We’re REH Awards Finalists!

Exciting news: we’re on the Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards shortlist of finalists – Angeline in The Venarium – Emerging Scholar category for her Disability and the Roots of Heroic Fantasy talk, and for the blog (see below); and both of us are up for The Costigan – Literary Achievement with The Red Man and Others!

It’s a strong year for finalists, and we’re also happy to see among others The Cromcast, one of our favourite podcasts, and Jason Ray Carney, torchbearer for what Sword & Sorcery can be, both as editor of Whetstone, and for an excellent essay that explores a sometimes under-appreciated aspect of Conan: his compassion.

Angeline’s shortlisting for Disability and the Roots of Heroic Fantasy reflects that, in 2022, disability and neurodivergence are an inextricable part of the fantasy conversation, but also that we’ve always been part of the speculative fiction landscape. You can read a bit more about the talk elsewhere on our blog.

We’re also very happy that our short story collection The Red Man and Others has been shortlisted, and that the adventures of Kaila, Ymke and Sebastien resonate in a world where a lot of us feel like scrappy but wily underdogs! Hopefully enough of the voting members will like it, as we definitely wouldn’t mind hanging one of these wooden plaques in our home library!

The blog articles Angeline got shortlisted for in the Emerging Scholar category are:
They Were Always Here: How the female readers of Weird Tales were as active, and into Conan, as the men. 
They Were Always Here 2: Editor Doroty McIlwraith, and further female readers of Weird Tales. 
They Were Always Here: Tigrina: How Weird Tales reader Tigrina became a heroine in her own right – in the queer community. 
C.L. Moore: How this early female S&S writer got ignored. 
Solomon Kane (2009) Revisited: Review of the 2009 film. 
Conan the Barbarian (2011): Review of the 2011 film. 
Once Upon a Time in Hyrkania: How a Red Sonja film could be done – as a Spaghetti Western
Worms of the Earth: A disability synchronicity between REH’s story and the Tod Browning’s 1932 film “Freaks”
The Tower of Cthulhu: Was REH’s Yag-kosha a Lovecraftian Old One? 
Swordswomen!: “Swordswomen are unrealistic, as they’d be no match for a man!” Really? 
On Representation: Gatekeeping and representation in fantastic fiction
Flashing Swords 6: A Deeper Cut: By his diatribe against feminists and trans people, editor Robert M. Price finds himself on the wrong side of history. 
Chariots of Ire: Wheelchairs, D&D, Fantasy and disability. 
Disability and the Roots of Heroic Fantasy: Blog post accompanying the OctoCon talk. 
Control Your Shelves: On textual purity, ‘death of the author’ and genre gatekeeping.
The Editor’s Axe: How Sword & Sorcery’s racist heritage still defines its present. 
Fled & Done: Sword & Sorcery: Is there a viable future for S&S outside of the genre ghetto?