Author and editor David Kopaska-Merkel, 69, died August 26, 2026.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel was born January 11, 1957 in Charlottesville VA. He attended William & Mary, earned a doctorate in geology, worked for the Geological Survey of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and wrote several articles and books on geology and paleontology. He began writing speculative work in short fiction, starting with his first published story “Mecroniya” (1981), but soon began publishing poetry, beginning with “on the river” (1984) under the name Lawrence Harding and accumulating well over 1,000 published poems. He served as the president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association from 2011 to 2014. In 2017, he was voted a SFPA Grand Master, and in 2025, the association awarded him the President’s Lifetime Service Award. He lived in Birmingham AL.
Several of his works have been recognized with awards, including Rhysling Award winner “The Tin Men” (2005); Rhysling Award nominees “Valley of Years” (2000), “Medusa’s Tale” (2002), “meteor shower” (2002), “Tsunami Child” (2005), and “Rattlebox III” (2009); and Dwarf Stars Award nominee “If She Knew She Was a Ghost” (2017). He was published in Abyss & Apex, Dreams & Nightmares, Eldritch Tales, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Scifaikuest Online, Space & Time, Star*Line, Strange Horizons, and many more. His over 30 collections include underfoot (1991), Elgin Award nominee Edible Zoo (1994), Y2K Survival Kit (1999), The Ruined City (2003), I don’t know what you’re having (2005), Drowning Atlantis (2007), Hasp Deadbolt, Private Eye (2007), Brushfires (2010), The Tin Men (2011) with Kendall Evans, Elgin Award nominee SETI Hits Paydirt (2014), Gods and Monsters (2015), The Ambassador Takes One for the Team (2019), Unwelcome Guests (2024), and Risk Assessment(2025). Some Disassembly Required (2022) won an Elgin Award.
Kopaska-Merkel was also a storied editor. Among his projects, he edited Dreams & Nightmares spanning more than 100 issues over approximately 40 years, beginning in 1986, making the magazine one of the oldest recognized speculative poetry magazines. He edited Star*Line from 1996 to 2002 and a 2020 guest issue of Eye to the Telescope. He edited nine issues of the Rhysling Poetry Awards Anthology, and the 2023 issue of the Dwarf Stars Poetry Award Anthology with Miguel O. Mitchell. He contributed numerous works of non-fiction, primarily to Star*Line, but also to Dreams & Nightmares, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Mindsparks, Scifaikuest, and Xenophilia.
He is survived by his wife, Sheila, and their daughters.
The post David Kopaska-Merkel (1957-2026) appeared first on Locus.
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