2020 Rhysling Anthology and Award

Anthology Information

Editor and Rhysling Chair:
David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Book Design: F.J. Bergmann

Cover ImageAnother Day at the Beach
by Hal Tenny

Publisher: Science Fiction Poetry Association

All Award Winners

Short Poem Category

First Place: “Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5

Second Place: “when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive

Third Place (tie): “Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov's SF, July/August

Third Place (tie): “The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring

Long Poem Category

First Place: “Heliobacterium daphnephilum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Star*Line 42.3

Second Place: “The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 28

Third Place (tie): “The Macabre Modern” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press, 2019)

Third Place (tie): “Ode to the Artistic Temperament” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 42

Chair and Winner Biographies

Born in Korea, Jessica J. Horowitz now writes speculative fiction and poetry in New England, where they balance their aversion to cold with the inability to live anywhere without snow. Previous works can be at Flash Fiction Online, Fireside, DSF, Apparition Lit. and others. They blog infrequently at pengolin.wordpress.com and have slightly more frequent feelings and opinions on Twitter @transientj

Rebecca Buchanan is the editor of the Pagan literary ezine Eternal Haunted Summer, and a regular contributor to evOke: witchcraft*paganism*lifestyle. Her work has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Cliterature, Corvid Queen, Eye to the Telescope, Mirror Dance, Silver Blade, and Star*Line, among other venues. 

Caroline Mao is a designer and computer science student at Barnard College Columbia. She loves reading, New York City, and bubble tea.

Theodora Goss is the World Fantasy Award–winning author of the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting (2006); Interfictions (2007), a short story anthology coedited with Delia Sherman; Voices from Fairyland (2008), a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems; The Thorn and the Blossom (2012), a novella in a two-sided accordion format; the poetry collection Songs for Ophelia (2014); and debut novel The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (2017). She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, Seiun, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List, and her work has been translated into eleven languages. She teaches literature and writing at Boston University and in the Stonecoast MFA Program. Visit her at TheodoraGoss.com

Sandra J. Lindow has served as SFPA's VP and acting president. Presently she will be co-editing reviews for the new SFPA blog. Her most recent poetry collection is The Island of Amazonned Women. She teaches, writes, edits and shouts at squirrels for digging up and eating her canna lilies. She has more Rhysling nominations and near-wins than anyone ever.

Tyler Hagemann was born and raised in Lindsay, Ontario, but has spent the last decade in Toronto. He is a recent graduate of a psychology program, and holds a BFA in theatre. 

All Nominated Poems

112 members voted on 77 short poems and 49 long poems by 95 different poets and from 67 different publications.

Short Poems

  • “Abeona, Goddess of Outward Journeys, Pilots the Interstellar Ark” • Nisa Malli • Apparition Lit 7
  • “Aliens declutter” • PS Cottier • Scifaikuest, August
  • “All-Father” • Vince Gotera • Dreams and Nightmares 111
  • “Alternate Galatea” • Amelia Gorman • Liminality 21
  • “Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee” • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Star*Line 42.4
  • “Blood Moon” • Sara Backer • Polu Texni, November 24
  • “The Book of Fly” • John Philip Johnson • Rattle 63
  • “The Certainty of Seeing” • Michelle Muenzler • Polu Texni, 3 June
  • “Collie Dogs In Space” • Debby Feo • A Poet Explores The Stars, ed. J. Alan Erwine (Nomadic Delirium Press)
  • “Continuum” • G. O. Clark • Analog, September/October
  • “Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov's SF, July/August
  • “Crimson Faces” • Maxwell I. Gold • Space & Time Magazine 135
  • “The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring
  • “Disassembly at Auction” • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Mobius: The Journal of Social Change 30:4
  • “Don’t Open the Box!” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press)
  • “drag strip drag” • Francine P. Lewis • Eye to the Telescope 32
  • “Eldritch Horror” • Katie Manning • Bowery Gothic I
  • “Encore” • Tim Jones • Big Hair Was Everywhere (ESAW)
  • “Fallen But Not Down” • Sarah Cannavo • Liminality 20
  • “Fallen Star” • Clay F. Johnson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
  • From “Moon Sonnet” • Lily Zhou • Poetry, May
  • “The Ghosts of Those” • Ron Riekki • Star*Line 42.2
  • “The Girl who Loved Birds” • Clara Blackwood • Amazing Stories 3
  • “Goddamn These Minotaurs” • Persephone Erin Hudson • paintbucket, November 10
  • “haiku” • Juan M. Perez • haikuniverse, June 8
  • “Halsted IV” • Jeff Crandall • Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October
  • “How to Care for Your Yesterday's Camel” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation)
  • “How to Colonize Ganymede” • Mary Soon Lee • New Myths 48
  • “How To Dance With Dark Matter” • Mary Soon Lee • Uppagus 37
  • “Huitzilopochtli” • Lorraine Schein • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice
  • “If All the Seas Were Blood” • D. L. Myers • Oracles from the Black Pool (Hippocampus Press)
  • “The Journey” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, April 1
  • “Lady Macbeth’s Green Gown” • Jacqueline West • Liminality 19
  • “Mary Agnes Chase (1869–1963)” • Jessy Randall • Strange Horizons, December 9
  • “Mary Poppins, 2100” • Cathy Tenzo • Typehouse 18
  • “The Mother Searches for Her Own Story” • Mary McMyne • Strange Horizons, November 11
  • “Mothsong” • John Philip Johnson • Liquid Imagination 42
  • “My Ghost Will Know The Way” • Beth Cato • The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August
  • “New Stars” • F. J. Bergmann • Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest
  • “The Night the Unicorn Leapt from the Tapestry” • Kate Pentecost • Liminality 19
  • “No Fairy Tale World” • Lisa Timpf • New Myths 47
  • “The Nonpareils: As Told by the Woman in the Gingerbread House” • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Star*Line 42.4
  • “Objects of Desire” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 113
  • “Óòjí Íjè [Kola Journey]” • Uche Ogbuji • FIYAH Literary Magazine 11
  • “The Planets? Sweet …” • Harris Coverley • Star*Line 42.4
  • “Phobos and Deimos” • W. C. Roberts • Chrome Bairn 82
  • “Prayer on a Friday Morning” • L. R. Harvey • American Diversity Report, December
  • “A Purring Cat is a Time Machine” • Beth Cato • Daikaijuzine 1
  • “Regarding me” • Michael H. Hanson • HWA Poetry Showcase VI
  • “Reparation” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11
  • “Revisiting the origins of language” • Terrie Leigh Relf • Space & Time Magazine 133
  • “Robert Goddard at Roswell” • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 42.4
  • “The Root King’s Winter” • Jessica P. Wick • Enchanted Living/Faerie Magazine, Winter
  • “A Rose Waits” • Adele Gardner • Dreams and Nightmares 113
  • “The Ruined Library” • Bruce Boston • Asimov's SF, May/June
  • “The Sacrifices” • Mike Allen • Sycorax 2
  • “Samsara” • Jason O’Toole • The Scrib Arts Journal, Fall
  • “Seven Reasons to Have Hope for a Better Future. Number Five Will Really Get You!” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February
  • “shoals of Miami” • Greer Woodward • Troutswirl, December 4
  • “Singing Ghost” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February
  • “The Snow Globe” • Marge Simon • Polu Texni, 8 December
  • “The Solace of the Farther Moon” • Allan Rozinski • Weirdbook Annual 2
  • “Sphere” • Francis W. Alexander • Scifaikuest XVI:1
  • “Steampunk Christmas” • David Clink • Star*Line 42.4
  • “Styx” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11
  • “Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5
  • “Ten-Card Tarot, Pentacles Wild” • F. J. Bergmann • Eye to the Telescope 32
  • “Three of Swords, King of Cups” • Ali Trotta • Fireside Fiction, July
  • “To Skeptics” • Mary Soon Lee • Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August
  • “The Unseen” • Fran Wilde • Fireside Fiction, March
  • “Wake Up, Little Stevie” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation)
  • “What You Hear When Your Best Friend Falls for a Supervillain” • Beth Cato • Star*Line 42.1
  • “when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive
  • “Where Have the Space Heroes Gone?” • Darrell Schweitzer •  Amazing Stories 77:1
  • “The Wishing Clock of Gassytown” • Deborah Wong • Frozen Wavelets 1
  • “Witch” • Mary Soon Lee • Polu Texni, October 21
  • “The Wolfman and Space Girl” • Neil Sloboda • Neon 48

Long Poems

Nominations per Publication

Number of NominationsPublication Name
2Abyss & Apex
1Altered Reality Magazine
3Amazing Stories
2American Diversity Report
1Analog Science Fiction and Fact
1Anatomy of Hate, ed. Karen Otto (Alban Lake Publishing)
3Apparition Lit
2Asimov’s Science Fiction
1Big Hair Was Everywhere (ESAW)
1Bluff & Vine
1Bowery Gothic
1Chrome Bairn
1Corvid Queen
1The Coven’s Hornbook and Other Poems (Bold Venture Press)
1Crab Fat Magazine
1Daikaijuzine
1Deep Fried Horror
4Dreams and Nightmares
1Enchanted Conversation
1Enchanted Living/Faerie Magazine
3Eternal Haunted Summer
5Eye to the Telescope
2Fireside Fiction
1FIYAH Literary Magazine
1Frozen Wavelets
1Geist
1Haikuniverse
1Illumen
2Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing)
2The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation)
5Liminality
1Liquid Imagination
2The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press)
3The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
1Maria W. Faust 2019 Sonnet Contest
1Mithila Review
1Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
2Neon
5New Myths
1Oracles from the Black Pool (Hippocampus Press)
1Outposts of Beyond
1paintbucket
1The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing)
1A Poet Explores The Stars, ed. J. Alan Erwine (Nomadic Delirium Press)
1Poetry
9Polu Texni
2Quail Bell
1Rattle
2Scifaikuest
1The Scrib Arts Journal
1SFPA Poetry Contest
1Shoreline of Infinity
1Silver Blade
1The Sirens Call
2Small Waiting Objects (CW Books)
2Space & Time Magazine
3Spectral Realms
9Star*Line
6Strange Horizons
1Sycorax Journal
1Tales Of The Lost Vol. 1, eds. Eugene Johnson & Steve Dillon (Things in the Well)
1Troutswirl
1Typehouse
3Uncanny
1Uppagus
1Weird Fiction Review
1Weirdbook Annual
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