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New poetry collection Liberating the Astronauts, new issue of The Cascadia Subduction Zone, forthcoming events, and more.
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The Monthly Aqueduct

News about all things Aqueductian

We're welcoming May with our latest news roundup, which includes the release of a poetry collection by Christina M. Rau and the year's first issue of The Cascadia Subduction Zone. We will also look at the Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree, Jr., and Lambda Award announcements (as well as an alternative Hugos list compiled by Rachel Cordasco), and more. Enjoy!

Liberating the Astronauts,
by Christina M. Rau

Cover image of Liberating the Astronauts$10.00 (paperback)
$5.95 (ebook)
Buy now

We are pleased to announce the release of Christina M. Rau's Liberating the Astronauts, a collection of poetry, as the fifty-fifth volume in Aqueduct's Conversation Pieces series, in both small trade paperback and e-book editions.

From the Pointer Sisters doing the Neutron Dance to David Bowman’s exclamation while traveling through the star gate near Jupiter; from stealing Joan Didion’s sadness to erasing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, this collection weaves its way through the awkward paradox of wanting freedom while fearing it. A little science, a bit of sci-fi, a little feminism, a bit of lit, in Liberating the Astronauts, we see that not fitting in gives us the freedom to stand out.
 
“Since the dawn of time, man has dreamed of visiting the stars and escaping 'the surly bonds of earth,'(*) and since the 1950s, space has been viewed as the final frontier to be explored by mankind. Christina M. Rau's new book is one of the most intriguing collections of poetry that investigates this instinctual call of discovery. She examines outer and inner space, with poems that tap into science as depicted through fact, fiction, and fantasy. Actual events and those of literature are used as her influences. As a true poet she explores space on multiple levels, the intricate complexities and simple realities of the cosmic bodies both personal and universal, that evoke thought and emotional response. Ms. Rau takes the reader for a ride of adventure and discovery so if you are so inclined, cut the cord and read Liberating the Astronauts.”
 —Peter V. Dugan, author of Medusa’s Overbite and Eulogies for Dreams

(*)The High Flight
by John Magee 

The Cascadia Subduction Zone
Vol. 7, 1

Cover image of the Cascadia Subction Zone$5.00 (print)
$3.00 (PDF)

It's hard to believe it's our seventh year of publication. And this issue was very long in coming. (Nisi joked, back in January, that we should blame it on the POTUS.)

This issue contains essays by Anya DeNiro and L. Timmel Duchamp, poetry by Mark Rich, Sonya Taaffe, and Bogi Takács, art work by Janet Essley, and reviews by Nancy Jane Moore, Maria Velazquez, Joanne Rixon, Steven Shaviro, and Bogi Takács. You can purchase the current issue at the CSZ website, or subscribe and never miss an issue.

Essays
After the Election: An ever-present emotional weight
  by  Anya DeNiro 
 
The Second Annual James Tiptree Jr. Symposium: Celebrating Ursula K. Le Guin
  by  L. Timmel Duchamp
Poems
Before Helicopter-Heads Arrived
   by Mark Rich
 
Continuity Imperative
   by Bogi Takács
 
The Firebird’s Revenge
   by Sonya Taaffe
 
Reviews
Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, by Cordelia Fine 
   reviewed by Nancy Jane Moore

Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity
by Alexis Pauline Gumb
  reviewed by Maria Velazquez

The Island of Lost Girls, by Manjula Padmanabhan
  reviewed by Joanne Rixon

Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction, edited by Lisa Yaszek and Patrick B. Sharp, with a Conclusion by Kathleen Ann Goonan
  reviewed by Steven Shaviro

Judenstaat , by Simone Zelitch
   reviewed by Bogi Takács 
 
Featured Artist
Janet Essley
Unpronounceable receives
Philip K. Dick Special Citation
 
Claudia Casper and Susan diRende posing with their Philip K. Dick Award and Citation CertificatesThe 2017 Philip K. Dick Award ceremony was held on April 14 at Norwescon 40; Gordon Van Gelder presided. Congratulations to Claudia Casper, whose novel The Mercy Journals (published by the excellent Arsenal Pulp Press) was given the award, and also to Susan diRende, whose novella Unpronounceable (published as a volume in Aqueduct's Conversation Pieces series) was given a Special Citation. (The photo shows Claudia and Susan holding the framed award and special citation respectively.) The judges for this year's award were Michael Armstrong, Brenda Cough, Meg Elison, Lee Konstantinou, and Ben Winters.

The other nominees were Kristy Acevedo with Consider (published by Jolly Fish Press), who was present, Matt Hill with Graft (published by Angry Robot Books), who was also present, Eleanor Arnason with Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens (published by Aqueduct), and Yoss with Super Extra Grande (published by Restless Books). The authors attending each read for five minutes from their books. (Excerpts of Hwarhath Stories and Super Extra Grande were read by members of the Northwest Science Fiction Society.) It's probably needless to say that we were quite pleased to see two of Aqueduct's books so honored.

Susan, by the way, read from Ch. 2 ("Alien Sex") in Rose's inimitable voice.
Aqueduct finalists for
Tiptree and Lambda Awards
 
Cover image of Will Do Magic for Small ChangeFor those of you who may not have heard, the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Award finalists have been named, and we're thrilled to announce that Andrea Hairston's Will Do Magic for Small Change is among them. Andrea will be reading from her novel at a Lambda event around the ceremony. Meanwhile, readers can also enjoy her very relevant article "Conjurations and Speculations: Preaching to the Choir" on Strange Horizons: "A sermon for the Choir won’t congratulate us for being superior, but challenge us to be the best that we can, challenge us to be better than we thought we could. A good sermon powers action."

Additionally, we want to congratulate Anna-Marie McLemore, who has won the 2016 Tiptree Award for her novel When the Moon Was Ours (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2016). We must say our Aqueductistas did very well this year: the honor list includes Eleanor Arnason's Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens and, once again, Andrea Hairston's Will Do Magic for Small Change. Among the list of works the jury declared worthy of attention are L. Timmel Duchamp's novel The Waterdancer's World and Sheree Renée Thomas's collection of poetry and short fiction Sleeping Under the Tree of Life.

Many congratulations to all!
L. Timmel Duchamp and Andrea Hairston
Reading in Seattle

 
We hope to see some Seattle-area friends of Aqueduct on Thursday evening this week, when Andrea Hairston, accompanied by Pan Morigan, and Timmi Duchamp will be appearing at the University Bookstore in Seattle at 7 pm. The reading will be followed by a discussion and book signing. We look forward to seeing you there.
Sheree Renée Thomas
in Spanish Afrofuturo(s) anthology

We are always happy to see our authors succeeding and garnering recognition, all the more when they do so beyond our borders. African and African American sff is making an exciting appearance in Spain with the new anthology Afrofuturo(s) (2709 Books), which features Sheree Renée Thomas's short story "The Dragon Can't Dance."
Rachel Cordasco's alternative Hugos
for translated SFF

Rachel Cordasco, who for the last couple of years has been championing speculative fiction in translation from her aptly-named website, has compiled a list of alternative nominees to the Hugo Awards according to her favorite translations of the past year. As she points out, the actual finalists include only one work not originally published in English (Cixin Liu's Death's End, translated by Ken Liu):

Cover image of Monteverde:  Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist"Now, you may say “yeah, but how many novels and stories translated into English did we even get in 2016, and how many of that presumably small number are any good?”

My answer: as someone who closely follows SFT, I can safely say that the numbers are impressive and the quality is top-notch."

We're very pleased to see that Lola Robles's novella Monteverde: Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist (t. Lawrence Schimel), volume 52 in our Conversation Pieces series, has been included in her fascinating selection.

Here's to more translated fiction receiving the recognition it deserves. 

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