Science Fiction & Fantasy

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been editing The Best Science Fiction of the Year anthologies for five years now. Under normal conditions, volume five—covering 2019—would have been published by now, but 2020 has been anything but normal and I fear that it’s not quite done with us yet. But that’s a path I’d rather [...]

Short fiction is important. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that, but in my years as both a fan and as a professional, I’ve seen it treated like a younger sibling or supporting character when compared to novels.
It’s easy to come up with examples of this. I’ve spoken about the perceived financial value [...]

In recent years, I’ve had the privilege of being able to attend several Worldcons. It’s one of those rare occasions where I get to meet readers and authors that I might not normally see at the regional conventions I regularly attend. Last year, I made the trek to Dublin, Ireland to visit family and attend [...]

When I was mining social media for ideas for editorials last month, several people asked if I could write something on how magazines have been impacted by the pandemic. While I had already been in contact with several editors, I didn’t feel like I had enough information or time to pursue it for the May [...]

Maintaining any semblance of motivation during this time period has been hard, certainly, and dealing with an unidentified uneasiness/anxiety has not been fun. Deadlines particularly have been difficult. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. When I find the strength to tackle the slush pile, I can’t help but notice a few things: [...]

From all of us here at Clarkesworld, we wish you good health in these difficult times, particularly those of you who share my designation of “high risk” due to medical or age-related reasons. Covid-19 is a part of our daily lives. It’s hard to avoid when you can’t leave your house. I live in NJ, [...]

Over the last two months, our readers have been helping us select the best story and cover art that we published in 2019. While the first round went very smoothly, there were several easily-spotted attempts to stuff the ballot in round two. With that obvious exception, we’d like to thank everyone [...]

I’d like to start this month by thanking everyone for their support and understanding during my surgery and recovery over the last month. The procedure went off without a hitch. I’ll admit that I was nervous about the whole lasers-being-fired-in-my-heart thing, but I had an amazing team of doctors and probably the most space-age operating [...]

Normally, I struggle to think of a topic for my editorials, but this month I have three things on my plate and none can really wait. I’m going to briefly cover all of them right now and cover some in detail when I have the luxury of some worry-free time.
Thing 1: That Whirring Sound From [...]

This month’s editorial was supposed to be about my adventures at a pair of science fiction conventions in China, but it won’t be. I’m sitting on the floor of my house, blasting some music by Infected Mushroom, and trying to work out how to tell you the story of how none of that came to [...]