Genre Grapevine for June 2025
A reminder that I now cover AI-related news and analysis in a separate GenAI Grapevine, with my next AI column out later this month. The monthly AI column, my regular Genre Grapevine, and all special reports are published through my Substack. So a special thank you to all my current paid Substack subscribers – I couldn't do this without your support! If you aren’t a paid subscriber, please consider upgrading your subscription.
Upcoming Events
I'm attending a number of conventions and events during the next six weeks. If you attend one of these, please say hello.
Celsius 232: I'm one of the guest authors at Spain's biggest SF/F convention from July 15 to 19. In particular, I'll be promoting the release of the Spanish edition of Plague Birds from Dolmen Editorial (read more about the translation here, which is titled Las Aves de la Peste).
Launch of We Who Hunt Alexanders: My novella from Apex Books will be published on July 22 and that day will feature both an AMA with me on the SubReddit r/Fantasy along with a release event at Clintonville Books in Columbus, Ohio.
Gen Con: I'll be in Indianapolis from July 31 to August 3 for the Gen Con Writers Symposium. Here's my schedule. In particular, check out the writing workshop I'm running on "Tips and Strategies for Neurodiverse Writers." Note that all the panels and the workshop require registration and some are already sold out, so if you're attending be sure to register early.
Seattle Worldcon: I'm also on programming at this year's Worldcon from August 13 to 17, where I'm a Hugo Award finalist in the categories of Best Related Work and Best Fan Writer. My programming details will be released in the near future.
More Concerns Raised Over Contracts from Must Read Magazines
In my last Genre Grapevine I reported on Must Read Magazines, the new owner of Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact, releasing new issues of those magazines along with planning a release of F&SF's next issue in late summer. Concerns were also raised about the company's publication contracts, which included a clause related to merchandising rights that many authors didn't like.
In response to these contract concerns, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) reached out to Must Read Magazines and published a short report saying the merchandising clause appeared to be negotiable.
However, since then more concerns have been raised about other clauses in the Must Read Magazines' contracts, in particular a moral rights clause that was not in the previous contracts used by Dell Magazines. These concerns were mainly raised by authors in private forums because they didn't want to risk blowback while negotiating with the company.
In what may have been a response to these concerns, on July 3rd Victoria Strauss wrote a detailed post on SFWA's Writer Beware exploring moral rights clauses. Authors should definitely read the entire post to learn more about what these clauses mean.
As Strauss explained:
"Moral rights are intended to protect authorship, primarily by ensuring that a creator's work is published or disseminated with their name—the right of attribution—and that the work can't be altered or modified in ways that would be deleterious or prejudicial to the author or to the work itself—the right of integrity."
Strauss stated on Writer Beware that moral rights clauses are common in many "book contracts, short fiction and anthology contracts, audiobook contracts, contest guidelines, serialized fiction app contracts, and more." However, they are somewhat rare in magazine contracts.
Shortly after Stauss's post, David Anaxagoras became the first author to go public on this issue, stating on Bluesky:
"Apparently the SFWA won't name names but I will: ANALOG. The new contract under Must Read Magazines includes a moral rights waiver. And they are rather insistent about it. I'm guessing this applies to all the digests under MRM now, though I haven't seen those contracts. DON'T JUST SIGN. NEGOTIATE."
I have now received examples of the Must Read Magazine contracts from authors who are either negotiating with the company or have signed the contract. While the Writer Beware post doesn't mention this company's specific contract or their magazines, Strauss does quote from an anonymous "magazine contract" that appears to be identical to the ones offered by Must Read Magazines.
Here's the moral rights clause as published by Writer Beware:
"You agree that the publisher may publish the work in the style and format of its choosing, including next to advertising Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this document, you expressly waive all moral rights in favor of, and covenants to, Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees, assigns or successors in title, as the case may be, to refrain from asserting any and all moral rights in the Work or any updates or revisions to the Work, accruing to you now and in the future, by virtue of statute or otherwise, howsoever arising throughout the world. However, Publisher undertakes to make its commercial best efforts to ensure that Author's Pseudonym or Name, will appear with the story of every copy of the Work published by Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees."
Authors I spoke with who received the contract with the moral rights language from Must Read Magazines described the negotiations to remove it as "difficult."
Most of the authors I spoke with and who shared their contracts requested anonymity. However, Stewart C. Baker was willing to speak on the record.
Baker recently signed a contract with Must Read Magazines to publish one of his stories in Analog. According to Baker:
"The company's standard contract is extremely beneficial to Must Read Books, in my opinion, and aggressive in terms of the rights it takes from authors. I don't think it is the worst contract I have seen, nor that it is actively predatory. But I'm not convinced at all that they need even half of the things they are requiring. Getting changes made to the contract was sometimes easy and sometimes extremely frustrating. … Overall, it took me a month and a half and roughly 50 emails back and forth to get to a contract I was okay with signing."
In the end, Baker was able to get the company to agree to
Removal of the "merchandising" clause;
Changing the language around the publisher's ability to edit the work without Baker's feedback;
Adding a "no AI training" clause;
Making some changes to the moral rights clause.
Baker said his negotiations were with P.L. Stevens, the new publisher of Must Read Magazines. For Baker, the hardest part of the negotiations was on the moral rights clause:
"This was the part of the discussion that got the most frustrating for me (and, I suspect, for PL as well). At the start, I was just genuinely unable to get across that I did not plan to sue them for minor mistakes, and PL was unable to explain exactly why they needed the moral rights waived in the first place beyond vague concerns about 'being accidentally in breach of contract' which he said they could not afford as a small business. Eventually I realized that we were concerned about different moral rights. My main concern is with receiving recognition as author of my work. The publisher's main concern seems to be the right of the author to 'object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.' (that is a quote from the Berne Convention)"
In the end, Baker was able to have the moral rights clause rewritten as follows:
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this document, and excepting the right to claim authorship of the Work and the right of attribution in territories where applicable as of the date of this agreement, you expressly waive all moral rights in favor of, and covenants to, Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees, assigns or successors in title, as the case may be, and to refrain from asserting any and all moral rights in the Work or any updates or revisions to the Work, accruing to you now and in the future, by virtue of statute or otherwise, howsoever arising throughout the world. You agree not to hold Publisher liable or in breach of contract, for any damage to or infringement of your moral rights and understand that Publisher undertakes to make its commercial best efforts to ensure that Author's Pseudonym or Name, will appear with the story of every copy of the Work published by Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees, and that the Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees will not purposefully remove the Author's Pseudonym or Name with the intent to induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal infringement. You hereby agree to waive and renounce any and all rights to injunctive relief against all parties inclusive of third-parties, licensors or assigns or equitable from the Publisher relief in connection with such matters.
Baker's entire detailed response to me about these contract negotiations can be downloaded here as a PDF. I strongly recommend people read Baker's entire response for insight into negotiating with Must Read Magazines.
Baker noted that he's not sure he'll submit again to any of the Must Read magazines unless they "significantly changed their contracts to be more in line with industry standards." But despite saying that, he closed by noting:
"I do not think the publisher is acting in bad faith or purposefully trying to screw writers out of their rights. They just seem kind of overwhelmed and uninformed about industry standards, and a little too reliant on lawyers."
Goodreads Continues to Enable Trolls
In late June, The Bookseller reported that "Authors are reportedly being hit by negative reviews on the book review site Goodreads before proof copies are even circulated, with the review site allegedly failing to remove reviews." Crime writer Jo Furniss and romance author Milly Johnson were among the authors quoted as having had this happen to them.
In response to the article, Patrick Samphire noted that, "This has been going on for years and years. It's not necessarily review bombing (although it can be). Some users use star ratings to indicate how excited they are about a forthcoming book. This is why authors should, IMO, avoid looking at Goodreads."
Charlotte Lydia Riley also had this happen. "I had a one-star rating for a book that hadn't even been seen by my copy editor. When I raised it with Goodreads they wouldn't interfere as they said the reviewer had a perfect right to predict if they'd enjoy it or not..."
Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon, didn't respond to a request for comment by The Bookseller. However, the article did note that Goodreads "has a code of conduct to prevent fake reviews or harassment."
A code of conduct which, spoiler, Goodreads rarely follows. For example, five years ago I reported about how lax security and moderation on the site allowed trolls to spoof people and harass authors. And here we are today seeing the same problems continuing to happen.
At this point, it doesn't appear that Amazon will ever fix the issues that plague Goodreads.
Just food for thought.
Seattle Worldcon and Related News
Voting for the Hugo Awards is open until July 23, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
In excellent news, ConCurrent Seattle is an official programming alternative to WorldCon 2025. ConCurrent will be held on Thursday, August 14 at the ACT Theatre in downtown Seattle "as an alternative for those who want a convention with no genAI involved." The complete schedule has now been released. In addition, Concurrent is still seeking donations to fund the event, having raised $4,402 of the needed $5,000. Finally, while admission to ConCurrent is free, registration is required.
The first virtual meeting for the Seattle Worldcon was held on July 4. According this year's Worldcon business meeting page, "peak attendance at the meeting, based on users logged into the virtual platform, was about 180, with 165 members logged in for the entirety of the meeting." This is far above the attendance for the normal in-person meetings. Per a good report about the meeting in File770, "The first controversy to be resolved was whether holding the meeting online was valid under the WSFS Constitution." By a vote of 102 for and 46 against, the legality of the virtual meeting format was upheld. Other actions taken can be seen on the business meeting page.
Future virtual business meetings will be held on July 13, 19, and 25, with a final in-person meeting on August 16. The agenda for these meetings can be downloaded here as a PDF.
Voting for site selection for the 2027 Worldcon is open through August 15. The only site up for a vote is the Montréal in 2027 bid. To vote, Worldcon members must pay an additional $50 for a site selection token.
Awards
Harmony Knight's Earth S.O.S. won the 2025 Future Worlds Prize.
Finalists for the 2025 Ignyte Awards. Note voting is open through August 15.
Finalists for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.
Finalists for the 2024 Shirley Jackson Awards.
Finalists for the 2025 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction.
Finalist for the 2025 British Fantasy Awards.
Finalists for the 2025 Dream Foundry writing and art contests.
Finalists for the 2025 Mythopoeic Awards.
Sierra Greer's novel Annie Bot won the 2025 Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Frank Herbert received the 2025 SFWA Infinity Award. The award highlights "the achievements of creators who did not live long enough to be considered for the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, but who achieved a distinct and tremendous legacy in science fiction and fantasy."
Update on Barkley's Hugo Award Lawsuit
In other award-focused news, Chris M. Barkley went to court in Chicago in an attempt to receive his 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. His Hugo statue, along with those of many other winners, were supposed to be delivered by former Hugo admin Dave McCarty. But after Chris and I reported on the censorship and exclusion involved in the 2023 Hugo Awards, which were managed by McCarty, Chris strangely never received his award.
Chris sued McCarty in civil court. On June 26, the judge ruled that McCarty has until September 22 to give Chris the award. The case also revealed that McCarty claims Barkley's award is still damaged and he's waiting for a replacement part to be sent from the Chengdu Worldcon. McCarty also noted there are also 16 other Hugo Awards from 2023 that are damaged and yet to be delivered to winners.
It was also revealed that the Chengdu Worldcon doesn't want damaged awards given out, with them twice sending replacement parts that didn't work. So a third shipment of parts to repair the statues is now inbound.
What's sad about all this is we're approaching two years since these people won their Hugos. All McCarty and Chengdu Worldcon had to do was send a simple email to the winners explaining what happened and people would have likely understood. Instead, the Hugo winners received silence. And it took a court case for all this info to be revealed.
Other News and Info
Less than a year ago TikTok's owner ByteDance launched the publishing house 8th Note Press, which aimed to release books that benefited from viral BookTok support. However, the press has now been shut down and returned rights to the 30 books they purchased to their authors. The New York Times quoted literary agent Mark Gottlieb as saying the closure will do "irreparable damage" to 8th Note Press authors because it can be difficult to resell a book that is published for a short time then disappears.
In an email, SFWA announced the hiring of Isis Asare as the organization's new executive director and Russell Davis as operations director. These new hires appear to be part of the organization's continuing response to last year's troubles.
Starting June 10, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing has changed royalty rates "for books priced below certain list prices (e.g. less than 9.99 USD). The royalty rate on these titles decreased from 60% to 50%." According to their website, "These books represent a unique challenge given increased operational costs and this change allows us to continue offering these books while avoiding impact to other titles. Separately, as part of our annual printing cost review, we are reducing color printing costs for paperbacks in some marketplaces to help authors adopt color printing."
Only seven days to go in the annual fundraiser for Strange Horizons.
According to Publishers Weekly, "Philadelphia-based indie publisher Quirk Books, which rose to prominence 23 years ago as the creator of the bestselling Worst Case Scenario brand, has paused its publishing program and laid off a significant portion of its staff, founder and publisher David Borgenicht confirmed to PW. Those laid off were all nonsupervisory employees, including seven members of a union that had been formed a month ago. Pointing out that Quirk management had voluntarily recognized the union on June 19, Borgenicht denied that the layoffs were in retaliation." However, Helena Fitzgerald disagreed with Borgenicht's "it's not retaliation" take, saying "ah yes the 'unfortunate coincidence' in which all of the people laid off were members of the company's recently formed union. many such cases. now if you'll excuse me, I have an urgent appointment with the wallet inspector."
The Guardian did a deep dive into how the far right is attempting to spread its ideology through the publishing industry. Among the presses explored in the article is the new science fiction publisher Ark Press.
Rick Riordan shared on Threads that "My editor tells me that Percy Jackson has hit 780 weeks / 15 years on the New York Times children's series bestseller list. Wow. Thanks to everyone who has let Percy be part of their lives! Also renewing my call for the NYT to create a debut book bestseller category, so we can highlight new authors."
How the imagery from films by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are inspiring a new generation of video games.
Fascinating look at the NASA satellite that's been dead for 57 years but still sent a strange signal to Earth. And before every writer in the SF genre grabs that for one of their stories, I think Alasdair Stuart has already staked a claim, saying "looks at novella that could maybe use an inciting incident Well, shit."
Opportunities
Shannon Winton will be teaching the online "Editing Science Fiction and Fantasy" workshop from October 1–November 11 through the Editorial Freelancers Association. Per the workshop description, "Journey into the uncharted worlds and arcane magics of science fiction and fantasy editing! In this six-week course, we will empower you to make informed and story-forward edits in science fiction and fantasy works. You'll become well-versed in helping authors fix issues with worldbuilding and exposition, flat character archetypes, and tropey plots, and you'll learn how to strike a balance in hybrid genres like literary science fiction and paranormal romance. Lastly, you will develop your ability to provide deliverables integral to your authors' success." Details and how to register>>
The SETI Institute is accepting submissions for the 2025 Cosmic Chronicles Literary Prize. Deadline Sept. 1. Details>>
Elastic, a print magazine of psychedelic art and literature, is seeking submissions for their Interspecies issue. "We welcome work that explores connections—intimate, hostile, symbiotic, psychic—between humans, animals, plants, fungi, and all kinds of other lifeforms. Those relationships can be central or very subtle." Deadline is July 31. Details>>
Wizards Tower Books is seeking submissions of novellas for their new Wiz Duos line. "Inspired by the popular Ace Doubles line of the 60's and 70's, the idea is to bring out complementary pairs of novellas as single paperbacks / ebooks." Details>>