Qilin Press has established the Linda D. Addison Speculative Poetry Fellowship, an award that,
“supports BIPOC poets developing unpublished and in‑progress speculative poetry collections. The fellowship awards $1000 to one poet whose work demonstrates visionary depth, thematic strength, and artistic growth potential, recognizing the essential leadership of BIPOC poets in shaping contemporary speculative poetry.”
Applications open January 18, 2027, requiring a collection of 10 unpublished speculative poems. The fellowship recipient will be announced late September 2027.
The nominees and honorable mentions have been announced for the Frank R. Paul Awards, which honor “outstanding work in book and magazine cover art.”
Best Book Cover
Pascal Blanche for Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vol. 3 edited by Stephen Kotowych (Ansible)
Lindsey Carr for Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings (Tor)
Tristan Elwell for Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher (47North)
Maurizio Manzieri for The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories edited by Allan Kaster (AudioText)
Kurt Miller for Behind the Veil by John Ringo and Lydia Sherrer (Baen)
Kurt Miller for The Presence Malign by Michael Mersault (Baen)
Kim Myatt for I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang (HarperTeen)
Eleonor Piteira for A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen (Del Rey)
Cynthia Sheppard for Queen Demon by Martha Wells (Tor)
Stephen Youll for The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear (S&S/Saga)
Book Cover Honorable Mentions
Paul Davey for Somadina by Akwaeke Emezi (Knopf)
Jeff Langevin for Sky on Fire by E.K. Johnston (Dutton)
Kurt Miller for Dancing with Destruction edited by Jason Cordova (Baen)
John Picacio for The Invisible Parade by Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio (Brown)
Cynthia Sheppard for Angel Maker by Elizabeth Bear (Sobbing Squonk)
Best Magazine Cover
Gal Barkan for Star*Line Summer ’25
Pascal Blanche for Clarkesworld 3/25
Thomas Elliott for Cosmic Horror Monthly 6/25
Natasa Ilincic for Apex 10/25
Tithi Luadthong for Lightspeed 4/25
Maurizio Manzieri for Asimov’s 7-8/25
Alexandra Petruk for Nightmare 10/25
Alex Rommel for Clarkesworld 1/25
Warmtail for Lightspeed 8/25
Eldar Zakirov for Analog 11-12/25
Magazine Cover Honorable Mentions
Pascal Blanche for Clarkesworld 8/25
Hamish Frater for Clarkesworld 2/25
Tithi Luadthong for Lightspeed 3/25
Tomislav Tikulin for The Dark 1/25
Tomislav Tikulin for The Dark 3/25
Winners will be announced at Philcon 2026, to be held November 20-22, 2026 in Cherry Hill NJ. Winners will receive $500 and a trophy. For more information, see the official Frank R. Paul Award webpage.
The winners of the 2025 Australasian Shadows Awards have been announced. The award is given by the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) for “the finest in horror and dark fiction published by an Australasian within the calendar year.”
Novel
WINNER: Slashed Beauties, A. Rushby (Berkley) amazon / bookshop
Black Soil White Bread, Madeleine D’Este (self-published) amazon / bookshop
The Woman in the Well, Dmetri Kakmi (IFWG) amazon / bookshop
The Obituary, Martin Livings (self-published) amazon
This Stays Between Us, Margaret McGovern (Penguin) amazon
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the winners of its annual prize for poetry. Poems were judged in three categories, listed below.
Dwarf Form (10 or fewer lines):
WINNER: “Unauthorized Territory”, Michael Bailey
Second Place: “Communication Is Important”, F. J. Bergmann
Third Place: “Untitled”, Anna Cates
Honorable Mention: “Disillusioned Tribute”, Joy Donnell
Short Form (10 to 50 lines):
WINNER: “The Wind Always Returns”, Hinse Mutter
Second Place: “The Museum of Anomalous Objects”, F. J. Bergmann
Third Place: “Last Lowcountry Haunt”, Joy Donnell
Honorable Mention: “Cataloguing Lost Souls”, Colleen Anderson
Long Form (50 or more lines):
WINNER: “The Abyss Between One and Two”, Izzy Toy Retke
Second Place: “At the Cosmic Gallery Above Proxima Centauri b: After Dreamworld”, M. Frost
Third Place: “A Backdrop of Black Velvet and Rhinestones”, F. J. Bergmann
Honorable Mentions: “Ten Ways to End the World”, Kathleen Bryson
The winning poems were announced on the SFPA website, along with commentary from contest judge Naomi Simone Borwein. The contest chair was Michael Hessel-Mial.
The SFPA Contest awards unpublished poems from both SFPA members and non-members. Submissions are $3 a poem. Cash prizes are awarded: $150 for first place, $75 for second place and $25 for third place. See the SFPA Contests page for more details and updates.
The winner is “All the Tears from the River Below” by Rida Altaf. Finalists are “Qitmir” by Eman Farhan and “Dreams of Dying and Waking Men” by Shahmeer Mahesar. The honorable mention is “Diesel Raven” by Abdul Kabir Qureshi.
The Salam Award, “a short story award to promote science fiction and related genres of writing in Pakistan,” is an annual prize open to original fiction of 10,000 words or fewer written in English by authors who must be “currently residing in Pakistan, or be of Pakistani birth/descent.” The award is named for Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam.
Judges for this year’s award were Christopher Golden, Robert V.S. Redick, and Karen Joy Fowler. The winner receives Rs 50,000, publication on the Salam Award site, editorial review, and potential publication in a magazine.
The Empire State Center for the Book has announced Lawrence Block and N.K. Jemisin as two of the three writers in 2026 to be inducted into the New York State (NYS) Writers Hall of Fame, along with Kay Thompson (posthumously). The Hall of Fame is presented alongside the NYS Writers Institute, a literary organization that “enhances and celebrates literature, writing, and performance.”
The 2026 Hall of Fame selection committee included Matthew Baker, John Batteiger, Mildred Bernstein, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Paul Grondahl, Ira B. Matetsky Esq., Susan Polos, and Empire State Center for the Book director Rocco Staino.
Block, Jemisin, and Thompson will be celebrated at an induction ceremony on November 17, 2026 in New York NY.
Finalists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. Categories, authors, and books of genre interest include:
Fiction
Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You, Julián Delgado Lopera (Liveright)
Mad Eden, Morgan Thomas (MCD)
Young People’s Literature
Holloway, Elana K. Arnold (Clarion)
When Tomorrow Burns, Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers)
That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic, Keala Kendall (Random House Books for Young Readers)
The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America, Gabriel Duckels & David Levithan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Shook, Julian Randall (Henry Holt BYR)
Translated Literature
The School of Night, Karl Ove Knausgård, tr. Martin Aitken (Penguin)
Centroeuropa, Vicente Luis Mora, tr. Rahul Bery (Bellevue Literary)
Night of a Thousand Hells, Intan Paramaditha, tr. Stephen Epstein & Tiffany Tsao (Europa)
Pure Men, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, tr. Lara Vergnaud (Other)
The judges for the Fiction award are Matt Bell, Caro De Robertis (chair), Danielle King, Akhil Sharma, and Diane Wilson. Judges for the Young People’s Literature award are Edith Campbell, Brandy Colbert (chair), Tricia Ebarvia, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, and Anne Ursu. Judges for the Translated Fiction award are Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Javier García del Moral, John Keene, Christopher Merrill (chair), and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi.
The Poetry and Nonfiction finalists were also announced, and Lifetime Achievement recipients Salman Rushdie and Perri Klass were previously announced. Finalists receive a prize of $1,000, a medal, and a judges’ citation. Winners, who receive $10,000 and a bronze sculpture, will be honored at the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony on November 18, 2026.
For more information, including the complete lists of finalists, see the National Book Foundation website.
“Guardians of the Well” by Rose Strickman (In Another Time 6/25) has been announced as the winner of the 2026 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction. Other finalists include:
“Not a Fish”, Andrew Dykstal (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 6/12/25)
“Half Life”, Stephen Harper (Skull X Bones)
“The Last Mardi Gras”, Raven Jakubowski (DreamForge Anvil 6/1/25)
“The Teleporting Disaster Fairy”, Rati Mehrotra (Uncanny 11-12/25)
“Blackrock”, R.M. Olson (Skull X Bones)
“Billionaire’s Tears”, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (Escape Pod 7/24/25)
“Bag of Holding”, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm (On Spec 10/25)
The award, recognizing “the best original short fiction published by small presses in the previous year,” was presented at Capclave, held October 2-4, 2026 at the Rockville Hilton in Rockville MD. The winner was chosen by members of WSFA. For more, see the WSFA Small Press Award website.
The Ignyte Awards Committee has announced the winners of the 2026 Ignyte Awards, which “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.”
Outstanding Novel: Adult
WINNER: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga) amazon / bookshop
A Song of Legends Lost, M.H. Ayinde (Saga) amazon / bookshop
Winners of the French-language Prix Boréal have been announced.
Best Novel
WINNER (TIE): Du ventre des montagnes, Fanie Demeule (Québec Amérique)
WINNER (TIE): Entre nos mains, Elisabeth Vonarburg (Alire)
Vespérale, Raphaëlle B. Adam & Ariane Gélinas (Alire)
La maison du rang Lynch, Alexie Morin (Le Quartanier)
L’herbe naïve, Esther Rochon (Alire)
Best Short Story
WINNER: “Autres Temps autres mers”, Marie Labrousse (Solaris Spring ’25)
“Ténébrance”, Raphaëlle B. Adam (Territoires enchantés, royaumes ensorcelés)
“Surtout pas Jonathan”, Dave Côté (Vols en dérive)
“Chimère”, Alaine Ducharme (Vols en dérive)
Winners for Best Comic Book, Best Related Work, Visual Art, and Fan Work were also announced. For more information, including the full list of winners, see the announcement or the Congrès Boréal website.
The winners of the 2026 Colorado Book Awards were revealed at a ceremony located in Denver CO on September 26, 2026. Titles and authors of genre interest in categories with winners of genre interest include:
Science Fiction/Fantasy
WINNER: Scorched Skies, E.J. Mellow (Montlake)
Godwaker, Kendra Merritt (Blue Fyre)
Redneck Revenant, David Slayton (Blackstone)
Mystery, Thriller & Horror
WINNER: This is My Body, Lindsay King-Miller (Quirk)
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga)
Young Adult Literature
WINNER: Away, Megan E. Freeman (Aladdin)
Between Tungsten and Gold, Taryn Skipper (Splinter)
For more information, see the Colorado Humanities website.
“We, the Fleet” by Alex T. Singer (Clarkesworld 5/25) is the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction story, presented by the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.
Established in 1987 by James Gunn and the heirs of Theodore Sturgeon, including his partner Jayne Engelhart Tannehill and Sturgeon’s children, the Sturgeon Award is “a memorial to one of the great short-story writers in a field distinguished by its short fiction.” This year’s jurors were Elizabeth Bear, Kelly Link, Sarah Pinsker, Noël Sturgeon, and Taryne Taylor.
The award will be presented in-person at the fifth annual Sturgeon Symposium at the Hall Center for the Humanities in Lawrence KS. The Sturgeon Award ceremony, to be held on October 15, 2026, will feature a reception, opening remarks, presentation of the award, a reading by Singer, and a Q&A session. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Expanding Speculative Horizons.” The Symposium itself is from October 15-16.
For more information, see the Gunn Center’s website.
The longlists for the Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) have been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest in the Prose category include:
The Mystical Mister Kay, Meihan Boey (Epigram)
The Waiting Room, Choo Yi Feng (Epigram)
Sister Snake, Amanda Lee Koe (Ecco)
When They Burned the Butterfly, Wen-yi Lee (Tor)
Be Your Own Bae, Daryl Qilin Yam (Epigram)
Utama, Ng Yi-Sheng (Epigram)
The Prose judges are Kamal Al-Solaylee, Meira Chand (chair), and Audrey Chin. The shortlist is to be announced October 13. The SLP is “a biennial competition open to Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents whose works of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have been published in Singapore or abroad.” Winners receive S$5,000 and a plaque.
For more information, including the complete longlists for each category, see the Singapore Book Council website
The Bookseller has announced the shortlists for the second annual British Audio Awards, also called the Speakies, “a prestigious new awards dedicated to celebrating excellence in audiobooks and audio drama, brought to you by The Bookseller and The Stage.” Categories, titles, and authors of genre interest include:
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Femme Feral, Sam Beckbessinger, narrated by Imogen Church (Bloomsbury Archer)
The Last Starborn Seer, Venetia Constantine, narrated by Maxim Ays & Gaia Wise (Aria)
Ice, Jacek Dukaj, tr. Ursula Phillips, narrated by Mark Elstob (Ad Astra)
There Is No Antimemetics Division, qntm, narrated by Rebecca Calder (Cornerstone)
King of Ravens, Clare Sager, narrated by Kristin Atherton & Ethan Reid (Wayward TxF)
The Red Winter, Cameron Sullivan, narrated by Rory Barnett & Imogen Church (Tor)
Fiction
Look What You Made Me Do, John Lanchester, narrated by Louise Brealey & Genevieve Gaunt (WF Howes)
Nonesuch, Francis Spufford, narrated by Lydia Wilson (Faber)
Crime & Thriller
Murder at the Spirit Lounge, Jess Kidd, narrated by Philippa Dunne (Faber)
Cully & More, Ian Rankin, narrated by James Bryce, Jimmy Chisholm, Sarah Collier, Dominic Cooper, Alec Heggie, Crawford Logan, James MacPherson, Steven McNicoll, Alexander Morton & Billy Riddoch (BBC Audio)
Romance
Bachelorettes, Rosa Rankin-Gee, narrated by Erin Doherty & Georgie Sadler (Audible)
Daggermouth, H.M. Wolfe, narrated by Teddy Hamilton & Angel Pean (Bramble)
Portrait of Clare, Francis Brett Young, narrated by Justin Avoth (Naxos Audiobooks)
Young Adult Books
Everything Not Saved, NMJ Coveney, narrated by George Greenland, Alix Wilton Regan & Jordan Renzo (Fire Hills)
Survival Show, Juno Dawson, narrated by Hannah Berchtold (Gallery YA)
Piper at the Gates of Dusk, Patrick Ness, narrated by Zach Barack & Jordan Renzo (Bolinda Audio)
Shortlists were also announced for Children’s, Non-Fiction, Specialist Non-Fiction, Non-Fiction Memoir, and more. Winners will be honored on November 23, 2026. For the complete shortlists, see the official web page.
The six-title shortlist for the 2026 Booker Prize has been announced, with works and writers of genre interest including The End of Everything byM. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail) and The Disappearers by Marlon James (Riverhead).
Harrison, James, and other shortlisted authors receive £2,500. The winner, to receive £50,000, will be announced November 9, 2026.
For more information, including the complete longlist, see the Booker Prize website.
For previous titles of genre interest listed for the Booker, see past Locuscoverage of the award.
Longlists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. Categories, authors, and books of genre interest include:
Fiction
Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
Red Ants, Kimberly Blaeser (Counterpoint)
Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You, Julián Delgado Lopera (Liveright)
Python’s Kiss, Louise Erdrich (Harper)
The Disappearers, Marlon James (Riverhead)
Passengers, Alexander Maksik (Europa)
The Renovation, Kenan Orhan (Farrar, Straus)
Mad Eden, Morgan Thomas (MCD)
Young People’s Literature
Holloway, Elana K. Arnold (Clarion)
The Celestial Seas, T. A. Chan (Viking Books for Young Readers)
When Tomorrow Burns, Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers)
That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic, Keala Kendall (Random House Books for Young Readers)
The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America, Gabriel Duckels & David Levithan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Shook, Julian Randall (Henry Holt BYR)
Life on the Moon, Matthew Swanson, illustrated by Robbi Behr (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Translated Literature
Now I Surrender, Álvaro Enrigue, tr. Natasha Wimmer (Riverhead)
Eden at Dawn, Karim Kattan, tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman (Restless)
The School of Night, Karl Ove Knausgård, tr. Martin Aitken (Penguin)
Centroeuropa, Vicente Luis Mora, tr. Rahul Bery (Bellevue Literary)
Night of a Thousand Hells, Intan Paramaditha, tr. Stephen Epstein & Tiffany Tsao (Europa)
Pure Men, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, tr. Lara Vergnaud (Other)
The Disappearing Act, Maria Stepanova, tr. Sasha Dugdale (New Directions)
The judges for the Fiction award are Matt Bell, Caro De Robertis (chair), Danielle King, Akhil Sharma, and Diane Wilson. Judges for the Young People’s Literature award are Edith Campbell, Brandy Colbert (chair), Tricia Ebarvia, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, and Anne Ursu. Judges for the Translated Fiction award are Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Javier García del Moral, John Keene, Christopher Merrill (chair), and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi.
The Poetry and Nonfiction longlists were also announced, and Lifetime Achievement recipients Salman Rushdie and Perri Klass were previously announced. Finalists, who receive a prize of $1,000, a medal, and a judges’ citation, will be announced October 6, 2026. Winners, who receive $10,000 and a bronze sculpture, will be honored at the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony on November 18, 2026.
For more information, including the complete longlists, see the National Book Foundation website.
Long derided for putting just about anything on a pizza, California has two pizzerias in the world's top 5, according to the Italian culinary guide "Top 50 Pizza."
The National Book Foundation has announced that it will present Salman Rushdie with the 2026 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL) at this year’s National Book Awards Ceremony on November 18, 2026. Author Kiran Desai will present the award.
The DCAL Medal was created in 1988 “to recognize a lifetime of literary achievement.” Prior recipients of genre interest include Ursula K. Le Guin, Toni Morrison, and Walter Mosley. The recipient receives a solid brass medal, as well as $10,000.
For more information, see the official announcement.
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The winners of the 2025 Australasian Shadows Awards have been 
