Voting continues through January 31 as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Five candidates are under consideration: F. J. Bergmann, G.O. Clark, Terry A. Garey, Deborah P Kolodji, and Geoffrey Landis.
F. J. BERGMANN
F. J. Bergmann‘s speculative poetry has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s SF, Dreams and Nightmares, Spectral Realms, Weird Tales, and many other magazines. She has won SFPA’s Rhysling Award in both long and short categories, the Elgin award for best chapbook (2x), and the SFPA Poetry Contest in the dwarf, short and long categories. Her poetry has won the Rannu Award for Speculative Poetry, the Gold Line Press poetry chapbook contest, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets contests, the Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, the Mary Roberts Rinehart National Poetry Award, and many others, and has received 14 Pushcart Prize nominations. F. J. was also the editor of Star*Line (2012–2017 and 2020–2021) and co-editor of The 2022 Rhysling Anthology. Her speculative chapbooks include Shelf Life (Space Cowboy Books, 2023), A Catalogue of the Further Suns (Gold Line Press, 2017) and Out of the Black Forest (Centennial Press, 2012).
G.O. CLARK
G. O. Clark‘s writing has been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, Talebones Magazine, Strange Horizons, Dreams & Nightmares, Space & Time, A Sea Of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock, Midnight Under The Bigtop, The Best Of Lovecraftiana (GB) and many other speculative publications over the past 30 years. He’s the author of fifteen poetry collections, including “Tombstone: Selected Horror Poems” (2022), Weird House Press, and, Easy Travel To The Stars, (2020), Alban Lake Publishing. His reviews of SF and Horror poetry collections appeared in Star*Line from 1997 – 2013, and, Small Press Review, 2000 – 2003. He won the Asimov’s Readers Award for poetry in 2001, was a 2011 Stoker Award poetry Finalist, and, has been a repeat Rhysling and Stoker Award nominee. He was also an Elgin Award runner up for both chapbook and full-length collections; 2018 and 2020 respectively. SFPA member since 1994. https://goclarkpoet.weebly.com/
TERRY A. GAREY
Terry A. Garey has been writing and editing speculative poetry since the 1980s. Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Aliens and Lovers, Asimov’s, Burning With A Vision, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, Dodeca, Dreams and Nightmares, Lady Poetesses from Hell, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Pandora, Paper Bag Writer, Raw Sacks, Serve it Forth: Cooking with Anne McCaffrey, Star*Line, Tales of the Unanticipated, Uranus, Weird Tales, and Women en Large. She wrote three introductions (as editor or co-editor) to speculative poetry anthologies, Time Gum (1988), Time Frames (1991), and Lady Poetesses from Hell (2012). She edited or co-edited the speculative anthologies Paper Bag Writer (1990) and Raw Sacks (1991). She was Poetry Editor for Tales of the Unanticipated during it’s first years (1986-2002). Of Terry’s four Rhysling nominations, she earned first place in 2013 for her short poem “The Cat Star” and first place in 1997 for her long poem “Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes.” Her poetry is collected in The Cat Star and Other Poems (crumbfairy press, 2022). https://www.joyofwine.net/poetry.htm
DEBORAH P KOLODJI
Deborah P Kolodji is the author of more than 1000 haiku and speculative poems. Her speculative poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Grievous Angel, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Tales of the Unanticipated, Tales of the Talisman, and Dreams and Nightmares, as well as mainstream magazines such as Rattle. Her fantasy scifaiku “Basho After Cinderella (iii)” placed first in the 2013 Dwarf Stars Awards and was collected in Nebula Awards Showcase 2015, and she has won numerous haiku awards. Her early writing included Star Trek inspired poetry for fanzines in the 1970s. Her poetry collections include Tug of a Black Hole (Title IX Press, 2021), Highway of Sleeping Towns (Shabda Press, 2016), Red Planet Dust (2007), Symphony of the Universe (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2006), Unfinished Book (Shadows Ink Publications, 2006), and Seaside Moon (Saki Press, 2004). https://deborahpkolodji.weebly.com/
GEOFFREY LANDIS
Geoffrey Landis has had a significant body of poetry published over the last thirty-plus years, as evinced by his winning the Rhysling award twice, the Asimov’s Reader’s Award for best poem four times, and the Dwarf Stars Award. His poetry has appeared in Asimov’s Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Astropoetica, Electric Velocipede, Goblin Fruit, Kaleidotrope, and Star*Line, among other places, and has been selected for Best of Ohio and the Year’s Best Fantasy volumes.
In addition to writing poetry, he has contributed to the SFPA by editing Eye to the Telescope and co-editing the 2012 Dwarf Stars anthology. He is active in the Cleveland poetry community, and for many years ran the Clevelandpoetics blog, which distributes news and information about poetry in northern Ohio; he has also been active in workshops and readings in the Cleveland area, and participating in the Ohio Poetry Day celebrations. He has published two collections of poetry, Iron Angels in 2009 from Van Zeno, and The Book of Whimsy in 2015 from Night Ballet. http://www.geoffreylandis.com/
To date, the SFPA has conferred eleven Grand Master Awards:
- Akua Lezli Hope (2022)
- Mary Soon Lee (2022)
- Linda D. Addison (2020)
- Ann K. Schwader (2018)
- David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2017)
- Marge Simon (2015)
- Steve Sneyd (2015)
- Jane Yolen (2010)
- Ray Bradbury (2008)
- Robert Frazier (2005)
- Bruce Boston (1999)
[Based on a press release.]