fiction

Speculative fiction and related works eligible for Nebula and Hugo awards in 2021

Posted on November 30, 2021November 30, 2021 by svourvoulias

Yes, it’s that time again.

Many of the Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror writers you and I know and read are posting about the stories and nonfiction (SFF-related) pieces they’ve published that are eligible to be considered for nomination to Nebula and Hugo annual award lists.

Well, I’m no different.

Here are my pieces that are eligible for nomination. If you haven’t read them yet, please hit the links and do so now. If you like them, please consider nominating one or two (or three). 😉

Story: Las Girlfriends Guide to Subversive Eating

Eligible category: Short Story

Publication: Apex Magazine, March 2021

Las Girlfriends is an interactive story, to be read and play with entirely online. It was fun to create, and (I think) fun to read. Set up as if it were a website, you can jump from section to section in whatever order you want. The narrative voice moves between English and Spanish with ease and sass, and the eateries toured while fictional, are grounded in real Philly magic and grit. Bonus: the story has a playlist for you to listen to as you explore.

Interactive stories don’t usually get the love that those printed in digital or analog magazines get, and they often slip the attention of reviewers and “best of” compilers. But they represent changing thinking about how we can tell stories, and the forms by which we do so. I’ve always liked playing with and across forms, and this story is one of the results of that. (For a more conventionally rendered story of mine that nevertheless plays across forms, read “El Cantar of Rising Sun” at Uncanny magazine.)

Apex Magazine took a real risk by publishing this (the print edition of the magazine simply had a link to the online story) and I’d love to see them get some sort of acknowledgment for their daring.

And, did I say the story is fun?

Story: Saint Simon of 9th and Oblivion

Eligible category: Novelette

Publication: Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, September, 2021

My fiction likes to defy genre borders and walls.

“Saint Simon of 9th and Oblivion” is a good example of that. Set in 1890s Philadelphia, it unites elements of urban (albeit historical) fantasy and steampunkish sci fi in an immigrant coming of age story. Race, identity, social constructs and conventions all inform this story which is ostensibly about a young Latina’s interaction with a being who may be a supernatural religious figure, a time-traveler or genuinely an alien. But at it’s heart it a story about family — of origin or of choice — and the expectations, inequities and manifold expressions of love that undergird familial relationships.

Although I’ve linked you here to a pdf of my story specifically, I can’t emphasize enough how great this anthology is, and the excellence of the stories contained within it. Please consider nominating other stories from this anthology as well, and please nominate the anthology itself!

Essay: So, you think your publication is working to advance equity in SFF?

Publication: SFWA Blog, September 2021

So, unlike the other two eligible pieces, I’m not sure if this qualifies for the category, or if in fact the SFWA blog itself would be what you should nominate. That would be great by me since the blog is filled with some really good essays on matters that are important to our sector.

The thing is, even if my essay isn’t individually eligible, you should definitely read it if you haven’t already. SFF publications need to look beyond mere diversity and inclusion efforts if they are serious about advancing equity. This essay looks at a number of internal and submission practices that in actuality shore up the status quo and actively disadvantage those who are outside of the existing power structure.

That’s it for now. Please read as many of your favorite writers’ eligibility posts as you can, read their work and then nominate them and vote for them (if you are eligible).

You’d be surprised how much of a boost it is for an author to be reminded that their work is both read and appreciated — and this is a handy way to do that.

Happy reading!

#ICYMI: Two for your TBR list

Posted on May 21, 2020May 21, 2020 by svourvoulias

Over at Skiffy and Fanty: The Smell of Masa in the Morning (plus a recipe)

Posted on January 20, 2018 by svourvoulias

There is a particular smell to corn that has been soaked in wood ash lye, then washed and hulled and ground into a fine meal.

It is the aroma of freshly made tortillas, of tamales as they steam, of my mother’s huipiles.

Really. No matter how freshly laundered, no matter how many cedar balls or lavender sachets have been thrown in the drawer to keep the moths away, the distinctive hand-woven Guatemalan blouses my mother wore retain the smell of a grain turned more aromatic, more flavorful, more nutritious by the nixtamalation process.

Smell nixtamalizes memory.

Or maybe it is the other way around.

Read the rest of this essay at Skiffy and Fanty.

Author Event: Max Gladstone, Yoon Ha Lee and Sabrina Vourvoulias

Posted on July 2, 2017July 12, 2017 by svourvoulias

Wednesday, 12 July 2017 at 7 PM

Join us for a Pre-Readercon author event with Max Gladstone, Yoon Ha Lee, and Sabrina Vourvoulias.

Events at Readercon start on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start celebrating early.

Event is free and open to the public.

More info here.

Ink makes PM’s “The 11 Best Sci-Fi Novels From the 21st Century You Likely Missed” list

Posted on March 23, 2017March 23, 2017 by svourvoulias

Great doesn’t need to mean old, writes Tiffany Kelly at Popular Mechanics. And (😮 ) my 2012 novel “Ink” opens her list!

“This is an eerily relevant dystopian novel that is a must-read…”

Read the article here.

On the Day of the Dead, join me for a reading at Brooklyn Commons

Posted on October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 by svourvoulias

The NY Review of SF Readings
presents our first
Margot Adler Memorial Reading
with
Terence Taylor (guest curator)
Sabrina Vourvoulias

WHEN:
Tuesday, Nov. 1st
Doors open at 6:30 — event begins at 7

WHERE:
The Brooklyn Commons Cafe
388 Atlantic Avenue (between Hoyt & Bond St.)

Per NYRSF:

November 1st is All Soul’s Day, and an appropriate date to conjure up the first of a pop-up sub-series within the NYRSF Readings: the Margot Adler Memorial Readings.

Before her passing two years ago, Margot had been a speaker and guest host at a number of our readings, particularly if they involved one of her more recently acquired passions, vampire stories. Her interests ranged far and wide, and any of these diverse interests will be the subject(s) of these readings. They might be journalism (she was a producer/host for Pacifica Radio and NPR), Wicca (she was author of Drawing Down the Moon, a book which introduced hundreds of thousands of Americans to neo-Paganism), psychology (she was granddaughter of the eminent psychotherapist Alfred Adler), vampires (she was author of Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side), or anything sf/f (she was a Clarion graduate).

For the inaugural edition of the sub-series, we’re most happy to present two other friends of the NYRSF Readings, a journalist/spec fic writer, and a producer/vampire and spec-fic writer.

Sabrina Vourvoulias is the author of Ink (Crossed Genres, 2012), a novel that draws on her memories of Guatemala’s armed internal conflict, and of the Latinx experience in the United States. Her stories have appeared at Uncanny magazine, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Crossed Genres, and in a number of anthologies, including Latino/a Rising, upcoming in 2017. She is an op-ed columnist at Philadelphia Magazine, City and State PA and The Guardian U.S., and is the Project Editor for the Philadelphia Reporting Collaborative on Prison Reentry. Find Sabrina on the Web at sabrinavourvoulias.com or on Twitter @followthelede.

Terence Taylor is an award-winning children’s television writer whose work has appeared on PBS, Nickelodeon, and Disney, among many other markets. After years of comforting tiny tots with TV, he turned to scaring their parents. Terence is also author of the first two books of his Vampire Testaments trilogy, Bite Marks (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009), and Blood Pressure (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010) and has returned to work on the conclusion of his trilogy, Past Life.

Find Terence on the Web at terencetaylor.com, Twitter @vamptestaments, or walking his neighbor’s black Labrador mix along the banks of the Gowanus Canal and surrounding environs.
The New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series provides performances from some of the best writers in science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc. The series usually takes place the first Tuesday of every month, but maintains flexibility in time and space, so be sure to stay in touch through the mailing list, the Web, and Facebook.
The Cafe has excellent food, a coffee bar, beer and wine. The Jenna freebie table will offer books and goodies, as will the raffle for any who donate.

After the event, please join us as we treat our readers for dinner and drinks at the cafe.

Jim Freund is Producer and Executive Curator of The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings. He has been involved in producing radio programs of and about literary sf/f since 1967. His long-running live radio program, Hour of the Wolf, broadcasts and streams (most) every Wednesday night/Thursday morning from 1:30-3:00 AM. Programs are available by stream for two months after broadcast. An audiobook collection of 15 hours of his interviews, Chatting Science Fiction, is now available for download at iTunes and Audible.com, as well as a 13-CD set from Amazon.com and Downpour.com. In addition, Jim is Podcast Host and Post-Production Editor for the twice-consecutive Hugo Award-winning Lightspeed Magazine.

The Brooklyn Commons Cafe at 388 Atlantic Avenue is an open and collaborative movement building space, only minutes away from the Hoyt-Schermerhorn and Atlantic Avenue subway stops in downtown Brooklyn. The Commons provides resources to the progressive community including affordable office and meeting spaces as well as an event venue that can host anything from parties and benefits to forums, performances, films and workshops. If you are interested in meeting or event space, please contact them at info@thecommonsbrooklyn.org.
LINKS:
http://hourwolf.com/nyrsf
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NYRSF.Readings

Talking about ‘El Cantar of Rising Sun,’ my story at UncannyMagazine

Posted on July 15, 2016July 21, 2016 by svourvoulias

Read the story here, and read the interview here.

Latino/a Rising ToC announced

Posted on February 27, 2016July 21, 2016 by svourvoulias

The Latino/a Rising anthology, which will be released by Wings Press in 2017, has made its table of contents known — and it is magnificent. I am so honored to have a short story included:

Foreword: Matthew David Goodwin

Introduction: Frederick Luis Aldama

Javier Hernandez: “El Muerto: Los Cosmos Azteca”

Kathleen Alcalá: “The Road to Nyer”

Pablo Brescia: “Code 51” (translated by Pablo Brescia with contributions by Matthew David Goodwin)

Pedro Zagitt: “Misinformed” and “Circular Photography” (translated by Nahir Otaño-Gracia)

Sabrina Vourvoulias: “Sin Embargo”

Daína Chaviano: “Accursed Lineage” (translated by Matthew David Goodwin)

ADÁL: Coconauts in Space

Ana Castillo: “Cowboy Medium”

Ernest Hogan: “Flying under the Radar with Paco and Los Freetails”

Junot Díaz: “Monstro”