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Time for our monthly round-up of some of the things SH contributors have been getting to elsewhere; as ever, if you have something to include in next month's post, let me know.

In the spirit of keeping track of SH alums, although I already mentioned the Nebula Awards ballot once, I should note that in addition to Brit's nomination there's a liberal sprinkling of SH-alums across the ballot -- Saladin Ahmed, Tina Connolly, NK Jemisin, and Mary Robinette Kowal in Best Novel, Jenn Reese in the Norton, and in the short fiction categories Jay Lake, Ken Liu, Meghan McCarron and Robert Reed -- so a bonus congratulations to them. As you might expect, fewer SH-familiar names crop up on the Stoker ballot, but Bruce Boston is nominated in both short fiction and (with Gary William Crawford) in poetry; Marge Simon and Mary A. Turzillo are also nominated for their poetry; and Deborah Coates is nominated for her first novel, Wide Open. Congratulations to all.

Onwards to new stories. Ursula Pflug has a magic realist tale, "The Meaning of Yellow", in the winter issue of Write, the magazine of the Writer's Union of Canada. Daily Science Fiction has "Love's Footsteps" by Cat Rambo and The Mountain by Andrew Kozma, and Carmen Maria Machado's "Real Women Have Bodies" is at Five Chapters. Aliya Whiteley's "Ice Cold, Red Hot" is in the latest Sein Und Werden.John Joseph Adams' new anthology, Oz Reimagined includes work by Theodora Goss and Ken Liu (among others). And a couple of bits of audio: Claire Humphrey's "Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot", originally in these pages, is up at Podcastle, while Samantha Henderson's "Maybe the Stars" is in the February Lovecraft eZine.

What about books? David J Schwartz's new Kindle serial, Gooseberry Bluff College of Magic, is underway; and Marie Brennan's new novel, A Natural History of Dragons, is also out. Lawrence Schimel has a new children's book out in Spanish, La Casa de los Espejos. Mary Alexander Agner is selling a collection of YA lab-lit stories, Olivia & the Experiments (includes, she promises, LEGO action shots). And William Alexander's new one, Ghoulish Song, is so close to being out that I'm including it this month anyway. I'm also going to sneak comics into this paragraph: Cecil Castellucci had an Aquaman and Mera story, "The Lighthouse", in Young Romance #1, plus wrote Green Lantern: The Animated Series #11 ("Spare Parts"), and had a short story, "I Will Return", in Womanthology: Space #5.

So far as poetry goes, the main event is a new issue of Stone Telling, which includes work by Michele Bannister, Lisa M. Bradley, Neile Graham, Mat Joiner, Bogi Takács, an essay by Kari Sperring, a review by Mike Allen, and much else besides. The winter 2013 Goblin Fruit has Sally Rosen Kindred's "Sleeping Beauty Makes Dinner", plus work by Shweta Narayan, Rose Lemberg and others. David Kopaska-Merkel has been busy: you can pick up his sf/fantasy/horror collection Brushfires half-price at Smashwords until Saturday; issue 94 of his 'zine Dreams and Nightmares is out now; and he has a poem, "Out of my Price Range" in the April/May Asimov's. Marge Simon has a new collaborative poetry collection with Sandy DeLuca out from Elektrik Milk Bath Press: Dangerous Dreams. Elizabeth Barrette's An Army of One is an ongoing science fiction saga about neurovariant individuals building their own society in space. Deborah P Kolodji has several haiku, senryu and haibun in "Ants on the Sidewalk", a video montage of urban work set to jazz music.

In a neat segue into essays, FJ Bergmann offers "A Broader View of Science Fiction Poetry" at Amazing Stories, in response to an essay by Paul Cook. Liz Bourke's Sleeps With Monsters column at Tor.com asks whether epic fantasy is, in fact, crushingly conservative. Dan Hartland and Maureen Kincaid Speller offer interesting reviews of The Method by Juli Zeh, and Nic Clarke rounds up her recent reviews for SFX. Lastly, James S Dorr is interviewed at Mystic Nebula.

Last but not least, there's a Kickstarter for Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination (a spin-off from the Machine of Death anthology, reviewed here in 2010). As part of the kickstarter, several of the stories from the anthology have been posted online.



Niall Harrison is an independent critic based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is a former editor of Strange Horizons, and his writing has also appeared in The New York Review of Science FictionFoundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, The Los Angeles Review of Books and others. He has been a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and a Guest of Honor at the 2023 British National Science Fiction Convention. His collection All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays is available from Briardene Books.
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25 Mar 2024

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