SFF CONFERENCE MARKS 40 YEARS OF THE CLARKE AWARD
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. The Science Fiction Foundation has sponsored the Award since its inception. To commemorate both the Award and our association with it, the SFF's biannual conference this year is entitled The State of SF and of Things to Come: Reading SF through the Clarke Award. This two-day online conference, scheduled for 12 and 13 December 2026, is a joint collaboration between the SFF, the Clarke Award, and the University of Liverpool. Its aim will be to assess the current state of science fiction, via the 40-year history of the Award, and to look ahead to the next 40 years by considering future and possible developments within the genre and the publishing industry. The full call for papers can be found at both UPenn and the CFP List. We are excited that the non-voting chair of the Clarke Award, Dr Andrew M. Butler, will be giving the keynote whilst the conference will conclude with a roundtable discussion featuring previous Clarke Award winners Anne Charnock (Dreams Before the Start of Time), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time), and Tade Thompson (Rosewater). The extended deadline for proposals is 17 August 2026. Enquiries can be sent to Eleanor McAdam at E.F.Mcadam@liverpool.ac.uk
Published 13 April 2026 (updated 2 August 2026)
PROF NICK HUBBLE TO BE FOUNDATION'S NEW EDITOR
The SFF is delighted to announce that Nick Hubble, Honorary Professor of English at Brunel University London, has been appointed as the next editor of its flagship journal, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. Nick follows in the footsteps of such predecessors as Peter Nicholls, David Pringle, Edward James, Farah Mendlesohn and Graham Sleight. An interdisciplinary researcher, combining history, politics, sociology and literary studies, Nick has published extensively on modern and contemporary literature. Their work will also be familiar to readers of ParSec, Speculative Insight, Strange Horizons and Vector as well as Foundation, where they first appeared in 2005. Nick's books include The Science Fiction of Iain M. Banks (co-edited with Esther MacCallum-Stewart and Joe Norman) and The Science Fiction Handbook (co-edited with Aris Mousoutzanis). In 2021 and 2022, Nick was a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and they also blog about science fiction at https://prospectiveculture.wordpress.com/ Nick's first issue will be in the autumn, co-edited with the outgoing editor Paul March-Russell; we wish them much success in the years ahead.
Published 8 January 2026
NEW SCIENCE FOR FICTION PODCAST
The SFF's Education Officer, Dr David Clements, has launched a podcast version of our popular workshops, Science for Fiction. In the first episode, he talks to Prof Andrew Jaffe about his new book, The Random Universe. If you'd like to get a better idea of what quantum mechanics is, and how you might use it in your fiction, have a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/science-for-fiction/id1862534317
Published 4 January 2026
THE PETER NICHOLLS ESSAY PRIZE 2026 IS NOW OPEN
We are pleased to announce our next essay-writing competition. The award is open to all post-graduate research students and to all early career researchers (up to five years after the completion of your PhD) who have yet to find a full-time or tenured position. The prize is guaranteed publication in Foundation in 2026. To be considered for the competition, please submit an original article on any topic, period, theme, author, film or other media within the (broadly defined) field of science fiction and its academic study. Approximate length should be 6000-8000 words. All submitted articles should comply with the guidelines to contributors as set out on the journal pages of the SF Foundation website. Only one article per contributor may be submitted. The deadline for submission is 11 January 2026. All competition entries, with a short (50 word) biography, should be sent to the journal editor at paulmarchrussell@gmail.com. The entries will be judged by the editorial team and the winner will be announced in the spring 2026 issue of Foundation.
Published 5 June 2025
MAUREEN K. SPELLER TRAVEL FUND NOW AVAILABLE
In honour of our departed friend and colleague, Maureen Kincaid Speller, we are launching an annual travel fund of up to £500 to enable independent scholars to pursue their research. The fund can be used to attend conferences, workshops and archives both in the UK and overseas. This has been made possible by the profits from the When It Changed conference held online in December 2022, for which we thank all the attendees. For further details, go to our new Research and Travel Funds page on the website.
Published 1 May 2023
FOUNDATION EDITOR CO-LAUNCHES NEW SCIENCE FICTION IMPRINT
Paul March-Russell and Una McCormack have launched a science fiction imprint, Gold SF, devoted to new feminist writing, to be published by Goldsmiths Press. The call for submissions is below:
Gold SF - Call for Submissions
Goldsmith’s Press is seeking to establish a dedicated imprint to publish feminist science fiction. We believe that sf and speculative fictions offer a mode of critical and utopian thinking ideally placed to address contemporary issues. We are therefore looking to commission novella and novel length work which answers to the times, dealing with subjects such as:
· Anti-rationalism and the rise of the alt-right
· The climate crisis and feminism in the Age of the Anthropocene
· Global movements of populations and refugees
· New visions of race, class, and queerness
· Expanding frontiers in gender and sexuality
· Decoloniality and indigenous knowledge traditions
· Pathways to resistance and rebellion
We are particularly keen to hear from new voices not traditionally represented by science fiction, literary fiction, and liberal feminism.
Enquiries to: Ellen Parnavelas - E.Parnavelas@gold.ac.uk
Editorial board: Abi Curtis, Elizabeth English, Joan Haran, Una McCormack, Paul March-Russell, C. Palmer-Patel, Aishwarya Subramanian, Sheree Renee Thomas and Aliya Whiteley
Follow us at: https://twitter.com/GoldSF_Books
Published 17 April 2020 (last updated 5 September 2024)