I’m over the moon to share that THE CORAL BONES has been shortlisted for the 2023 Arthur C. Clarke Award. The Clarke Award is given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. It’s such an immense honour to be shortlisted for this award and needless to say THE CORAL BONES is in amazing company.
The 2023 shortlist is:
VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)
THE RED SCHOLAR’S WAKE by Aliette de Bodard (Gollancz)
PLUTOSHINE by Lucy Kissick (Gollancz)
THE ANOMALY by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter (Michael Joseph)
THE CORAL BONES by E. J. Swift (Unsung Stories)
METRONOME by Tom Watson (Bloomsbury)
The award winner will be announced on 16 August and you can read the full shortlist announcement here.
Publishing can sometimes feel like the slowest moving thing in the world, but occasionally things happen at pace.
A few weeks ago, my brilliant publisher for The Coral Bones, Unsung Stories, announced the heartbreaking news that they will be closing down. If you haven’t yet seen George Sandison’s post about why, please do take a look – it has so much to say about the extraordinary challenges of running a small press, and it’s testament to the dedication and passion of George, Dan, Vince and Laura that Unsung has continued for as long as it has. I will be forever grateful to them for giving The Coral Bones a home and a chance to find readers.
There is currently a sale for all the titles on Unsung’s list, including The Coral Bones, and you can still support our books until Unsung wraps up later this summer.
Without Unsung, I would not have been seeing the incredible news just a couple of weeks later that The Coral Bones has been shortlisted for The Kitschies Red Tentacle. This is such a huge honour – I have followed the Kitschies Awards avidly over the years and exploring their lists is always a source of great delight and discovery. To be among such company is a real privilege.
The Kitschies winners will be announced on 24 June at a ceremony as part of Bradford Literature Festival.
The Kitschies Red Tentacle finalists 2023
Finally, it was a delight to attend my second MCM Comic Con in London this weekend. Huge thanks to fellow authors Temi Oh, Nicholas Binge, and Kate Dylan for a great discussion on the Dystopian Worlds panel, and thank you as ever to the brilliant team at Forbidden Planet for looking after us at the signing afterwards.
I’m over the moon to share the news that THE CORAL BONES has been shortlisted for a British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) award for Best Novel. It’s a huge honour and I’m immensely grateful to everyone who has voted for the book from such a fantastic longlist (do check it out for some great recommendations across fiction, non-fiction and artwork).
The shortlists will be voted on by BSFA members and the British Annual Science Fiction Convention (Eastercon). The winners will be announced during Conversation, this year’s Eastercon, to be held April 7-10, 2023 at the Birmingham NEC Hilton.
You can find the full BSFA shortlists here. Needless to say, THE CORAL BONES is among great company!
Some very exciting news which I can finally share – I’m thrilled and delighted to announce that my story “The Spiders of Stockholm” from the anthology Irregularity (Jurassic, 2014) has been longlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award!
The 19 longlisted writers and their stories are:
The Indian Uprising by Ann Beattie
The Collected Tricks of Houdini by Rotimi Babatunde
The Ways by Colin Barrett
Fat White Cop with Ginger Eyebrows by Louise Doughty
Qualities of the Modern Farmer by Emily Franklin
The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon
The Glove Maker’s Numbers by Rebecca F. John
A Sheltered Woman by Yiyun Li
Hungry by Elizabeth McCracken
False River by Paula Morris
Interstellar Space by Scott O’Connor
Jules Verne Seeks Dreamers for Long-Distance Travel in Time by Mary O’Donoghue
The Referees by Joseph O’Neill
Lucky by Julianne Pachico
After the War, Before the War by David Peace
Holiday by Mona Simpson
Still Water, BC by Erin Soros
The Spiders of Stockholm by E. J. Swift
The Wedding Cake by Madeleine Thien
The shortlist will be announced on Sunday 1 March. You can find out more about the award and read the stories online here.
“The Spiders of Stockholm” was published in Irregularity, an anthology which explores the tension between order and chaos in the Age of Enlightenment. If you like the sound of “The Spiders of Stockholm”, please do consider checking out this wonderful anthology, and of course, the rest of Jurassic’s titles. Jurassic have a history of supporting new and emerging writers, and producing really beautiful books, inside and out.
E. J. Swift 