#literature awards

[sfsucw]

Firecracker Awards

The CLMP Firecracker Awards for Independently Published Literature are given annually to celebrate books and magazines that make a significant contribution to our literary culture and the publishers that strive to introduce important voices to readers far and wide. Prizes are awarded in the categories of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Magazine/General Excellence, and Magazine/Best Debut. Each year, CLMP also awards the Lord Nose Award, given to a publisher or editor in recognition of a lifetime of work in literary publishing.

Each winner in the books category will receive $2,000–$1,000 for the press and $1,000 for the author or translator–and each winner in the magazine categories will receive $1,000. In addition, a national publicity campaign spotlights and promotes our winning titles each year. In partnership with the American Booksellers Association, promotional materials—including a press release and shelf talkers featuring the winning titles—are distributed to over 750 independent booksellers across the country. Winners are also promoted in CLMP’s newsletters, on our website, and through a dedicated social media campaign.

Submissions to the 2023 Firecracker Awards will be accepted from September 15 to November 15, 2022, at 5 PM ET.

For more info -  https://www.clmp.org/programs-opportunities/firecracker/

[his-heart-hymns]

The last words of Vincent Van Gogh before committing suicide were:

The sadness will last forever.

And nusrat fateh ali khan sang a masterpiece that resonates with these words:

shab-e-gham ki sahar nahi hoti

ho bhi tou mere ghar nahi hoti

zindagi tu hi mukhtasar ho ja

shab-e-gham mukhtasar nahi hoti

The dawn of a night of sorrow does not exist. Even if it does, it's not for me.O life, become concise.. Because a sorrowful night is never short.

[hedgehog-moss]

do you ever read scifi or fantasy in french? i am trying to read more sff that was originally published not in english but it's not easy to find 💀

I do! It’s not my favourite genre but one of my friends loves it so I read a bunch of SFF books every year ahead of her birthday to try and find a gift for her. I’m glad I do this because it’s allowed me to discover N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy which was amazing, and I don’t know if I would have picked it up otherwise!

Here are some French-language authors I’ve read or plan to read (unfortunately English translations are few and far between :( I bolded the names for which I found English translations—if you read in another language you can check out the non-bolded authors, there are often translations available in other languages long before English ones)

When it comes to classics you've got Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes of course; also Garden on the Moon, which is (deservedly imo) less known), Jacques Spitz (La Guerre des mouches—it was translated but not into English), René Barjavel (The Ice People, Ravage, Future Times Three—I read them a long time ago but I remember them as very sexist even by French classic standards), Bernard Lenteric (La nuit des enfants rois), Alain Damasio (La Horde du Contrevent—maybe too recent to be a classic but it’s everywhere. I was surprised to find no English translation!), Bernard Werber (I feel like he rehashes the same 3 ideas again and again but some of his earlier stuff was fun), Alexandre Arnoux (Le règne du bonheur), Jules Verne of course, Stefan Wul (Oms en série which was adapted into the film La Planète sauvage—Fantastic Planet in English. I like the film better!) And some I haven’t read: Georges-Jean Arnaud, Serge Brussolo (I liked his Peggy Sue series when I was in middle school but it spooked me so much I haven’t dared to pick up any of his SFF for adults, like Les semeurs d’abîmes), Élisabeth Vonarburg.

Newer authors: Estelle Faye (L’arpenteuse de rêves, Un éclat de givre—I tend to like her worldbuilding more than her plots); Sandrine Collette (The Forests—if you count speculative fiction as SFF) (I didn’t like it at all personally but others might), Jean-Philippe Jaworski (I really liked Janua Vera; didn't like Gagner la guerre but it was mainly because I have a low tolerance for rape scenes in fantasy books) (he’s about to be translated into English according to his editor), Stéphane Beauverger (Le déchronologue)

More authors I haven't yet read: Pierre Pevel (The Cardinal's Blades—I've been told it's "17th century Paris with dragons"), Romain Lucazeau (Latium), Laurent Genefort (Lum’en), Christian Charrière (La forêt d’Iscambe), Roland Wagner (La saison de la sorcière), Aurélie Wellenstein (Mers Mortes—I love the synopsis for this one), Magali Villeneuve (La dernière Terre, trilogy)

And non-French, non-anglo SFF authors: Maryam Petrosyan (my review of the Gray House last year was that I understood maybe 1/3 of it but I liked it anyway!), Hao Jingfang (haven’t read her yet), Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (idem), Jaroslav Melnik (I’ve read Espace lointain (originally Далекий простір) but didn’t like it much), Andreas Eschbach (The Carpet Makers), Walter Moers (I read The City of Dreaming Books back when I was still learning German and found it very charming), Liu Cixin (I loved The Three-Body Problem but The Dark Forest was so sexist it made me not want to pick up the third volume), Lola Robles (El informe Monteverde, translated as Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist), Elaine Vilar Madruga (Fragmentos de la Tierra Rota), Tatiana Tolstaya (The Slynx), Karin Tidbeck (Amatka), Emmi Itäranta (Memory of Water, The Moonday Letters), Angélica Gorodischer (I’ve read Kalpa Imperial and found it only so-so but it always takes me a while to warm up to characters or a setting so I struggle with short story collections. I’ll still give Trafalgar a try) Also my favourite fantasy book as a kid was Michael Ende’s Neverending Story, I was obsessed with it. I re-read it in the original German a few years ago and it was still great.

[ilaw-at-panitik]

The Finalists of the 41st National Book Awards

The National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle (MCC) announce the finalists of the 41st National Book Awards, an annual prize honoring the most outstanding book titles written, designed, and published in the Philippines.

For this cycle of the National Book Awards, a total of 235 titles were submitted across 34 categories consisting of 7 languages: Filipino, English, Bikol, Binisaya, Hiligaynon, Tausug, and Waray. Following the awarding of winners during the 40th cycle in May 2023, the 41st iteration of the awards is slated to take place in February 2024.

See the full list here.

[greatwyrmgold]

After that last post, I decided to look at the World Science Fiction Society constitution to see what could possibly be the cause for several authors' works being silently deemed ineligible for no stated reason.

Sections covering eligibility for Hugo awards, simplified:

3.2.2: Works aren't eligible if they received a lot of submissions in a previous year. Irrelevant.

3.2.4: Explains how serial works work. Irrelevant.

3.3.5.1: Only affects series with a previous losing finalist in the Best Series category. Irrelevant.

3.4.X: Covers situations where a work can be eligible later than it otherwise would. Irrelevant.

3.8.2: "The Worldcon Committee shall determine the eligibility of nominees and assignment to the proper category of works nominated in more than one category." Possibly applicable, but vague, and not a full answer on its own. The Worldcon Committee would surely need reasons to determine something ineligible, after all!

3.13: Members of the Worldcon committee and works they make are ineligible for Hugo awards. Irrelevant.

So unless Dave McCarty is hiding relevant rules under his chair, the only possible interpretation of blaming the ineligibility of RF Kuang, Paul Weimer, @xiranjayzhao, and that Sandman episode on "reviewing the Constitution and the rules we must follow" is...

"The Worldcon Committee decided they weren't eligible."

Which really just passes the buck one step down the line. Why did the Worldcon Committee decide that they weren't eligible? The four works didn't break the other rules.

[seoafin]

List of some palestinian works that are on my to-read list (both fiction and nonfiction)

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

On Palestine by Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

The Question of Palestine by Edward Said

In the Presence of Absence by Mahmoud Darwish

The Butterfly's Burden by Mahmoud Darwish

Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh

[d3m0l1t10n-lvrs]

☀️🌙 DCA AWARDS BEST MOON AU DESIGN POLL 1🌙☀️

Click here for the post with all the nominations!

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The sixth annual National Book Awards were presented at the Hotel Commodore on January 25, 1955. Three of the winners were (L to R) Joseph Wood Krutch, for The Measure of Man; William Faulkner, for A Fable; and Wallace Stevens, for The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens.

Photo: John Rooney for the AP

[mittenlady]

circe has some of the most beautiful prose i’ve read in a while

[miraluking-respectfully]

man while i'm on my felix kick it fucking sucks that they keep not knowing what the FUCK to do with this character when he's actually very strongly characterized. i went off about this last night but like, underutilized aspect of felix: he's like, a really good leader?? and i'm not talking an uber-inspiring protagonist-type leader like the PC; i'm talking an extremely functional organizer of people that you especially need in a military context. it's kind of hard to clock at first if you're not paying attention, especially because you're introduced to him while he's desperately trying to stave off a mutiny; but considering he's on a shithole iceball with a group of restless 18-to-25-year-old recruits who, as far as they're concerned, are trying to kill an immortal enemy, the fact that only one of them winds up ultimately raising a hand against him is impressive. he boosts morale, he makes good tactical calls on his own while not being too proud to take assistance, he metes out swift discipline without being needlessly punitive. and when the squad splits up, people keep in touch with him!!!

like, felix is extremely good at his job, and that aspect of him kind of deepens the tragedy of his permanent stagnation in rank when you compare him to other soldier comps like Rusk or even early-game Jorgan. i'm not a fan of fictional or real militaries but this character's skillset as an officer has been a repeatedly underutilized resource narratively & it makes me want to eat glass

[kokoch4n3l]

reading my own fic cuz I can't believe I wrote this amazing ass thing 🤭

[beautiful-basque-country]

Yesterday, Basque writer Patxi Zubizarreta was awarded the Spanish National Prize of Young Adult literature. His book Zerria (The big pig, in Basque) is completely written in Euskara and the jury has praised its narrative quality and its "hypnotic descriptions about being human".

Zorionak!!!

[guys-in-distress-database]

The GID Awards: Literature

Our next category is one that never seems to get enough praise: literature.

On one hand, I get why people aren't too hot on literary GID scenes. They're entirely conveyed through description, so there's no visuals. But that in itself is what makes them great in my opinion! Since you rely on your imagination, the scene can be anything you want, the character can look however you envision them. It's the medium most open to personal interpretation and I think that makes it special.

This one was also a tricky choice and I had to hold myself back from going full personal preference. In the end, I have to go with a certifiable classic, even though I didn't grow up reading it like the rest of the community:

The Hardy Boys: While the Clock Ticked

I think anyone even mildly familiar with GID will know this one. It's probably one of the most famous male bondage scenes of all time, cemented by that iconic cover. It is exceedingly rare to find a book that features bondage right on the cover, let alone male bondage, so I can just imagine all the kids seeing this and having their lives changed forever.

While it was not uncommon for Frank and Joe Hardy to be in distress in their books, this one was special because it advertised the distress as the core selling point of the book. That's special and needs to be acknowledged, especially considering this was back in the day when kidnapping your characters was probably the most common conflict present in children's media.

For the writing itself, it's rudimentary, as expected of the genre and time, but conveys the scenario well. I actually like the writing in the scene BEFORE the main one, where they're tied up on a boat. I don't have my copy on-hand, so I can't pull quotes, but there was nice description of how Joe is able to get his gag off. Compared to more modern scenes, it's more forward with the mechanics of the scene, using direct words like "gag" and "tied" instead of resorting to flowery description. While I do like the elaborate description in scenes like Inheritance, it is refreshing to read something very direct.

For its contributions to the community and those covers (hot damn), The Hardy Boys: While the Clock Ticked is my choice for best literary GID scene!

Honourable Mentions

Some novels I considered, but ultimately did not choose for this award:

Inheritance (for vivid description and a great death trap)

Eragon (because nostalgia)

Dune (for description and the bondage scenario being vitally important to the plot)

[the-dust-jacket]

Huge congratulations to all those honored by the 2024 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature!

[sassafrasmoonshine]

Strega Nona (based on an old fairy tale) written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola • 1975 • Prentice Hall, New Jersey, publisher

[lebedame-wegelagerin]

I need you all to know that there is a german Award for Horror-Literature titled the "Vincent-Preis"* and I think that is amazing