Genre Grapevine for May 2025
A Big "Thank You!!!" Plus Changes to How Genre Grapevine Is Published
I want to thank everyone who reads my Genre Grapevine my genre reporting. Because of your support, I'm a finalist this year for two Hugo Awards: In the category of Best Related Work for the report Chris M. Barkley and I wrote about censorship and exclusion in the 2023 Hugo Awards, and in the category of Best Fan Writer for my overall reporting.
Again, thank you. This couldn't have happened without readers like you.
I'm also implementing some changes to how I publish my regular Genre Grapevine news roundups. In recent years these news roundups have generally been published monthly. But a problem I've run into is that the roundups have grown so big – ranging from 5,000 to 6,000 words or more – that they're difficult to complete on schedule. And that difficulty isn't helped by the burnout I experienced late last year, which I have no desire to fall back into.
Because of this, I'm going to return to how the Genre Grapevine was originally published, with multiple smaller news roundups each month along with special reports as needed. This will allow me to cover genre news in a more timely manner without facing the overwhelming pressure of creating a massive monthly report.
In addition, I'm also spinning off all generative AI news into a new monthly column. Until now, I've woven genAI news into my regular news roundups while also doing special reports on AI such as this one. But I don't think mixing AI-related news with my regular column is sustainable. Simply put, there's too much genAI news these days and the topic is of vital importance and interest to genre fans, writers and artists. If I keep including all this AI news and analysis in my regular columns, the AI coverage will overwhelm the other genre news. I also believe having the AI news and analysis in a separate column will help people to better understand what's going on.
This new Ai column will run as part of my current Genre Grapevine, so if you currently subscribe to my columns and reports you'll automatically receive it.
Look for these small roundups about twice a month, starting in June. My first AI-related column will be out in the next week or so.
New Publisher Releases Issues of Asimov's and Analog, F&SF to Release Next Issue in Summer 2025
In late February I reported that Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine along with Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine were purchased by a new owner, Must Read Magazines.
Since then, more information on the new publishing company has come out. Andrew Liptak wrote an excellent overview of the history of Asimov's, Analog, and F&SF along with information on the purchase and comments from the magazines' editors. Locus also released a very good article with information about the new owners.
As stated in the Locus article,
"Must Read Magazines is financially backed by a small group of genre fiction fans. A major investor and board advisor is Michael Khandelwal, the founder of a writing nonprofit and Virginia's Mars Con toastmaster. Macmillan Learning Ebook consultant and developer Franco A. Alvarado has joined the group as director, design & operations. Leading the executive board is former Curtis Brown literary agent Steven Salpeter, who will manage the distribution, translation, and Film/TV rights for the company, as he does for other companies at his new firm 2 Arms Media."
The Locus report also confirmed that P.L. Stevens is the new publisher for all the magazines. In addition, all the awards run by the magazines – such as the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and The Analog Award for Emerging Black Authors – will continue.
Must Read Magazines has now released the May/June 2025 issues of all these magazines with the exception of F&SF. The magazine mastheads confirm that the new publisher has retained all editorial staff, as was previously announced. But the mastheads and other details in the new issues also contain other interesting information, namely:
Other Penny Press/Dell Magazines staff were also retained, such as Sandy Marlowe who is in charge of circulation services and customer service.
A number of new consultants are listed on the mastheads, focusing on things like art and production, product development, IT, and sales and marketing. The fact that Must Read Magazines is having people focus on marketing the magazines is a very encouraging sign.
All the new issues, including those of the mystery magazines, continue to state they are published bimonthly, the same as before.
Concerns were recently raised by some authors who received revised publication contracts from Must Read Magazines because the contracts included a clause related to merchandising rights that could be taken as also covering performance and film rights.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association reached out to Must Read Magazines about this and later published a report that said authors could have that clause stricken from the contract. As the report stated:
"After conversing with MustRead, Inc., the publisher of those magazines, SFWA is pleased to provide some additional clarification on the issues brought to our attention. To wit, contract clauses regarding performance or merchandising rights should not be included in agreements with the above magazines. If these clauses do appear, authors should negotiate to have them stricken or removed entirely from the agreement, as they are considered either an editorial error or a holdover from an outdated contract. While SFWA cannot and does not provide legal advice, we are suggesting that writers approach these specific agreements this way. SFWA appreciates the clarification from MustRead, Inc., on these clauses."
One question in all this was the status of F&SF. Unlike the other magazines purchased by Must Read Magazines, F&SF has yet to publish a new issue (with the last issue being from summer 2024). In addition, the F&SF website has yet to be updated with the branding info from Must Read Magazines.
I reached out to Steven Salpeter about this and he said the company's first issue of F&SF will be released by the end of summer 2025. He also confirmed F&SF will remain a quarterly publication, following Gordan Van Gelder's announcement of a similar publication schedule last year.
Seattle Worldcon's Attempt to Hold Virtual Business Meetings Could Be Threatened
While the Seattle Worldcon made a bad decision in using ChatGPT to vet potential panelists, this year's Worldcon made a very good call by allowing their annual business meeting to be held virtually prior to the convention. However, if people don't take part, this experiment in openness could be rolled back.
Each year's Worldcon business meeting is where proposed changes are made to the World Science Fiction Society constitution, which governs how Worldcon and the Hugo Awards are run. Changes have to be proposed at one year's Worldcon and ratified during the following year's convention.
This two-step process makes for a very slow process to change anything related to Worldcon or the Hugos. But the business meeting setup also makes it difficult for the Worldcon community to take part in deliberations, with previous in-person meetings being held during the convention and requiring meeting participants to wait long periods of time to voice comments and vote. For example, last year's business meeting during the Glasgow Worldcon ran for nearly 20 hours across four days.
This means if a Worldcon member wants to help determine the convention's future, they must essentially skip large parts of the convention. Because of this the in-person meetings have long limited participation to a tiny percentage of the total Worldcon membership.
That's why I was thrilled when the Seattle Worldcon announced their business meeting would be held virtually before the convention on four different dates in July. I felt this would give more people a chance to make their voices heard and to vote on the future of Worldcon. This is more important than ever after the censorship that took place in the 2023 Hugo Awards revealed governance and oversight issues with both how Worldcon is run and how the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) functions.
Unfortunately, there's a chance these virtual business meetings could be killed. As reported in File770, on May 25 the Seattle Worldcon held a virtual town hall to familiarize people with the system used to run the business meetings and to also answer questions.
As described in the File770 report, during the town hall one participant “challenged the legitimacy of convening a virtual Business Meeting, citing WSFS Constitution.” While Jesi Lipp, the chair of the business meeting, said the committee had the authority to host virtual meetings, Lipp also “indicated their decision would be issued as one of the rulings of the chair at the virtual meeting, and said that the meeting has the procedural ability to challenge a ruling of the chair, and if it votes to overrule the chair there would just be an in-person meeting at Seattle.”
Summary: If the people who attend the virtual business meeting vote to abolish it, we’re immediately back to an in-person meeting this year.
Only 42 people took part in the town hall meeting, with File770 describing them as “Seattle committee division and department heads and staff, the rest identifiable business meeting regulars and a few others.” If similarly low numbers turn out for the business meeting, the vote could easily pass to do away with this experiment in Worldcon openness.
The solution, of course, is for people to take part in the virtual business meeting. The dates in July along with information on taking part are all on the Seattle Worldcon business meeting page. In addition, proposals to amend the WSFS Constitution are being accepted through June 4, with info on how to submit also on the business meeting page.
Worldcon Consultative Vote Deadline is May 31
Also important is taking part in the Seattle Worldcon's consultative vote on two proposed constitutional amendments, both of which received their first approval at last year's Glasgow Worldcon. In order to be enacted, the amendments must also be ratified this year.
As the Seattle Worldcon page about the consultative vote states, "The purpose of the consultative vote is to test whether this type of vote is feasible, in case the practice is someday adopted as a formal part of the WSFS decision-making process. These proposals were chosen because they have clearly generated wide interest among the Worldcon community."
The consultative vote focuses on two proposed amendments, one to revise the Hugo Award's Best Professional Artist and Best Fan Artist categories while the other would abolish the Retro Hugos.
To vote, login to the Seattle Worldcon site then click on the "login to vote" button.
The deadline to vote is tomorrow, May 31.
ConCurrent Seattle, a One-Day Alternative Program to Worldcon, Announced
Mia Tsai announced that she's organizing a "one-day SFFH con intended to be an alternative program to WorldCon.” Called ConCurrent Seattle, the program will be held on Thursday, August 14 at the ACT Theatre in downtown Seattle, which is just across the street from the Seattle Worldcon's main hotel.
According to Tsai, "My vision for ConCurrent was simple: one day of excellent programming; have it be free to attend; run it efficiently; and never use genAI/LLMs. Let me say that again. I and all involved in this convention rebuke genAI and guarantee no genAI usage in any part of this convention. … ConCurrent is not a replacement for WorldCon. One should be able to attend both without judgment. Our community thrives on connection and discovery, and turning away potential congoers runs contrary to that belief."
ConCurrent is fundraising to cover the $5,000 cost of the venue and programming. In the two days since the announcement, ConCurrent has raised just over $2,000. In addition, ConCurrent is seeking volunteers to help with various aspects of the convention.
ConCurrent is somewhat similar to the 2020 CoNZealand Fringe, which ran alongside that year's Worldcon and was a "response to what many community members considered gaps in the official CoNZealand programming." CoNZealand Fringe was a big success, with people attending both it and Worldcon. A year later, CoNZealand Fringe was named a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Work.
Awards and Honors
Voting for the Hugo Awards is open through July 23, with the finalists released last month. Members of this year's Seattle Worldcon can vote by logging into the membership portal and clicking the "Login to vote" button. In addition, the Hugo voting Packet can be downloaded at the same location.
The schedule for the 2025 Nebula Conference has been announced, with the conference taking place June 5 to 8 in Kansas City. The winners of the Nebula Awards will be announced on Saturday, June 7, at the conference (list of finalists here).
Finalists for the 2025 Premios literarios del festival Celsius 232.
Eugen Bacon receives the 2025 Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award.
And So I Roar by Abi Daré won the first annual Climate Fiction Prize.
Table of contents announced for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025.
The Book of Love by Kelly Link won the LA Times Book Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction.
Other News and Info
In March, crowdfunding publisher Unbound went into administration and was purchased by newly-formed Boundless Publishing Group. Now authors have learned they won't receive already owed royalty payments until Boundless "is cash stable." And yes, authors are ticked. Russ Jones is owed £7,000 in book royalties and notes that after the purchase Boundless sold more of his books, adding "Somehow, despite paying almost nothing for a bust company and it's valuable rights, and almost nothing for the stock, and then selling thousands of copies of my books, they still haven't made enough money to pay the author a penny." More threads on what happened from Alex de Campi and Small Robots. Alex de Campi also claims that Unbound's actions triggered "MULTIPLE termination clauses," with de Campi saying authors should consider emailing Boundless and exercising their right to contract termination.
Cemetery Dance is also being accused by authors of not paying royalties. On April 26, Brian W. Matthews posted on the StokerCon Facebook page that "Due to recent information coming to light, Cemetery Dance will not be allowed to hear pitches during StokerCon. The Horror Writers Association stands up for the rights of its members, including the right to receive royalties as contracted, to have their works published as contracted, and to have its members treated with civility and respect. Cemetery Dance appears to be lacking in all of these areas." As Silvia Moreno-Garcia wrote, "I see that Cemetery Dance is trending for being late with royalties and shitty to authors. I was around when Chizine went down in flames for similar reasons and let me remind authors that 1) a legit press does not do you a favor by publishing you 2) a press that is having severe money and systemic issues may in fact be doing you a disservice by trapping you in a situation in which your books are not properly looked after and therefore don't have a chance in hell of succeeding."
As previously reported (see sixth item in this column), Chris M. Barkley never received his Hugo Award statue after winning Best Fan Writer at the Chengdu Worldcon. His award along with many others was shipped to that year’s Hugo administrator, Dave McCarthy. Barkley has now filed a civil suit against McCarthy asking for $3,000 in damages. In their first court appearance, McCarty refused mediation or Barkley's offer to drop the suit if the Hugo statue is returned, saying "I don’t believe that this debt is owed by me, so I don’t see what mediation would do.” McCarty, of course, was the Hugo admin at the heart of the 2023 Hugo Awards censorship scandal, which Barkley and I reported on. I’m not saying that report is why Barkley never received his statue, but it does make you wonder.
The SFWA silent auction is running through June 12. Lots of great stuff to bid on including vintage and signed books, virtual kaffeeklatsches, and career sessions.
Just under two days left in Locus Magazine's annual fundraiser and they are only at 62% of their goal. I donated and urge others to consider pitching in – Locus is a vital source of genre reviews and new coverage.
Opportunities
Only a few more days to enter the Dream Foundry's Emerging Writers and Emerging Artists contests. There is no entry fee and the top prize is $1,500. The deadline is June 2.
The Dream Foundry's Con or Bust program offers direct cash grants to creators or fans of color to assist with travel, food, registration, and other expenses associated with attending industry events. Details>>
Maria Haskins is the new non-fiction editor at Ruadán Books and is "looking for articles on writing, publishing, genre, and adjacent subjects for our 'Thoughts From the Writer's Desk' feature. 10 cents/word for new essays/articles, word count 1000-2000ish." Details>>