The Science Fiction Poetry Association recently announced the 2013 Rhysling Award Winners:

Short Poem Category:
First Place: “The Cat Star” by Terry A. Garey
Second Place: “Futurity’s Shoelaces” by Marge Simon
Third Place: “Sister Philomela Heard the Voices of Angels” by Megan Arkenberg

Long Poem Category:
First Place: “Into Flight” by Andrew Robert Sutton
Second Place: “String Theory” by John Philip Johnson
Third Place (tie): “The Time Traveler’s Weekend” by Adele Gardner and
“The Necromantic Wine” by Wade German

This award is given by the Science Fiction Poetry Association to recognize the best speculative poems published in the previous year. The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) was founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction poetry. With over 300 members internationally, the Science Fiction Poetry Association offers yearly awards for speculative poetry: the Rhysling Awards for individual poems, the Dwarf Stars Award for short-short poems, and the Elgin Awards (new in 2013) for genre poetry books and chapbooks, named for the SFPA founder.

The SFPA publishes the yearly Rhysling Anthology, comprised of works nominated for the Rhysling Awards for Best Poems of the Year, and the Dwarf Stars anthology for short-short speculative poems. This year’s Rhysling Anthology editor was John C. Mannone.

Debuting in 1978, the first Rhysling winners were, in the long form, Gene Wolfe, and, tied in the short form, Duane Ackerson, Andrew Joron, and Sonya Dorman.

Terry A. Garey’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Dodeca, Uranus, Star*Line, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Raw Sacks, Paper Bag Writer, Dreams and Nightmares, Women en Large, and Burning With A Vision. She has edited poetry for Janus, Tales of the Unanticipated, and is the editor (with Eleanor Arnason) of Time Gum, and also Time Frames: an anthology of speculative poetry. She lives in Minneapolis, MN with a librarian, two cats, and more books than she can count. She is a founding member of Lady Poetesses From Hell.

Andrew Robert Sutton was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University where he studied both telecommunications and the written word. His heart has been torn between his love of cutting-edge technologies and traditional art forms ever since. His articles on the history of technology and its impact on business have appeared in over forty publications, including newspapers, magazines, and numerous blogs. “Into Flight” is his first foray into poetry.

Marge Simon’s works appear in publications such as Bête Noire, Niteblade, DailySF Magazine, Silver Blade,and Dreams & Nightmares. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She has won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, the Bram Stoker Award™(2008, 2012), the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award. Collections: Like Birds in the Rain, Unearthly Delights, The Mad Hattery, Vampires, Zombies & Wanton Souls, and Dangerous Dreams. Member HWA, SFWA, SFPA.margesimon.com

John Philip Johnson has had work in, or forthcoming in, Dreams & Nightmares, Mythic Delirium, Strange Horizons, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, and Daily Science Fiction, among other places, besides James Gunn’s Ad Astra where this poem first appeared. He reviews for Star*Line and elsewhere, and just recently earned a master’s degree in English, with a thesis of science fictional poetry, from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. His astro-engineering work at Raytheon is still classified, but let’s just say —”

Megan Arkenberg lives and writes in California. Her work has recently appeared in Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 5, and has tried for best short story of 2012 in the Asimov’s Readers’ Award. Her poem “The Curator Speaks in the Department of Dead Languages” won the Rhysling Award for best long poem of 2012. Megan procrastinates by editing the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance.

Wade German’s poems have appeared internationally in numerous journals and anthologies, including Dark Horizons, Dreams and Nightmares, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Midnight Echo, Mythic Delirium, Nameless, Phantom Drift, Space and Time, Star*Line, Strange Sorcery and Weird Fiction Review.

Adele Gardner’s poetry collection, Dreaming of Days in Astophel, is available from Sam’s Dot Publishing. Her stories and poems have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Legends of the Pendragon, The Doom of Camelot, Penumbra, Scheherazade’s Façade, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, and New Myths, among others. In 2012, she chaired the Rhysling Awards for the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Currently cataloging librarian for a public library, she’s also literary executor for her father, Delbert R. Gardner. Please visit gardnercastle.com

Awards are nominated and voted on by the active membership of the SFPA  each year. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in science fiction poetry, with annual dues between $15 to $30 that includes a subscription to Star*Line Magazine, the annual Rhysling Anthology, and the Dwarf Stars Anthology. For further information about the Science Fiction Poetry Association you can visit them online at http://www.sfpoetry.com or on facebook.