By Ian Randal Strock: Sheila Williams (and Tina Lee) hired me to be the editorial assistant at Asimov’s (and Analog) sf magazines, way back when, giving me my first job in science fiction, the one that served as the foundation for everything else I’ve done in publishing. They made me promise to stay at least one year (both of my predecessors had left after less than six months each). I was there for six years, and left only because it looked like neither they nor the editors (Stanley Schmidt and Gardner Dozois) were ever going to leave, retire, or otherwise give me a chance to move up (the editorial staffs for each magazine were the editor, the managing editor, and me, though later on they added another assistant-level position). David was the technical guru in that same small, family-esque office (actually, that’s how Sheila and David met).
One of my biggest disappointments was that two years after I left to start Artemis Magazine, Tina left. I might have been the managing editor of Analog back then. My other big disappointment is that, after all this time, and so many successes, I STILL haven’t been able to sell a story to Asimov’s (though I keep trying).
At any rate, though I haven’t worked for the magazines in a long time, I still feel a sense familial connection to both the magazines and especially my four bosses from way back then.
I’ve visited Sheila during her rehabilitation (though not nearly as much as I should have) and felt powerless to do anything to help. With sharing this plea for financial assistance, I hope to be doing at least a very small thing to help two wonderful people (and their remarkable daughters) who are important to me, and to the science fiction field I love. I hope you’ll be able to help, too.
This is Irene and Juliet, the daughters of Sheila and David.
As many of you know, last December our mom suffered a brain aneurysm, leading to a heart attack and a stroke. Over the last nine months, her recovery has been significant but slow. Before the aneurysm my mom and Juliet were the primary caretakers for our dad who has advanced Parkinsons. Given the imminent lapse of Mom’s Medicare coverage and our Dad’s current condition, the next steps for Mom and Dad feel extremely fraught, and we are no longer feeling confident that we alone can provide the level of care our parents need.
After extensive research, it seems like the best option for both Mom and Dad would be an assisted living facility, with my dad being placed in the added memory care division. We believe that this is the best option for their continued care and recovery, with full-time care by medical and physical therapy professionals.
We love our parents deeply and want them to be as safe and comfortable as possible. Our goal is to eventually bring our parents back home once they have progressed further and require less full-time assistance. Thank you so much for considering our family and for any help you can provide. Just sharing the Go Fund Me is deeply appreciated. With love Irene Victoria and Juliet Bruce
As of the time this was posted, the fund has raised $48,436 of the $75,000 goal.
The Horror Writers Association today removed Sèphera Girón as Trustee from its Board of Trustees. The action followed publication of Girón‘s comments about AI and its opponents in her “In the Trenches” column in the August 2026 installment of the HWA Member Newsletter. (Girón‘s comments are excerpted below.)
The HWA Board of Trustees published the following statement on Facebook.
Statement from the HWA Board of Trustees:
The Executive Leadership and Trustees on the Board of the Horror Writers Association has voted to remove Sèphera Girónfrom her position as Trustee effective immediately.
The Horror Writers Association is committed to the promotion of Horror and Dark Fantasy literature and the broadening of intellectual and cultural horizons by way of good works in these genres. In support of this mission, the Board established a robust artificial intelligence policy, following input from all levels of membership. This policy emphasizes the organization’s sincere commitment to not only uplifting creators but also protecting a culture of labor compensation in the arts, aligning with principles that safeguard our community.
To this end, the HWA Board firmly and resoundingly rejects the opinion piece of Trustee Sèphera Girón as included in the August 2026 installment of the HWA Member Newsletter in the “In the Trenches” column. This piece does not meet the standards of care and support to which we hold ourselves as elected members of this writer’s organization. We regret that it was published in our newsletter without proper vetting. The HWA will review all newsletter submission procedures, including those submitted by Trustees.
Further, we reject the assertions in the piece, particularly those calling authors with genuine and sincere concerns regarding the proliferation of genAI (more commonly referred to as simply AI) Luddites and/or gatekeepers. Additionally, in keeping with the organization’s ongoing commitment to the uplift and promotion of diverse voices in Horror literature, we firmly denounce the comparison of concerns over AI data center proliferation to the ongoing struggles over Indigenous water rights and ways. As the leadership of the Horror Writers Association, we sincerely apologize for the hurt that these words have caused.
We have heard your concerns and write today with a full understanding of the severity of the error made by way of this opinion piece’s publication. It is not in keeping with opinion of the HWA, the Board, and the general consensus of membership. In the future, we will do more to better to review and vet material included in the newsletter so that a repeat of this incident does not occur.
Given that the column in question fails to uphold the principles of the organization, does not reflect the consensus of leadership and membership alike on the subject, and demonstrates a failure to fulfill the responsibilities of a Trustee, the Board has voted to remove Giron from her position effective immediately.
We have always been an organization meant to protect writers and that is what we will continue to stand for.
— The Board of Trustees of the Horror Writers Association
"The Executive Leadership and Trustees on the Board of the Horror Writers Association has voted to remove Sephera Giron from her position as Trustee effective immediately.” Good. As an ex-trustee, wish I had the time. The HWA needs more “luddites” who aren’t afraid to speak up.
…Sadly, it’s not much of a surprise to see Girón’s pro-AI missive in an HWA newsletter, even if they claim Girón views are not that of the organization or representative of the HWA as her role within the group as a trustee. In my estimation as a former HWA member, the Horror Writers Association has been willfully and woefully ill equipped to tackle issues surrounding artificial intelligence for some time now, and has appeared, more than once, to be both outright supportive of it and completely dismissive of its membership’s concerns over the use of AI in the creative arts. When news broke about the widescale book piracy perpetrated by Meta, Anthropic, and others, HWA authors demanded the organization take appropriate measures against these thefts and to establish appropriate anti-AI guidelines and policies. Their concerns, as I recall, were brushed aside with HWA leadership feigning a complete misunderstanding of the issues at hand and arguing that writers here in the 21st Century commonly use spellcheck in their word processing programs, which is AI, and that we were decades late in worrying about these issues. Too bad, so sad. Of course, this was then followed by a further and complete misreading of the room altogether, wherein they advertised an upcoming, and subsequently canceled, seminar they were holding in conjunction with some AI techbro or other. Naturally, I was more than happy to let my membership lapse immediately thereafter.
HWA’s apologia, obfuscations, and false equivalencies then are remarkably similar to Girón’s now. It reminds me a bit of the right-wing’s willful misunderstanding of the paradox of tolerance. Or, as author Chuck Wendig wrote in his blog post today, “We are the people that have had all our work stolen immorally and illegally. We’re the ones turned into Soylent Green, so it’s a little fucking rude to have an essay piped hot and fresh into our inboxes that dares to be mad at us for criticizing anyone who eats Soylent Green. We’re getting cannibalized, turned into sausages, and you’re mad that we’re mad about it.”…
… I don’t know that pumping gas and self check-outs are relevant technological innovations here, but okay. But talking about film vs TV, electric instruments, photography, and so forth, leads into an argument that pro-AI (“AI” — again, we’re talking LLMs and what Tobias Buckell calls LIMs, Large Image Models) really like to use a lot, which is, “You stupid Luddite, you’re just afraid of the new technology.” And then sometimes they say something about horse-and-buggy versus the car, or some other false equivalency.
The reason all of this is false equivalency is that prompting your way to art or to writing is not the same as having a new tool that allows you to make art or tell a story. AI, here, is not a tool —
It’s not allowing you to do the work. You’re allowing it to do the work. Which is to say, you’re the tool.
The AI makes decisions. (Not literally. AI isn’t smart. It knows nothing. But programmatically, it takes pathways based on the chaos of its code.) You don’t make the decisions. You may guide them. But you don’t make them….
…“Are you watching TV? Are you using Alexa? Do you have home security? What kind of car do you drive? Do you go to the doctor? Do you watch TV? Do you go to the movies? Do you have shopping apps on your phone?”
What?
What does this even mean?
Am I participating in society, you mean? I’m not new here. Yes, we’re all doing these things all the time. This is very shallow and quite silly. “DO YOU BREATHE AIR? DO YOU USE THE TOILET? ARE YOU CLAD IN FLESH AND ACKNOWLEDGE CORPOREAL REALITY? AH! THEN YOU EXIST IN THE SAME PLANE OF EXISTENCE AS AI! HYPOCRITE!”
…I’ll admit I’m something of a Luddite, but I also realize, accept, and agree that AI is here to stay whether anyone likes it or not. I can see useful and beneficial functions and applications across multiple industries and fields of endeavor. Medicine, business, accounting, etc.
For reasons I see as artistic integrity, I do not utilize AI in my profession, but AI in and of itself is no different from a hammer, a screwdriver, or the internet. It’s a tool. Nothing more. How and where it is applied is where the rubber meets the road. In writing, editing, advertising and publishing, AI has already infused itself into our neck of the woods. You just can’t avoid it. Hell, MS Word spellcheck/grammarcheck has a certain amount of AI driving it now.
Where I draw the line, where I have a HUGE problem both personally and professionally, is the use of generative AI to produce novels, short stories, screenplays, etc. I ordinarily eschew making public statements regarding most issues of the day. I have opinions like anyone else, but I normally choose to keep my mouth shut in public. That’s just me.
But AI is a different animal altogether.
Let me be clear: When it comes to the writing profession, if someone uses generative AI to create blank diaries, writing journals, wall calendars, Day Planners, or something similar I think that’s probably all right.
HOWEVER… if someone uses generative AI to conceptualize, plot, and then generate for them something that they claim is a literary work, and then, without actually sweating out any of the WORK that goes into a novel or other work, they proclaim themselves a writer or an author — THEY ARE NEITHER.
They’re cheats. They’re hacks….
THE MIDNIGHT SOCIETY
Sèphera Girón: so i hear some of you writers don't like aiGirón: well, i'm tired of all you writers not liking ai!Girón: and i'm gonna let you all know it!Girón: i'm mad as hell!Girón: put that in the newspaper!Girón: or better yet Girón: put it in the HWA newsletter!
Girón: oh so you don't like ai, huh?!?!Girón: well, news flash, hot shot!Girón: maybe you didn't know thisGirón: but technology already exists!Girón: if you hate ai so much, why don't you stop using electricty, huh? or levers? or the wheel???Girón: maybe you should stop using fire too huh????
Girón: oh no boo hoo hoo ai is bad, well maybe you didn't know this but you've already been forced to use ai constantly, against your will by the powers that beGirón: so maybe you should give up and learn to love the slopGirón: unless you like being a hypocrite
Girón: oh also, people are way too divided these daysGirón: like, some people are pro something, other people are against that same thingGirón: and ai is just one more thing that you have to have an opinion on!Girón: everyone should stop having opinions on ai and just be pro ai!
Girón: people should stop having opinions and also technology is bad except now that it's good and also cancel culture is real and it made a baby and the baby looked at me King: Koontz: Poe: Lovecraft:Barker: Barker: damn thats some mad communication skills Girón: thats why i'm an HWA trustee
This year’s fundraiser is brand new, and is a web-based text adventure game and book recommendation engine called The Story Oracle. Written and designed by Nebula-award-winning game writers alongside Clarion West alumni and board members, the fundraiser runs from June 21st through August 1st, and supports Clarion West’s mission supporting emerging and underrepresented voices in speculative fiction.
Clarion West’s annual summer fundraiser is running through August 1st atThe Story Oracle.
Clarion West has been a hub for inclusive writing workshops, author events, and meaningful connection for over 40 years and seeks to find an innovative path to maintaining its programs during a challenging time for arts organizations around the country!
Every Story Oracle donation supports Clarion West’s work and concludes with up to 10 book recommendations in return. Players follow the game through an underground labyrinth where their choices create a custom list of recommended reading provided by Martha Wells, Fonda Lee, Sheree Renée Thomas, Cory Doctorow, Nisi Shawl, and other well-loved authors. Larger donation options are available for players who would like to receive copies of their recommended books in the mail.
Participants can play twice with a donation as low as $5. More information and game links can be found here.
About Clarion West: Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that supports emerging and underrepresented writers with world-class instruction and opportunities for connection. The organization runs the acclaimed six-week workshop every summer, a nine-month novel writing workshop, online and in-person classes, a library of on-demand classes, public readings and panels, and other events throughout the year; the program provides year-round programs to over 1,500 writers annually.
Tomlinson and his wife have been the victims of dozens of swatting calls—fake emergency calls that prompt real police responses. Swatting is an online harassment scheme that involves people reporting false claims to police, such as a murder or a hostage situation, at their address.
They allege their civil rights have been violated, and the city should have known their home was an intentional target. The court found there were violations but dismissed the individual claims because the officers were granted qualified immunity. But the suit against the city remained.
Now the city has agreed to pay the $575,000 settlement for not properly training 20 officers involved.
For years, Tomlinson and his wife had been swatted for bomb threats, assassinations, kidnapping children, hostage situations, mass shootings, and murders.
The Milwaukee Police Department was aware of the false reports, yet officers continued to show up to the couple’s home and search it for threats throughout 2022 and 2023, sometimes with guns drawn, the lawsuit said. In total, police were dispatched to the couple’s home 45 times over the span of two years.
The city has admitted that police knew the couple was being targeted with false emergency calls, according to court records. It has also admitted that officers held Tomlinson at gunpoint, detained and handcuffed him during at least one response.
However, the city denies those searches were illegal.
…For years, Tomlinson begged for MPD to flag his address for any future calls, telling us, “It has led to deaths. People have been killed this way.”
Court documents show police often agreed.
On one call, an officer said, “Luckily, we already kind of know this is an ongoing thing, because if we didn’t, this could end up with this guy dead.”
One officer sent a memo asking that the home be marked as a “Swatter House” in MPD’s dispatch system. A supervisor declined.
An officer said he “thought the call might be fake;” another “would later testify that he knew there wasn’t an emergency,” another said, “We know. We know,” when told the address should be flagged.
The house was not flagged, and the swatting worsened after our interview.
One officer raced to respond to one call, even though he had responded the day before to the first of four swatting calls.
The complaint filed in the 2024 lawsuit said in part:
16. Niki and Patrick live in a constant state of fear, worried that the next encounter they have with the police will be their last.
17. Every knock on the door or police car that drives by leaves them terrified that they are about to be staring down an officer’s gun or that they will be paraded outside in handcuffs to their further humiliation.
18. This lawsuit seeks to end the madness and vindicate the violation of Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. It seeks to effect change through punitive damages by punishing the Defendants for their egregious conduct with the hope that the punishment is significant enough to prevent this from happening again in the future…
In order to make the payment, the city will have to increase its budget for litigation settlements. The city expects that to take about 90 days, meaning the settlement could be finalized in mid-August.
Back left to right: Gabriel Bello Diaz, Marnee Chua, Deen Wynveen, Jake Fennell, Unknown, Krystal Marx, Amy Hirayama, Levi Fuller, Mel Isidor, José Luis (Pepe) Montero. Front left to right: Timothy Firth, Cypress Manning, Sullivan Forderhase, Eric Acosta, Katie Wilson (now Mayor of Seattle!). [Photo by Cynthia Brothers]
The Clarion West Writers Workshop (CW) and Common AREA Maintenance (CAM) have announced a collaborative partnership to advance development and long-term usage of the El Rey Building — a previously abandoned 30,000 square foot building in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood.
After successfully leading a campaign to acquire the building last year, CAM seeks to establish a long-term, affordable space for artist residencies, classes, and other events which supports both Seattle’s creative community and both organizations’ missions.
CW and CAM together are developing a residency model which will support multiple artists and writers year-round. The intended residency framework prioritizes sliding scale rates and supporting larger cohorts, allowing artists a distraction-free space to hone their craft, share their work, and collaborate.
This partnership is especially important for CW’s renowned Six-Week Workshop, as it will provide a long-term, sustainable location that is in-person, affordable, and fully ADA-accessible. To launch this new partnership, Clarion West is making a $100,000 donation to support the necessary building renovations. The funds come through a 2019 bequest made by the organization’s founder, award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre.
As of this press release, CAM is launching a $1 million fundraising campaign to support the development, renovation, and long-term stability of El Rey. Donations or pledges in any amount will help move the project forward. You can help by donating to match Clarion West’s pledge here.
Join both organizations as they sign their MOU and Clarion West presents their $100,000 on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. The celebration of this event will be held at Common AREA Maintenance, located at 2125 2nd Avenue. RSVP here.
About Clarion West. The Clarion West Writers Workshop has been held annually in Seattle, WA, since 1984. With over 700 graduates from the Six-Week Summer Workshop, Clarion West has been a significant actor in helping the careers of speculative fiction writers, including women and other writers who have been traditionally underrepresented in the field. Clarion West provides year-round programs to over 1,500 writers annually. Learn more here.
About Common AREA Maintenance. Common AREA Maintenance is an artist led nonprofit in downtown Seattle. They operate art studios, a Risograph print shop, woodshop, bookstore, and performance space, supporting artists and cultural workers through collective resources, and public programming.
They host workshops, exhibitions, and public gatherings year round while developing affordable housing and cultural infrastructure for artists and nonprofit partners. Learn more here.
The Fanac.org fanhistory project has migrated all its photos to Piwigo galleries with many more features and capabilities than they had with their home-grown REXX code. Photos.fanac.org is the link to use. Now you can search, you can easily browse, and you can still navigate through the 8,500+ photos from Worldcons, Regional Cons, Personal Albums and other Fan Photos. There’s a new button on the FANAC home page to get you to the right URLs.
Have you read a fanzine by Lee Hoffman? Now you can see what she looked like. Wondered about Claude Degler? He’s there too. Theodore Sturgeon a favorite writer? You can see him playing the guitar. Just click on the “Search” option in the Menu bar. Fair warning – it’s best to use quotes around the search argument.
With this new gallery software, they are already putting up additional photos, from 1939 to 1989. Notably:
7 photos from the 1941 MichiCon 1, from Bob Tucker’s album, digitized by David Ritter
2 from NyCon 1, the first Worldcon, also from Bob Tucker’s album, also digitized by David Ritter
11 from Noreascon 3, the 1989 Worldcon, taken by Rick Katze
The new photo setup is courtesy of hard work by Mark Olson and Mike Benveniste, with some help from Edie Stern. Advice from Mike Ward and David Dyer-Bennet was crucial in getting to this point.
There may still be some unwanted artifacts from the migration, such as misfiled or duplicate photos. If you see anything like that, please send a note to [email protected] . Edie Stern, FANAC Webmaster, will get it – although there have been intermittent email problems and fixing that is next on the list.
The FANAC Fanhistory Project is a project of The Florida Association for Nucleation and Conventions (FANAC) Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization recognized by the IRS. FANAC.org is archived by the US Library of Congress for long-time preservation and future availability.
By Arthur Liu & Feng Zhang: The Chinese Science Fiction Database (CSFDB)’s 2025 Recommended List has been announced.
The list is divided into 7 categories: Domestic/Translated Novels, Domestic/Translated Stories, Anthologies, Collections, and Related Works. A total of 54 entries is selected, covering 6 countries/regions apart from China, including Australia, Russia, Japan, Sri Lanka, UK and US.
The Domestic Novel category is left vacant this year.
The complete list in bilingual form follows the jump:
“Due is an exceptional speaker – brilliantly insightful, delightfully funny – and deeply generous in her commitment to elevating the craft of speculative fiction writing across media,” said SFWA Executive Director Isis Asare. “She is the perfect toastmaster for the Nebula Awards Conference celebrating N. K. Jemisin as the recipient for the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award and Gay Haldeman as the recipient for the Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award.”
A seasoned multimedia creator, Due and her husband/collaborator – Steven Barnes – recently co-directed their first short horror film, The Keeper (Samansa/Blackmaled), which will stream on Samansa in September. They also wrote “A Small Town” for Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone on Paramount Plus and two segments of Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire. In addition, they co-wrote the Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan and published by Megascope. Due and Barnes co-host the podcast Lifewriting: Write for Your Life! Due also served as executive producer on Shudder’s groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.
“It’s such a thrill to be invited to be Toastmaster at the Nebulas, which has such a storied history, especially during a year honoring N. K. Jemisin and Gay Haldeman. Events like this remind us of the power of art to help create hope and change during difficult times,” Due said.
Gearing up to the Nebulas in Chicago. Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes will also participate in author signings, hybrid panels, and in-person craft workshops during the Nebula Awards Conference. Author signings will be open to the public and copies of Due’s work will be available to purchase onsite from local independent bookstore, Call and Response. Hybrid programming will also be available to attendees of Horror Writers Association’s StokerCon as a result of a recent collaboration between HWA and SFWA.
“The Horror Writers Association is pleased to see more collaboration and advancement of partnerships between genre-organizations. We’re excited to offer this unique virtual experience to members of both SFWA and the HWA to encourage virtual participation for both the Nebulas and StokerCon,” stated Maxwell Gold, Executive Director of the Horror Writers Association.
The festival features a comprehensive lineup of screenings, post-film discussions, and screenwriting competitions. It honors the legacy of the prolific sci-fi writer by showcasing independent storytelling that explores the intersection of technology and reality. Passes and access to competitions are available here.
“PKD, more than any of the writers of his era, foresaw the disorienting and dehumanizing aspect of techno-reality,” said festival founder and director Daniel Abella. “He left us clues in his writing as to how to fight the invasion, and this year, numerous films on our lineup represent his prophetic message.”
A photo of young Samuel R. Delany in the frame with the contemporary Jay Kay, taken during on a visit to UC Riverside in 2011.
To the science fiction community,
I’m Dr. Phoenix Alexander, the Klein Librarian for Science Fiction and Fantasy here at University of California, Riverside, where I steward the Eaton Collection: one of the world’s largest cataloged collections of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and related genre materials. I’m also a published author of over 20 short stories in venues such as F&SF, Lightspeed, Escape Pod, and The Dark, and serve on SFWA’s History Committee.
I joined UCR Library in 2022, but as you might know, we began digitization of the Jay Kay Klein photographs back in 2017, publishing just under 6,000 images onto a publicly accessible digital repository, Calisphere, as part of a mass digitization pilot initiative. During this pilot initiative, we solicited community feedback on the descriptions of the photos, utilizing a Google form and later a comment function on Calisphere itself. From Fall 2019 to Summer 2021, the UCR Library undertook a comprehensive review project, led by Andrew Lippert, Special Collections Processing Archivist, to update all of the titles and descriptions for the Klein photos on Calisphere, incorporating the voluminous and extraordinarily helpful community feedback received since the initial publication of the photos.
Over the last few years, we’ve continued to digitize the remaining 57,000 images from the Klein collection (an ongoing project that will take many more years to complete, as you can imagine!), but we’re delighted to announce the publication of the first of eleven boxes of photos, comprising almost 2,000 images of 47 conventions and events.
To share hundreds of photos more quickly with the community, we decided to implement a two-phase approach to our descriptions. Some photos from the new box will appear with basic information about the convention or event they belong to, with Klein’s original identifiers for his images as temporary titles. These will be updated later with more details about the people and topics depicted. Other photos will have descriptions already enhanced by myself and Andrew Lippert, both subject specialists (albeit not infallible ones!). We will continue describing and publishing the remainder of the photos, one box at a time, in chronological order.
Once again, we welcome feedback from the community to assist with identifications in the photos. We have compiled a web page with guidance on commenting practices to ensure that your time and labor is respected, and that your feedback will be most helpful to us as we continue to review, add, and amend the descriptions of these images. As science fiction fans and experts, we are of course familiar with the well-known figures of the genre that you’ll see in these collections—so if possible please avoid identifying figures such as Asimov, Heinlein, Pohl, and others of similar notoriety. Your feedback will be most valuable in identifying the lesser-known individuals in the photographs, in particular, fan attendees.
In the Jay Kay Klein photograph collection each individual photo is on its own webpage. Click the photo to open the page. The ‘Item Information’ section has a description containing identifications made on earlier passes. Are you able to add one? We use Disqus to collect comments giving us identifications. There is a button to ‘JOIN THE DISCUSSION’. Click that button, and existing comments will be displayed with the newest identifications. You will be able to add your own.
We’re honored to be able to make these wonderful snapshots of the SF community publicly accessible in the years to come, and thank you in advance for your patience and generosity! If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected].
Many thanks,
Phoenix & the UCR team
Jay Kay Klein (left), Frederik Pohl (right) at the 1966 Worldcon in Cleveland.
