Speculative Poetry News

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October 2011

How to Record a Halloween Poem
Deborah Kolodji, with Rick Wilson on Native American desert flute.
Deb Kolodji and Rick Wilson

Poetry Panel at Necronomicon
Elissa Malcohn attended Necronomicon 30 October 21–23. Two of her five panels dealt with poetry.
Necrocomomicon photo
Fellow panelists Jeffrey Breslauer, John S. Tumlin, Rick Wilber, and Johanna M. Bolton. Elissa Malcohn photo.

Spec Po Master's Thesis Receives Award
Mateusz Marecki is a Polish graduate student who wrote his master's thesis on speculative poetry in general and Bruce Boston's poems in particular. He interviewed Bruce as part of
the thesis, which has now received an award from the Polish Association for American Studies for the Best American Studies Master's Thesis written at a Polish university in 2011. A chapter from the thesis will be reprinted in the Polish Journal for American Studies, and an article based on that chapter will appear in the European Journal of American Studies.


June 2011

Boston’s Dark Matters Receives Bram Stoker Award
Bruce Boston’s collection Dark Matters (Bad Moon Books) has received the 2010 Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for Superior Achievement in Poetry. The award, a statuette of a haunted house, was presented at the Bram Stoker Award Banquet in Uniondale, Long Island on June 18. This is Bruce’s fourth Bram Stoker Award for Poetry, preceded by Pitchblende (Dark Regions, 2003), Shades Fantastic (Gromagon, 2006), and The Nightmare Collection (Dark Regions, 2008). SFPA Members Ann K. Schwader and Robin Spriggs were Finalists for the 2010 Bram Stoker Award in Poetry. A list of the winners in all categories can be found at readingwithmo.com/2011/06/2011-bram-stoker-awards-winners.html
2011 Stoker winners photo
Angel Leigh McCoy, Bruce Boston, Rocky Wood, Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Norman Prentiss, Peter Straub, Ellen Datlow, Lisa Morton

Stoker award photo
The Bram Stoker Award

May 2011

Oasis 24
Memorial Day Weekend, Orlando, Florida: "Other Voices, Other Worlds"; Marge Simon, (M), Bruce Boston, John Tumlin, Michael Fosburg, Marina Buryak, and JoSelle Vanderhooft. Lots of fun, and a great audience!. —Marge Simon
World Horror Convention photo
John Tumlin and Marge Simon

Oasis 24 photo
Michael Fosburg, Marina Buryak, and JoSelle Vanderhooft

April 2011

World Horror Convention
The World Horror Convention this year in Austin, TX was a gas, and a few poets
could be found lurking in the shadows there—Sandra Kasturi, Martel Sardina,
Rain Graves, Juan Perez, and others I probably missed. Both Juan Perez and
myself read our poetry, back to back on the schedule, to an small but appreciative audience. The photo by Juan's wife is of me and Juan at the Dark Regions Press table, shamelessly plugging each other's books. —G. O. Clark
World Horror Convention photo
Juan Perez and G. O. Clark


MiniCon
Deb Kolodji reports: Jane Yolen received her Grand Master Award from the SFPA last week at MiniCon in Minneapolis.
Turzillo, Landis, Boston photo
Jane Yolen receiving the 2010 SFPA Grand Master award from Deborah P Kolodji.


March 2011

International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts
Marge Simon reports: We arrived at the ICFA (International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts) in Orlando, FL, on St. Patrick's Day. Connie Willis, one of the GOH's, was en route out the door. She was dressed in green from head to foot. She upbraided us jokingly for not celebrating!

En route to our room, ran into Mike Allen, who'd just finished his reading. It was great to give him a hug as a first-time greeting of friend and colleague. Later, we met up with him for dinner with Mary Turzillo and Geoff Landis and a new acquaintance, poet Mari Ness. Her poem, "Strong As Salt" is in the winter issue of Goblin Fruit.

During the conference, we met friends like Terry Bisson (the other GOH), Owl Goingback, Sheila Williams of Asimov's Magazine (who even gave me a kiss on the cheek, even though she's never yet accepted a poem—LOL!) and others. It was grand hanging with Mary and Geoff again, as always.

I sold two copies of The Mad Hattery to David Hartman for their bookstore, but they were snapped right up. Another friend—a professor from Texas, wanted a copy too—so I sold her my remaining copy. I didn't bring more, thinking that I'd brought enough.

Saturday morning, we had our poetry reading (Judith Kerman, Bruce Boston, Marge Simon, Brian Deitrich, and others, with Dave Lunde moderating.) I think it went over well, though the audience was rather small—about eight or nine folks. Connie Willis was speaking in the next room, so that was to be expected!

An easy drive home. Thank goodness for our new GPS. Oh, and we now own a card for the Marriot hotels which gives us free internet access in our room. Our next purchase just may be a laptop! We also used our new cell phone several times this trip. Came in handy.

Turzillo, Landis, Boston photo
Bruce Boston, Geoffrey Landis and Mary Turzillo at a panel

Allen and Ness photo
Mike Allen and Mari Ness at dinner


STOKER FINAL BALLOT
for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection announced: Ann, Bruce, and Robin are SFPA members.

DARK MATTERS by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books)
WILD HUNT OF THE STARS by Ann K. Schwader (Sam's Dot)
DIARY OF A GENTLEMAN DIABOLIST by Robin Spriggs (Anomalous Books)
VICIOUS ROMANTIC by Wrath James White (Bandersnatch Books)

February 2011

2010 Dwarf Stars Winners Announced
Editor Joshua Gage has named the winners of the 2010 Dwarf Stars Award for the best short-short poetry published in 2009.

First place: Bumbershoot • Howard V. Hendrix • Abyss & Apex, First Quarter 2009.
Second place: The Selkie's Children • Deborah P Kolodji • Goblin Fruit, Winter 2009.
Third place: The Men All Pause • Stephen Wilson • Poet's Espresso, May 2009.

Learn more about the Dwarf Stars Award on our Dwarf Stars page. See a list of all of this year's nominees and purchase a copy of the 2010 Dwarf Stars anthology.
2010 Dwarf Stars winners photo
2010 Dwarf Stars Winners - Stephen Wilson (3rd), Howard Hendrix (1st), and Deborah P Kolodji (2nd). Photo taken at the SFPA reading at the Eaton Conference.


Eaton Science Fiction Conference

SFPA Poetry Reading and open mike.
5 pm Friday February 11, Ho-O-Kan room, Mission Inn, Riverside, CA.
Great news—at our request, the committee decided to make the poetry reading free and open to the public.


January 2011

Speculative Literature Foundation Pledges Support for the Translation Awards

SPECULATIVE LITERATURE FOUNDATION
PO Box 1693
Dubuque, IA 52004-1693

speculativeliterature.org

The Speculative Literature Foundation is proud to help support the
SF&F Translation Awards. These awards are designed to reward the
translation of science fiction, fantasy and related fiction from other
languages into English. They exist to promote the fiction of non
English-speaking authors and to highlight the valuable work done by
translators.

Two awards will be presented: one for long form literature (40,000
words and above) and the other for short forms. The awards will
consist of a trophy and a cash prize. A copy of the trophy and an
equal share of the cash prize will be given to both the author and the
translator.

The SLF is pledging $250 annually to help fund these awards. For more
information on eligibility, nominations, and how to donate, go to:
http://www.sfftawards.org/. Donors are automatically entered into a
drawing to receive prizes, including signed books from Neil Gaiman,
Jeff VanderMeer and Peter Hamilton.

The SF&F Translation Awards are a California non-profit corporation
recognized as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable organization.

The Speculative Literature Foundation is a volunteer-run, non-profit
organization dedicated to promoting the interests of readers, writers,
editors and publishers in the speculative literature community.

"Speculative literature" is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span
the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging
from hard and soft science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to
folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern
mythmakingˆany literature containing a fabulist or speculative
element.


Rhysling Nominations Open
As of 1/1/11; see Nominations page for instructions.

November 2010

CZP/Rannu Fund for Writers of Speculative Literature
rannu.webs.com/entryrules.htm
The Fund, brought to you in collaboration with ChiZine Publications, offers two awards per year of $500 CDN each, one for fiction, one for poetry, granted to two writers of speculative literature (i.e., science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, surrealism, etc.), of any nationality/place of residence, at any stage of their career. The next round of submissions for this award will be accepted between November 15, 2010 and January 15, 2011. The winners will be announced May 15, 2011. Submit up to 5 poems (unpublished work), not to exceed 10 pages, single-spaced. Submit one short story or a novel excerpt (unpublished work) of no more than 7,000 words, double-spaced. If submitting a novel excerpt, include a brief synopsis. All entries in both fiction and poetry MUST be "speculative literature" in content; in other words: science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, alternate history, steampunk, etc. Two Honourable Mentions in each category will win $50.


News Guidelines

We welcome speculative poetry news from SFPA members. Appropriate items for this page include member awards and honors, news of regional member meetings, reports from SF poetry readings and workshops, media recognition of speculative poetry, etc. Photos are welcome, but choose one photo which best represents your news. Photos may be cropped or resized. Please do not send announcements of personal poetry sales. Inclusion is at the sole discretion of the webmaster. With these guidelines in mind, send news to sfpaweb@sfpoetry.com, subject line "sfpa news."

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