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'tis the season for awards shortlists, so a few congratulations: David C. Kopaska-Merkel's poetry chapbook "SETI Hits Paydirt" has been nominated for an Elgin Award; Lisa M. Bradley's "Una Canción de Keys", from SH a year ago, has been nominated in the Rhysling Long Poem category; and Gwynne Garfinkle's "It's a Universal Picture" is also up for a Rhysling. Meanwhile, Sweet Poison, by Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo, has been nominated for the Elgin and a Stoker Award, and contains the poem "Eolian Conscientia" which is up for a Rhysling. And as previously mentioned, our "State of British SF symposium" from last July is nominated for a BSFA Award, up against Paul Kincaid, Edward James, Jonathan McCalmont and Karen Burnham, all of whom have contributed to SH at some point. Elsewhere on that ballot, congratulations to Octavia Cade, whose "The Mussel Eater" is nominated for Best Short Fiction, and to Nina Allan, whose The Race is up for Best Novel (and also nominated for a Kitschies tentacle shortlist). Then there are the Aurealis Awards, which include Liz Argall's story "Falling Leaves", from Apex Magazine. And congratulations to all the Nebula nominees -- no SH stories on the ballot this year, but a number of past contributors, including Usman T. Malik for "The Vaporisation Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family" (also on the Stoker ballot!), Alyssa Wong for "The Fisher Queen", Sarah Pinsker for "A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide", and Carmen Maria Machado for "The Husband Stitch", which is lovely to see.

After all that, a light month for new books: Cecil Castelluci's Stone in the Sky, a sequel to Tin Star, is out from Macmillan, while Mike Revell's debut novel Stonebird is out from Quercus; it's a middle-grade novel about a boy and his gargoyle.

New stories: The new issue of Unlikely Story is out, co-edited by AC Wise. Two poems translated by Lawrence Schimel were featured at And Other Poems: an excerpt from Care Santos' Dissection, and a poem by Jordi Doce. Susan Jane Bigelow has a new story at Apex, "The Best Little Cleaning Robot in All of Faerie." Carmen Maria Machado's "Descent" is in Nightmare Magazine, as is "The Garden" by Karen Munro. Aidan Doyle's story "Naoko's Dragons" was in Orbit Magazine. This month's Lightspeed includes "And You Shall Know Her By the Trail of Dead" by Brooke Bolander. The February Clarkesworld includes Rich Larson's story, "Meshed"; and Rich also had a story in Beneath Ceaseless Skies at the start of the month, "The King in the Cathedral." And Mythic Delirium showcased stories by two SH alums: "A Shadow on the Sky" by Sunny Moraine, and "Visitation of the Oracle at McKain Street" by Sheree Renée Thomas.

A busy month for new poetry: Deborah P Kolodji is the featured poet in the February 2015 issue of Silver Blade, with an interview as well as some poems. Laura Walton Allen's "Andromeda" is in Tinderbox. AJ Odasso's "Queen of Cups" is at Inkscrawl, and "The Memory Thief", co-written with Dominik Parisien, is in Ideomancer, along with "Six Hundred and Thirteen Commandments" by Bogi Takács. The first issue of Cherry Tree includes Jeannine Gailey's poem, "Pinned." Peg Duthie has two poems in new anthology Toasts. Rachael K. Jones' story "Who Binds and Looses the World with Her Hands" appeared as an audio original at Podcastle. And not quite a poem, but Jessy Randall had a list at McSweeny's.

Non-fiction: Some interesting essays this month. Sabrina Vourvoulias had a piece at Tor.com looking at US Latino/a writers and stories. Abigail Nussbaum and Renay ponder Jupiter Ascending. SL Huang's essay, "Why I Want More Unlikeable Female Characters" appeared at New Statesman. Carmen Maria Machado wrote about Kelly Link's new collection Get in Trouble for the LA Review of Books. Rose Lemberg wrote on the privilege and necessity of writing. Erin Horáková has a chapter on fanfiction as labor and play, and on Britpicking and cultural imperialism, in Play, Performance and Identity: How Institutions Structure Ludic Spaces, from Routledge. And at The Mary Sue, Tom Speelman wrote about Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

 



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.
Current Issue
31 Mar 2025

We are delighted to present to you our second special issue of the year. This one is devoted to ageing and SFF, a theme that is ever-present (including in its absence) in the genre.
Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in her new form, smelling of skin and sweat, she wailed for her pack in a voice that scraped her throat raw.
does the comb understand the vocabulary of hair. Or the not-so-close-pixels of desires even unjoined shape up to become a boat
The birds have flown long ago. But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it.
now, be-barked / I am finally enough
how you gazed on our red land beside me / then how you traveled it, your eyes gone silver
Here, I examine the roles of the crones of the Expanse space in Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath, and Leviathan Falls as leaders and combatants in a fight for freedom that is always to some extent mediated by their reduced physical and mental capacity as older people. I consider how the Expanse foregrounds the value of their long lives and experience as they configure the resistance for their own and future generations’ freedom, as well as their mentorship of younger generations whose inexperience often puts the whole mission in danger.
In the second audio episode of Writing While Disabled, hosts Kristy Anne Cox and Kate Johnston welcome Farah Mendelsohn, acclaimed SFF scholar and conrunner, to talk all things hearing, dyslexia, and more ADHD adjustments, as well as what fandom could and should be doing better for accessibility at conventions, for both volunteers and attendees.
Wednesday: Under the Eye of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda 
Friday: The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon 
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By: Holli Mintzer
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