
[a derecho] • Debbie Strange • Prune Juice 38
[diameter pi the lake solves for moon] • Kat Lehman • Frogpond 45
[discarded pie] • Keith Evetts • horror senryu journal, 10/4
Dreamcaster • Angel Leal • Space & Time Magazine 142
The Dwelling • Lorraine Schein • Space & Time Magazine 141
Earthlings Among Us • Michael McCormick • Star*Line 45.2
Eldritch Mother • Melodie Bolt • Under Her Skin: A Women in Horror Poetry Showcase Vol. 1 (HWA)
Excerpt from a Proposal for the New City • Alyssa Lo • Strange Horizons, 11/14
The Explorers Return • Goran Lowie • Utopia, October/November
Fifth Tongue • Eva Papasoulioti • Silver Blade 53
[finally able] • Matthew Wilson • Dreams and Nightmares 121
Finest particles’ dance • Yuliia Vereta • Star*Line 45.1
For Khione • Shelly Jones • Trouvaille Review, 3/14
[Four-faced doll] • PS Cottier • Antipodean SF 290
Frankenstein • Eavonka Ettinger • Five Fleas, 10/4
The Garden of Night • Andrew White • Spectral Realms 17
[Glastonbury] • Helen Buckingham • Blithe Spirit 32.2
Globular Cluster • F. J. Bergmann • The Space Cadet Science Fiction Review 1
[golem] • Marisca Pichette • Star*Line 45.2
[her leafy blush] • Tyler McIntosh • Scifaikuest, August
Holocene Park: AIs • Denise Dumars • Cajuns in Space
In Perpetuity • Bruce Boston • Analog, July/August
[interstellar flight] • Eva Joan • failed haiku 74
[leafy alien] • Herb Kauderer • Star*Line 45.3
[locking eyes] • Barun Saha • the cherita 5:12
[long after…] • Roberta Beary • Blithe Spirit, 2/22
[long story short] • Richard Magahiz • Five Fleas, 9/21
Masquerade • Rachel Tyle • The Sirens Call 57
Maxime • Meg Smith • The Chamber Magazine, 10/7
mea culpa • Eugen Bacon • African Literature Today 40
[meteor sizzling] • Anna Cates • Five Fleas, 9/20
[midnight the sun moonlighting] • Tim Cremin • tiny words, 7/12
[mission to Titan] • Lisa Timpf • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
[months after his death] • Joseph P. Wechselberger • horror senryu journal, 12/14
[morning newspaper] • Ngo Binh Anh Khoa • Scifaikuest, May print
Most highly honored • Richard Magahiz • Eye to the Telescope 44
[mourning] • Colleen M. Farrelly • failed haiku 74
[multiverse…] • A. J. Wentz • Dreams and Nightmares 122
[mushroom cloud] • Joshua St. Claire • Star*Line 45.4
My Daughter, in Her Silver Sky • Meg Smith • Aphelion, March
[my robot boyfriend] • Jenny Thompson • Scifaikuest, August
Never Was a Princess Girl • Melissa Ridley Elmes • Star*Line 45.1
Night at Ithaca • Federica Santini • Carmina Magazine, September
[no price is too high] • Randall Andrews • Star*Line 45.4
Nor Am I Out of It • Noah Berlatsky • Asses of Parnassus, 12/2
Ode to Harriet • Alicia Hilton • AvantAppal(achia) 12
[parallel worlds] • Ken Slaughter • failed haiku 74
[planetarium] • John Hawkhead • Poetry Pea, September
Questions for the Fallen • Omodero David Oghenekaro • Strange Horizons, 8/1
[rain shadow] • C. R. Harper • Haiku Dialogue, 8/17
[rereading] • Peggy Hale Bilbro • Haiku Dialogue, 2/23
[sawdust protected our torsos] • Richard Magahiz • Five Fleas, 9/23
Shelter • Koji A. Dae • Octavos, 2/21
Shore Leave • James Arthur Anderson • The Fifth Dimension, December
[show me, I said] • Lauren McBride • Dreams and Nightmares 120
[skeleton eyes] • Greer Woodward • Haiku Dialogue, 1/19
[sky memorial] • Akua Lezli Hope • Scifaikuest, February
[snakeskin tote glistens] • Gary W. Davis • Star*Line 45.1
[sometimes a wish] • Anna Cates • Cold Moon Journal, 10/19
[spaceship window…] • Mark Gilbert • Five Fleas, 12/5
[a stack of turtles] • Mahaila Smith • Ribbons, 10/15
[star gazing] • John Hawkhead • tiny words, 4/1
[the sudden chill] • Deborah P Kolodji • failed haiku 74
Sunlight Loves A Crystalline Structure • Robert Frazier • Asimov’s SF, May/June
Surviving • Sumiko Saulson • The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry (Dooky Zines)
Tasty • Greg Fewer • Polar Starlight 7
Tea Dragon • Herb Kauderer • Scifaikuest, August
[termination shock] • Deborah P Kolodji • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
Thanks for Nothing • Randall Andrews • Star*Line 45.2
[thinning] • Akua Lezli Hope • ubu, small absurdist poems 4
Time and Again • Greg Schwartz • Abyss & Apex 82
Time Travel II • Akua Lezli Hope • Star*Line 45.4
Trichotillomania • Warsan Shire • Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (Random House)
[two hearts] • Valentina Ranaldi-Adams • failed haiku 74
[the universe] • Greer Woodward • Star*Line 45.2
Vampire Therapist • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 45.4
A Vision of the Future • J. Y. T. Kennedy • Polar Starlight 5
What Fairy Godmothers Read • Mary Soon Lee • Kaleidotrope, Summer
[wishing this] • Petro C. K. • Haikuniverse, 10/31
[wolf moon…] • Greg Schwartz • Dreams and Nightmares 122

[Thanks to Greg Fewer for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 6/20/23 We Don’t Need No Pixelation, We Just Want Some Scroll Control

(1) SETI CONNECTION TO MISSING SUBMERSIBLE. An international effort has been launched to find a submersible with five people on board that went missing Sunday on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic. According to CNN, a prominent Pakistani father and son are on board the missing sub, which turns out to be of genre interest.

…While the names of those on board have not been released by the authorities, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet have been confirmed to be on board the craft.

The fifth person on board is Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of the company leading the voyage, Ocean Gate, according to a source with knowledge of the mission plan. Ocean Gate did not respond to CNN’s request for comment…

Shahzada Dawood is on the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, an organization whose scientists “are looking for proof – not merely of life elsewhere – but of intelligent beings in other star systems.”

(2) SFWA SILENT AUCTION INCLUDES JAMES E. GUNN COLLECTION. SFWA’s 3rd Silent Auction, which opened yesterday, includes an “Exclusive James E. Gunn collection”.

July 12, 2023, marks the start of James E. Gunn’s centenary. He died December 23, 2020 – one week after finishing his final story, which sold his final day.

Jim was a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, SF Hall of Fame inductee, first (with Jack Williamson) to offer SF courses in academia, former President of SFWA and SFRA, and “Science Fiction’s Dad” to the generations of authors, editors, and educators he mentored. Jim’s devotion to “Saving the world through science fiction” inspired us to reach higher, grow deeper, and become ever-more humane. His tireless dedication to what SF does was the essence of his magic, and why so many called him Dad. Our world is richer because of him.

For auction is a collection of Jim’s works, unread NOS.

Hardcovers of Transcendental, Transformation, and Transgalactic – his only trilogy, and his final books; two Easton Press leather editions: Gift from the Stars (signed first edition), and Kampus; his Hugo-winning illustrated SF history, Alternate Worlds (new, updated edition); volumes 1-4 of his essential anthologies-as-history, The Road to Science Fiction, with teaching guide; hardcovers collections Human Voices and Some Dreams Are Nightmares; new trade paper and early paperback of Jim’s classic collab with Jack Williamson, Star Bridge; hardcover and early paperback of The Dreamers; new trade paper of his best-selling The Listeners, which inspired Carl Sagan to write Contact and others to form SETI; plus a 1983 business card for his (first of its kind) Center for the Study of SF, SFWA Grand Masters trading card, and Transcendental bookmark.

Donated by the Ad Astra Institute for Science Fiction and the Speculative Imagination, spiritual successor of Jim’s original Center, run by his protégés Chris McKitterick and Kij Johnson.

(3) TRIVIA CONNECTIONS. [Item by Nickpheas.] Given the regular notes of Jeopardy! questions, here’s one from the long running BBC radio 4 show Round Britain Quiz.

Q8 (from Nigel Choyce)  Which of these is the leader and how many are missing: A cosmetic company that might come calling; a Victorian actress who travelled in the Tardis; a school of Buddhism emphasising the value of meditation; the Baker Street detective aided by a Tinker?

The question can be heard at about 22.30 through the episode.

(4) READ BAEN MEMORIAL AWARD STORY. Brad Zeiger’s 2023 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award winning story “The Insomniac” is now available as a free read on the Baen Books website.

(5) “I KNOW.” NO, YOU DON’T. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie devote episode 30 of the Science Fiction 101 podcast to “The Secrets George Lucas Kept From Leigh Brackett”.

Phil and Colin dig into “Star Wars Sequel”, the unfilmed 1978 script by science fiction legend Leigh Brackett which became Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. We look at what made it into the finished film and what got junked, and consider whether Star Wars creator George Lucas was keeping his screenwriter in the dark!

If you’ve never read Brackett’s script, you can find two versions of it online. There’s a PDF scan of the original typescript, which shows all of her hand-corrections and notes – fascinating for its details, if you can make them out. Or there’s this transcript, which is a lot easier to read but loses some of the fun.

For a fascinating, in-depth discussion of how “Star Wars Sequel” developed into The Empire Strikes Back, sit back and watch this interview with screenwriter Larry Kasdan, who wrote the final draft of the film’s script.

(6) FATHOMING COPYRIGHT WHERE AI IS INVOLVED. Michael Capobianco has a post about “Copyright, Contracts, and AI-Generated Material” at Writer Beware.

On March 16, 2023, the United States Copyright Office issued a publication: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence. The full text can be found here.

The Copyright Office’s Guidance does not have the force of law and will change as the situation evolves, especially as legal precedents are created under US law, but, as of the time of this post, it is effectively the policy in force in the United States.

The main takeaway from the Guidance can be summarized thus: the only parts of a work that are copyrightable are the human-contributed ones, and the work is not copyrightable if an AI technology determines the expressive elements of the work and the creativity is not the product of human authorship. In cases where there are both AI-generated and human-authored elements, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of ” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material…..

(7) U.F.O.S SOUND LIKE A N.I.C.E. IDEA. Ross Douthat tells New York Times readers that “This C.S. Lewis Novel Helps Explain the Weirdness of 2023”.

Recently I reread C.S. Lewis’s 1945 novel, “That Hideous Strength,” the last book in his Space Trilogy, and since I wrote about aliens last weekend it seems like a good week to talk a little bit about the novel’s contemporary relevance….

…The story introduces a near-future Britain falling under the sway of a scientistic technocracy, the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), which looks like the World State from Huxley’s “Brave New World” in embryo. But as one of the characters is drawn closer to N.I.C.E.’s inner ring, he discovers that the most powerful technocrats are supernaturalists, endeavoring to raise the dead, to contact dark supernatural entities and even to revive a slumbering Merlin to aid them in their plans.

I’ll say no more about the plot mechanics except to observe that they boldly operate in the risky zone between the sublime and the ridiculous. But just from that sketch I’ll draw out a couple of points about the book’s interest for our own times.

First, the idea that technological ambition and occult magic can have a closer-than-expected relationship feels quite relevant to the strange era we’ve entered recently — where Silicon Valley rationalists are turning “postrationalist,” where hallucinogen-mediated spiritual experiences are being touted as self-care for the cognoscenti, where U.F.O. sightings and alien encounters are back on the cultural menu, where people talk about innovations in A.I. the way they might talk about a golem or a djinn.

The idea that deep in the core of, say, some important digital-age enterprise there might be a group of people trying to commune with the spirit world doesn’t seem particularly fanciful at this point. (For a small example of what I mean, just read this 2021 account of life inside one of the stranger tech-associated research institutes.) Although like some of the characters in “That Hideous Strength,” these spiritualists would probably be telling themselves that they’re just doing high-level science, maybe puncturing an alternate dimension or unlocking the hidden potential of the human mind.

Then, too, the book’s totalitarian dystopia is interesting for being incomplete, contested and plagued by inner rivalries and contradictions. Unlike in “Brave New World” and “1984,” we don’t see a one-party regime holding absolute sway; in Lewis’s story, we see a still-disguised tyranny taking shape but still falling prey to various all-too-human problems, blunders and failures that contrast with the smooth dominance of Orwell’s O’Brien or Huxley’s Mustapha Mond….

The novel’s emphasis on the limitations of any attempted secret government, finally, connects specifically to our peculiar U.F.O. discourse, where we suddenly have a government whistle-blower claiming knowledge of a 90-year conspiracy and, apparently, a chorus of anonymous sources encouraging belief.

I wrote a Twitter thread after my column, explaining why even independent of the likelihood of alien visitors or interdimensional encounters, I find it hard to imagine the kind of long conspiracy depicted by the whistle-blower: The secrets involved would be too big not to tempt would-be heroes of disclosure, the breadth of infrastructure would be too hard to hide, the political complexity and turmoil of the world would create too many opportunities for revelations (because you would need China, Russia and other powers to be in on it as well) and so on.

If there were an alien cover-up, though, I would imagine it would look more like the secrets held by N.I.C.E. in “That Hideous Strength.” …

(8) TAX-EXEMPT AT LAST. The Science Fiction Poetry Association informed members today that they have received the official confirmation from the IRS of SFPA’s 501(c)(3) status, which secures the organization’s federal tax exempt standing.

(9) RUSHDIE’S LATEST HONOR. Winner of “The 2023 German Book Trade’s Peace Prize: Salman Rushdie” reports Publishing Perspectives.

The board of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade has announced today (June 19) that Salman Rushdie is the winner of this year’s honor, “for his indomitable spirit, for his affirmation of life, and for enriching our world with his love of storytelling.”

…As is this award’s tradition, the honor will be conferred in a ceremony on the closing day of Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 18 to 22), at the Paulskirche, a program to be broadcast live on German public television (SDF) at 11 a.m. The award carries a purse of €25,000 (US$27,302).

(10) MICHAEL A. BANKS (1951-2023). Writer and editor Michael A. Banks (Alan Gould), a longtime member of the Cincinnati Fantasy Group, died June 19 of cancer. He was 72.

In the SF field, he is perhaps best known for nonfiction works about the genre (including Understanding Science Fiction, 1980) and his collaborations with Mack Reynolds. His first published story was “Lost and Found” (1978) with George Wagner. Banks wrote several novels to his credit, including The Odysseus Solution, with Dean R. Lambe. He also worked as an acquisitions editor for publishers, including Baen Books and Harlequin. He wrote dozens of nonfiction books.

(11) MEMORY LANE.

2016 [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

So the Beginning this Scroll is from Claudia Casper’s The Mercy Journals

She’s a Canadian writer who’s  best known for The Reconstruction, about a woman who constructs a life-sized model of the hominid Lucy for a museum. 

And now for our Beginning…

On October 15, 2072, two Moleskine journals were found wrapped in shredded plastic inside a yellow dry box in a clearing on the east coast of Vancouver Island near Desolation Sound. They were watermarked, mildewed, and ragged but legible, though the script was wildly erratic. Human remains of an adult male were unearthed nearby along with a shovel and a 9mm pistol. Also found with the human remains were those of a cougar. The journals are reproduced in their entirety here, with only minor copy-editing changes for ease of reading.

March 9, 2047 | My name is Allen Levy Quincy. Age 58. Born May 6, 1989. Resident of Canton Number 3, formerly Seattle, Administrative Department of Cascadia. This document, which may replace any will and testament I have made in the past, is the only intentional act of memory I have committed since the year 2029. I do not write because I am ill or because I leave much behind. I own a hot plate, three goldfish, my mobile, my Callebaut light, my Beretta M9, the furniture in this apartment, and a small library of eleven books.

March 10 | I sit at my kitchenette island in this quasi-medieval, wired-by-ration, post nation-state world, my Beretta on my left, bottle of R & R whiskey on my right, speaking to the transcription program on my mobile. 

I was sober for so long. Eighteen years. I was sober through what seems to have been the worst of the die-off. Three and a half to four billion people, dead of starvation, thirst, illness, and war, all because of a change in the weather. The military called it a “threat multiplier.

You break it, you own it—the old shopkeeper’s rule. We broke our planet, so now we owned it, but the manual was only half written and way too complicated for anyone to understand. The winds, the floods, the droughts, the fires, the rising oceans, food shortages, new viruses, tanking economies, shrinking resources, wars, genocide—each problem spawned a hundred new ones. We finally managed to get an international agreement with stringent carbon emissions rules and a coordinated plan to implement carbon capture technologies, but right from the beginning the technologies either weren’t effective enough or caused new problems, each of which led to a network of others. Within a year, the signatories to the agreement, already under intense economic and political pressure, were disputing who was following the rules, who wasn’t, and who had the ultimate authority to determine non-compliance and enforcement.

Despite disagreements, the international body made headway controlling the big things—coal generators, fossil fuel extraction, airplane emissions, reforestation, ocean acidification—but the small things got away from them—plankton, bacteria, viruses, soil nutrients, minute bio-chemical processes in the food chain. Banks and insurance companies failed almost daily, countries went bankrupt, treaties and trade agreements broke down, refugees flooded borders, war and genocide increased. Violent conflict broke out inside borders, yet most military forces refused to kill civilians. Nation-states collapsed almost as fast as species became extinct. Eventually the international agreement on climate change collapsed completely, and the superpowers retreated behind their borders and bunkered down. The situation was way past ten fingers, eleven holes; it was the chaos that ensues after people miss three meals and realize there’s no promise of a meal in the future.

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 20, 1947 Candy Clark, 76. Mary Lou in The Man Who Fell to Earth which of course featured Bowie. She also was in Amityville 3-DStephen King’s Cat’s Eye and The Blob in the role of Francine Hewitt. That’s the remake obviously, not the original. Oh, and she’s Buffy’s mom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Wiki being Wiki lists that as non-canon which makes absolutely no sense, does it? 
  • Born June 20, 1951 Tress MacNeille, 72. Voice artist extraordinaire. Favorite roles? Dot Warner on The Animaniacs, herself as the angry anchorwoman in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Babs Bunny on Tiny Toons and Hello Nurse on Pinky and The Brain
  • Born June 20, 1952 John Goodman, 71. Some may know him as the TV husband of a certain obnoxious comedienne but I’ve never watched that show. So I picture him as Fred Flintstone in The Flintstones, a role perfect for him. Mind you he’s had a lot of genre roles: voicing James P. “Sulley” Sullivan in the Monsters franchise, a cop in the diner in C.H.U.D., and he’ll even be the voice of Spike in the Tom and Jerry due out two years hence. And he’s in Argo, which is a thriller, but one in which the development of a fake sf movie is crucial.
  • Born June 20, 1956 Ed Lynskey, 67. Mainly a mystery writer with five series comprising forty novels underway but he has written one genre novel, The Quetzal Motel, a handful of genre short fiction (uncollected) that appeared in Full Unit Hookup, Aoife’s KissMaelstrom, and Three-Lobed Burning Eyed (fascinating titles, eh?) and somewhat more genre poetry.
  • Born June 20, 1967 Nicole Kidman, 56. Batman Forever was her first foray into the genre but she has done a number of genre films down the years: Practical MagicThe Stepford WivesBewitched (I liked it), The Invasion (never heard of it), The Golden Compass (not nearly as good as the novel was), Paddington, and as Queen Atlanna in the rather good Aquaman
  • Born June 20, 1968 Robert Rodriguez, 55. I’ll single out the vastly different Sin City and Spy Kids franchises as his best work, though the From Dusk till Dawn has considerable charms as well. ISFDB notes that he’s written two novels with Chris Roberson riffing off his The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D film, The Day Dreamer and Return to Planet Droll

(13) COMICS SECTION.

  • Bizarro has a (bizarre, of course) police lineup.

(14) STAN LEE WILL RING THE BELL. An animated Stan Lee will ring the opening bell of the NYSE on June 26. The event will stream live on Kartoon Channel. “Genius Brands Moves to NYSE, Renames as Kartoon Studios” at Animation World Network.

Genius Brands International, Inc. announced a name change to Kartoon Studios and plans to transfer its listing from the Nasdaq Capital Market (Nasdaq) to the NYSE American exchange (NYSE American). Under its new name, the company expects to start trading on the NYSE American exchange when markets open on Monday, June 26, 2023. That day the company’s common stock will begin trading under a new trading symbol, “TOON,” and a new CUSIP number, 37229T 509. It will continue to trade on Nasdaq under its current trading symbol, “GNUS” until the close of market on Friday, June 23, 2023.

An animated Stan Lee will ring the opening bell of the NYSE on June 26, an indication of the company’s plans to expand on its Stan Lee IP under its new moniker. The event will stream live on Kartoon Channel!

The company controls the post-Marvel IP of Stan Lee, which was initially brought to market with a 20-year license to Marvel and the Walt Disney Company, and brand initiative commemorating Stan’s 100th anniversary at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023….

(15) THE PICTURES MOVE, THE CAR DOESN’T. Smithsonian Magazine brings us “The History of the Drive-In Movie Theater”.

On June 6, 2008 the flag flying over the U.S. Capitol commemorated the 75th birthday of a distinctive slice of Americana: the drive-in movie theater.

It was on that day in 1933 that Richard Hollingshead opened the first theater for the auto-bound in Camden, N.J. People paid 25 cents per car as well as per person to see the British comedy Wives Beware under the stars.

…He first conceived the drive-in as the answer to a problem. “His mother was—how shall I say it?—rather large for indoor theater seats,” said Jim Kopp of the United Drive-in Theatre Owners Association. “So he stuck her in a car and put a 1928 projector on the hood of the car, and tied two sheets to trees in his yard.”…

(16) UKRAINE/STAR WARS AGAIN. [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] Continuing the Star Wars spotting in the war: check out the chest patch General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, is sporting here:

Tolkien and Star Wars, over and over in this war.

(17) NO AIR THERE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] It may be that the red dwarf star has blown away the closely orbiting planet’s atmosphere. See open access pre-print Zieba, S. et al (2023)  “No thick carbon dioxide atmosphere on the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c”, Nature.

Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a second world in a seven-planet system lacks an atmosphere.

For the second time, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has looked for and failed to find a thick atmosphere on an exoplanet in on one of the most exciting planetary systems known. Astronomers report1 today that there is probably no tantalising atmosphere on the planet TRAPPIST-1 c, just as they reported months ago for its neighbour TRAPPIST-1 b.

SF2 Concatenation previously reported on the innermost planet not having an atmosphere.

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Not strictly TV as it was never broadcast but here’s Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who in a corporate film circa 1981. There’s a surprising … err … twist at the end.”

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Jason Sanford, Nickpheas, Susan de Guardiola, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ken Richards.]

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 SFPA Poetry Contest Opens

The 2023 SFPA Speculative Poetry Contest is taking entries starting today through August 31. The contest is open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes will be awarded for best unpublished poem in three categories:

  • Dwarf (poems 1–10 lines [prose poems 0–100 words])
  • Short (11–49 lines [prose poems 101–499 words])
  • Long (50 lines and more [prose 500 words and up])

Line count does not include title or stanza breaks. All sub-genres of speculative poetry are allowed in any form.

Prizes in each category (Dwarf, Short, Long) will be $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, $25 Third Prize. Publication on the SFPA website for first through third places. There is an entry fee of $3 per poem.

The contest judge is Michael Arnzen, who holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University since 1999, and has work forthcoming in Weird Tales, Writing Poetry in the Dark and more. He also is a past Secretary/Treasurer of the SFPA. 

The contest chair is R. Thursday (they/them), a writer, educator, historian, and all-around nerd. They placed second in the 2021 Rhysling Award for Short Poems, and the 2022 Bacopa Formal Verse Contest. Their work has been published in Vulture Bones, The Poet’s Haven, Crow and Quill, Eye to the Telescope, Sheepshead Review, Luna Station Quarterly, Book of Matches, and many other fine journals.

Entries are read blind. Unpublished poems only. Author retains rights, except that first through third place winners will be published on the SPFA website. Full guidelines here.

[Based on a press release.]

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