Welcome to the 13th installment of the 2017 Rhysling Poets’ Showcase.
Today it is my happy duty to introduce six more fine poets whose Rhysling-nominated poems you can read in this year’s Rhysling Anthology. If you are a member of the SFPA, you will receive a print copy of that anthology. Probably gonna land in your snail mailbox any day now.
If you aren’t a member, you may purchase a PDF or order the print anthology here). As noted before, we will link to the nominated poems here when possible. (Some poems appear only in print but we are working on getting around that).
Okay, on with the show . . .
- Fedyk, Karolina • “What Wants Us” • Star*Line 39.2
- Frazier, Robert • “Luminous Decay” • Dreams and Nightmares 103
- Gaiman, Neil • “The Long Run” • Uncanny, November/December
- Pilkington, Ace G. • “Orpheus” (note: 2nd poem down) • The Horror Zine, June
- Post, Steph • “Alice-Ecila” (note: poem not available online) • Nonbinary Review 10: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
- Poyner, Ken • “Adolescence” • Star*Line 39.4 “At Issue, the Miramo” (note: 2nd poem down) • Dreams and Nightmares 103 • “The Robot by the Fireplace” (note: 5th poem down) • Eye to the Telescope 20
Karolina Fedyk: a wearer of many hats, of which the academic, the nerdy and the writerly are their favorites. They write in two languages and their works have appeared in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, and other venues; they have also co-authored freeform games and larps. They come from Cracow, Poland, but have been travelling across continents and countries since then. Currently they pursue a PhD in what might as well be science fiction subject matter. They like learning new languages, coffee, and owls. They can be found tweeting as @karigrafia.
Robert Frazier: “My mother studied painting with Emile Albert Gruppé. My father taught code breaking for Army Security after working at Bletchley Park during WWII. The mystical science of deciphering gibberish has always meshed with impressionistic imagery in my writing. My poetry and prose books include The Waterfront Artists: Painters Who Changed Nantucket, The Daily Chernobyl and Other Poems, and Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest (with Bruce Boston, 2017). I was editor or associate editor of Star*Line for 11 life-changing years. Writing accolades: 3-time winner Rhysling Award; 2-time winner Asimov’s SF Poetry Award; SFPA Grandmaster (2005); final ballot Nebula Award fiction nominee (1991). I live 30 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean . . . painting in oils, researching local art history, and curating over a dozen exhibitions a year for the Artists Association of Nantucket.”
Neil Gaiman is The New York Times bestselling author of the novels Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains; the Sandman series of graphic novels; and the story collections Smoke and Mirrors, Fragile Things, and Trigger Warning. He is the winner of numerous literary honors, including the Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, and the Newbery and Carnegie Medals. Originally from England, he now lives in the United States. He is Professor in the Arts at Bard College. Website: Neil.Gaiman.com.
Ace G. Pilkington has published over one hundred poems, articles, reviews, and short stories in five countries. He is the author of Screening Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V and, more recently, Science Fiction and Futurism: Their Terms and Ideas and the play Our Lady Guenevere (both 2017). He is co-editor of The Fantastic Made Visible and co-editor and co-translator of Fairy Tales of the Russians and Other Slavs. An active member of the SFWA, he is a professor of English and history at Dixie State University and Literary Seminar director at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. He has a D.Phil. in Shakespeare, history, and film from Oxford University.
Steph Post is the author of the novels Lightwood and A Tree Born Crooked and her short fiction has most recently appeared in Haunted Waters: From the Depths, Nonbinary Review and the anthology Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was a semi-finalist for The Big Moose Prize and was the recipient of the Veeren Bell award for short fiction and the Patricia Cornwell creative writing scholarship from Davidson College. She is currently the writing coach at Howard W. Blake High School in Tampa, Florida. Visit her website at stephpostfiction.com.
Ken Poyner’s latest collection of short, wiry fiction, Constant Animals, and his latest collections of poetry — Victims of a Failed Civics and The Book of Robot — can be obtained from Barking Moose Press. Look for Avenging Cartography, flash fictions, coming in mid-2017. Ken often serves as strange, bewildering eye-candy at his wife’s power-lifting affairs. His poetry of late has been sunning in Analog, Asimov’s, and Poet Lore, and his fiction has yowled in Spank the Carp, Red Truck, and Café Irreal. You can visit Ken’s website at kpoyner.com.
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