'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.