SFPA Vice-President and Secretary Announced

On behalf of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association executive officers and our official membership, we are pleased to announce that following an international vote conducted in full accordance with our by-laws and constitution, F.J. Bergmann of Wisconsin has been selected as our new Vice-President and Renee Ya of California has been selected as our new Secretary.

F.J. Bergmann (Madison, Wisconsin, USA) has been a member of SFPA since 2007, its webmaster since 2010 and recently stepped down from 5 years as Star*Line editor. She has also done layout and mailing for other SFPA publications, as well as serving as the SFPA Speculative Poetry Contest Chair in 2016 and as webmaster for Eye to the Telescope. She regularly participates in speculative and other poetry readings, workshops and convention panels, and is a 3-time National Poetry Slam team competitor. She is the poetry editor, art editor and webmaster for Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com), and is the managing editor for MadHat Press (madhat-press.com). As she completes her 10th year of membership with us, we look forward to her experience, insight and vision assisting our efforts in building vibrant cultural spaces around the world for speculative poets.

Renee Ya (Bay Area, California, USA) is a Hmong American writer, photographer, and space shamen who has been volunteering at SFPA for the last three years with varying capacity from keeper of the voting forms to periodic updates to the website. With “a strong love of all things tentacles,” she has her grasp on many knobs and dials in many of the underpinnings logistics-wise behind the scenes at SFPA. When she’s not saving the world she’s a Project Manager in the video game industry by trade. These skills and many more will be useful as we expand our programs and outreach, and formalize the SFPA as a non-profit organization.

We deeply thank Sandra J. Lindow and Shannon Connor Winward for their exemplary service and stewardship this year and look forward to their continued insights and creativity to advance the possibilities of speculative poetry across the globe for generations yet to come. Both of them did exceptional work to revise our by-laws and constitution into a robust document opening up tremendous possibilities and opportunities for all of us to grow as creators and readers across the globe. 

We also thank all of our members who so graciously put their names forward as nominees and ask all our members to appreciate them for their readiness to answer this call. It is no small matter, and it was gratifying to see so many diverse perspectives and experiences reflected among our esteemed nominees.

As the SFPA approaches our 40th anniversary next year, we treasure all of your energy and enthusiasm for the literary arts, and the ideals of an inclusive and visionary space that challenges our sense of the possible within ourselves and far beyond that. Let us welcome our new officers with joy, encouragement and great expectations for all that is to come ahead.