GUESTS OF HONOR
The World Fantasy Convention offers a massive selection of readings,
signings, and panels. To find any of these authors, check out the entire
schedule on their site.
Fictioneer, poet, editrix, and critic Jaymee Goh ran away from academia to fall into publishing as an editor at Tachyon. As the spearhead behind the Debut Authors series, she edited R. B. Lemberg’s Nebula and World Fantasy Award finalist THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES (2020), Kimberly Unger’s NUCLEATION (2020), Elly Bangs’ UNITY (2021), and the World Fantasy finalists World Fantasy Award finalists THE BRUISING OF QILWA (2022) by Naseem Jaminia and BOYS, BEASTS & MEN (2022) by Sam J. Miller. Among the other acclaimed Tachyon titles that Goh oversaw were Mia Tsai’s first novel BITTER MEDICINE (2023), R. B. Lemberg’s first Birdverse novel THE UNBALANCING (2022), Kimberly Unger’s Philip K. Dick Award winner THE EXTRACTIONIST (2022), New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu’s collection THE TANGLEROOT PALACE (2021), and David Ebenbach’s first science fiction novel HOW TO MARS (2021).
Beyond her duties with Tachyon, Goh has edited the anthologies The Omnibus of Doctor Bill Shakes and the Magnificent Ionic Pentatetrameter: A Steampunk’s Shakespeare Anthology (2012 with Matt Delman), The Sea is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia (2015 with Joyce Chng), and The WisCon Chronicles Vol. 11: Trials by Whiteness (2017).
Her numerous acclaimed works of short fiction and critical essays have appeared in Lightspeed, Interfictions, Strange Horizons, STEAMPUNK III: STEAMPUNK REVOLUTION, Tor.com, New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, Recognize Fascism, Project Future Malaysia, Curious Fictions, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers, and many others. Her short story “The Last Cheng Beng Gift” (Lightspeed September 2017) appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 and was read by Levar Burton on Levar Burton Reads. Her contribution to New Suns “The Freedom of the Shifting Sea” was reprinted in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020.
In 2017, Goh finished her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside with the dissertation, Shades of Sepia: Examining Eurocentrism and Whiteness in Relation to Multiculturalism in Steampunk Iconograpy, Fandom, and Culture Industry.
Happy birthday to the amazing Jaymee. May you enjoy all the fancy chocolates you can devour
A former neuroscientist and fiction MFA graduate from the University of Nevada, Reno, Persian-Chicagoan Naseem Jamnia garnered the 2023 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writer and a nomination for Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Their acclaimed THE BRUISING OF QILWA (2022), was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Locus Award. Naseem co-write the academic text Positive Interactions with At-Risk Children (2019 with Mojdeh Bayat) and their work appeared in the Lambda Literary EMERGE anthology (2020), We Made Uranium! And Other True Stories from the University of Chicago’s Extraordinary Scavenger Hunt (2019), The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, The Rumpus, The Writer’s Chronicle, and other venues.
Jamina received fellowships from the 2018 Bitch Media Fellow in Technology, a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction, and a 2022 Otherwise Fellow. They were named the inaugural Samuel R. Delany Fellow from CatStone Books. Jaminia is also the managing editor at Sword & Kettle Press, a tiny independent publishing house of inclusive feminist speculative fiction, and the former managing editor at Sidequest.zone, an independent gaming criticism website.
Everyone at Tachyon wishes the awesome Naseem a happy birthday!
NOVEL
NOVELLA
SHORT FICTION
ANTHOLOGY
COLLECTION
ARTIST
SPECIAL AWARD – PROFESSIONAL
SPECIAL AWARD – NON-PROFESSIONAL
Best Novel
Best Novella
Best Novelette
Best Short Story
Best Series
Best Graphic Story or Comic
Best Related Work
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Best Editor, Short Form
Best Editor, Long Form
Best Professional Artist
Best Semiprozine
Best Fanzine
Best Fancast
Best Fan Writer
Best Fan Artist
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book [Not a Hugo Award]
Astounding Award for Best New Writer [Not a Hugo Award]
*Finalist in their 2nd year of eligibility.
How has access to queer literature/queer stories impacted your life as a queer person and shaped you as a queer writer?
When I was growing up, the closest I saw my gender portrayed in stories was with the “girl disguises herself as a boy to do the thing” trope, a la Mulan and Tamora Pierce’s Alanna books. I had to resort to fanfiction to explore queerness in terms of sexuality (and even then, rarely or never saw a portrayal of someone on the asexual spectrum). Much of my own writing growing up explored these issues inadvertently and vaguely, as I did not know what I was exploring at the time. However, once terms like “nonbinary” or understanding of transness outside a binary entered the public lexicon in the last 10-ish years, the wealth of queer literature we’ve seen explicitly including various identities has made a world of difference, helping me to understand and embrace my own various identities, which has since allowed me to live as my truest self. With this clearer understanding, I’ve taken the lack of what I saw growing up to turn into what I wish I had seen and where I wish we can go in the future. I’m grateful so many queer books exist now for kids and adults alike to explore the multiplicity of queer experiences.
All of the stories are well-written and the whole collection makes a lovely taster for newcomers to this author’s work. While I hadn’t read any of her stories before, I certainly will be in future!
- The writing is beautiful.
- Plenty of moral questions to leave you thinking.
“Are there even Jews on the Moon?” I asked.
“I’m on the Moon, Hava,” Ilana said, sitting across from me in my little Earth living room. “Usually,” she added.
“Well, that’s one.” I drank a sip of my coffee and held the mug in front of my chin sort of defensively. And yet, to be honest, I was already feeling an energy building inside me. An excitement.
Or maybe relief?
“No, really—there are more of us than you would think,” Ilana said. “But that’s not even the point.”
“Jews aren’t the point of asking me to be the Moon Rabbi,” I verified.
Lambda Literary is thrilled to announce Naseem Jamnia and Maya Salameh as the winners of the 2023 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers.
Lambda Literary
Lambda Literary has played a pivotal role in nurturing the development of exceptional new LGBTQ writers through the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, internships, and writing and performance opportunities. Supporting emerging LGBTQ writers is central to our mission: they are the future of LGBTQ literature.
The Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers recognizes LGBTQ-identified writers whose work demonstrates their strong potential for promising careers. The award includes a cash prize of $1,500.
Because this is for Pride, we looked for books that depicted queerness in all its aspects. You’ll find profoundly hopeful work as well as darker themes, but what you won’t find is stories in which being queer means you’re evil, nor any in which it’s a purely doomed and tragic fate. Instead, these are stories that showcase the myriad ways that queerness manifests — the many ways that we have chosen to be.
We don’t — can’t — claim that this is anything like a definitive LGBTQIA+ collection. There’s too much wonderful queer writing out there for anyone to be able to claim that. We’re offering a mix of novels, novellas, and short story collections; we have science fiction, space opera, fantasy, dark fantasy, historical fantasy, and more. We’ve included newer writers and new work, and reintroduced some older stories you may have missed the first time around. In short, we have a bundle that celebrates our many identities and shows off the work of some of the best writers working today.
StoryBundle has always allowed its patrons to donate part of their payment to a related charity, and once again we’re supporting Rainbow Railroad, an NGO helping LGBTQ+ people escape state-sponsored persecution and violence worldwide. Their work is desperately needed, now more than ever, and if you choose, you can designate a portion of the bundle’s price to them at no extra cost to you— a gift that can help save a life. Thank you for joining us to help celebrate Pride and queer voices!
Melissa Scott and Catherine Lundoff, Pride Bundle curators
The world-building in this novella is layered and intricate. The geopolitics and history underlying this world—the history behind the Sassanian refugees’ persecution, and their own past history of empire—are complicated and only slowly explained. The magical system is also intriguing and complex; I particularly liked the way both magical healing and “physicks” (non-magical healing which appears to be based on knowledge of real-world anatomy and biology) co-exist, and the biological details of the “blood-bruising” plague. It is in many of the small domestic details, however, that this world comes to life. A description of an eggplant dish, the act of making tea or heating a bath—in this and other domestic details, the author evokes the feel of a textured, truly lived-in world. Firuz and their struggles feel real; even apart from magic and mystery, the story of one family of refugees trying to survive and build a new home is compelling on its own. And the author has a particular gift for evoking the complexities of family relationships—both the tensions and the love.
It’s a Jumble
