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Category Archive: Awards
PS Publishing nominations for World Fantasy Awards
Posted by Paul Raven on August 7th, 2008 at 8:36
Awards season rolls ever onwards in the world of genre... which is fine by me, because it distracts me from getting too jealous of all the people currently having a ball at WorldCon!
But here's some news that more than compensates for being stuck in the UK - PS Publishing makes some appearances in the list of nominees for this year's World Fantasy Awards. The full list is up at SF Signal, so I'll just snip out the ones from the home team:
BEST NOVELLA
- The Mermaids by Robert Edric [ hardcover - £10/$20 approx.; jacketed hardcover - £25/$50 approx. ]
- Illyria by Elizabeth Hand [ paperback - £10/$20 approx.; hardcover - £25/$50 approx. ]
BEST COLLECTION
- Dagger Key and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard [ jacketed hardcover - £25/$50 approx. ]
SPECIAL AWARD--PROFESSIONAL
- Peter Crowther for PS Publishing
On behalf of PS Publishing as an outfit, I'd like to say we're very pleased to receive these nominations - not just for ourselves but for the authors, without whom there would be no publishing houses, awards or conventions in the first place.
And on behalf of myself, I'd like to congratulate Peter - as our customers, you get to see the quality of product he insists on, but since joining the team a few months ago I've been able to see the almost inhuman amount of work that he and the rest of the PS Publishing crew put in to make it happen. I'm half-convinced that Peter doesn't actually sleep like normal people...
As the links indicate, we still have some copies of the nominated works available to purchase, so click on through to snare one - we're finding that nominations for awards tend to provoke an uptick in sales, so you may want to move fast to avoid being disappointed!
(The Lucius Shepard collection comes with my personal recommendation, for what that's worth - I don't usually read dark fantasy, but I absolutely loved these stories.)
PS Publishing titles in the running for International Horror Guild awards
Posted by Paul Raven on July 13th, 2008 at 15:21
The nominations for the International Horror Guild Awards have emerged, and we're pleased as punch to see some PS Publishing titles in the running. The full list can be found over on the International Horror Guild website, but here are the ones from our own stable:
Best Novel:
- Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell [slipcased hardcover £50 / $100; hardcover sold out!]
Best Fiction Collection:
- Dagger Key and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard [jacketed hardcover £25 / $50; slipcased hardcover sold out!]
Best Long Fiction:
- The Scalding Rooms by Conrad Williams [jacketed hardcover £25 / $50; hardcover £10 / $20 - low stock on both editions]
Best Mid-length Fiction:
- "Closet Dreams" by Lisa Tuttle [from Postscripts #10 - unsigned hardcover £12 / $24]
Best Periodical:
- Postscripts [current issue #14: paperback £6 / $12; hardcover £25 / $50; subscriptions]
A pretty good showing, I think you'll agree! On behalf of the whole PS Publishing team, I'd like to pass on our very hearty congratulations to the nominated authors -- without whom we'd never be nominated for anything, and who make it all worthwhile.
If you've not already sampled any of these acclaimed works, click through on the links next to the titles and bag yourself a copy before the rush - some of them are pretty close to sold out already!
PS Publishing’s Peter Crowther in the interview hotseat
Posted by Paul Raven on June 19th, 2008 at 10:22
If you've been wanting an insight into the mastermind behind PS Publishing, you should hop on over to the Shirley Jackson Awards blog, where Charles Tan puts our very own head honcho Peter Crowther to the question about the raison d'etre of PS Publishing.
Here's a snippet of Peter explaining why he loves publishing novellas:
"The novella (20,000 to 40,000 words) is, for me, the perfect length with which to develop characters. It's not as brief as the short story but it can still be read easily in one sitting. [...] I still consider the novella to be our 'bread-and-butter' work."
You can pop back to a previous post to see the flatteringly lengthy list of PS Publishing titles in the running for a Shirley Jackson Award - more news as we have it!
British Fantasy Society Awards 2008 long-list
Posted by Paul Raven on June 10th, 2008 at 8:47
The long-lists of nominees for this year's British Fantasy Society Awards have been published in full at the BFS website - and we're very pleased to see PS Publishing titles, writers, artists and editors all making a good showing in the lists!
Here are the relevant nominations; as usual, PS Publishing titles have a dominating presence in the novella category, but we're spread around the board quite nicely:
Novel
- The Grin Of The Dark - Ramsey Campbell
Novella
- Starship Summer - Eric Brown
- The Mermaids - Robert Edric
- The Lees of Laughter’s End - Steven Erickson
- The City Beyond Play - Philip Jose Farmer and Danny Adams
- Dead Earth: The Green Dawn - Mark Justice and David T Wilbanks
- Hereafter and After - Richard Parks
- The Scalding Rooms - Conrad Williams
- Twelve Collections and the Teashop - Zoran Zivkovic
Short Fiction
- "The Familial" by Gary Fry in Sanity and Other Delusions
- "Thumbprint" by Joe Hill in Postscripts # 10
- "Discovering Ghosts" by Tim Lebbon in Postscripts # 10
- "Loki" by Matthew Rossi in Postscripts # 11
Best Artist
- Vincent Chong and Les Edwards (for multiple covers, including some PS titles)
- John Picacio for cover art, Postscripts # 10
- J.K Potter for cover art, PS Showcase # 1 - Sanity and Other Delusions
- Tomislav Tikulin for cover art, Starship Summer by Eric Brown
Best Small Press
- Postscripts, [Eds] Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers
- PS Publishing, [Ed] Peter Crowther
We're naturally pleased and flattered to be nominated so many times, but it's the hard work of the writers and artists that really makes it possible - so congratulations to all of them from PS Publishing, and to all the other nominees as well.
Click through on the links above to buy yourself a nominated title and discover what all the fuss is about - and feel free to vote for us if you're a BFS member!
Additional edit: To my shame, I didn't notice it on my initial pass through the list, but Darren Turpin (my esteemed predecessor in this very job) polled a much-deserved nomination for the currently-on-hiatus UKSF Book News website in the Best Non-fiction category. Way to go, Darren!
Multiple PS Publishing titles nominated for Shirley Jackson Awards
Posted by Paul Raven on May 3rd, 2008 at 10:17
The category shortlists for this year's Shirley Jackson Awards have been released, and we're immensely proud to see PS Publishing titles making a good showing in the nominations.
The Shirley Jackson Awards were set up to recognise "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic", and are voted for by a jury of academics, writers, editors and other industry professionals - so they are very prestigious prizes indeed.
While we at PS Publishing aren't averse to patting ourselves on the back for our part, it's the authors themselves who deserve the greatest acclaim, for without their stories the books would be blank and the awards pointless - so many congratulations to everyone nominated.
You can catch the whole list of finalists at the Shirley Jackson Awards blog, but here are the PS Publishing titles that made the cut:
Novella:
- 12 Collections, Zoran Zivkovic [hardcover, jacketed hardcover]
- Illyria, Elizabeth Hand [hardcover, paperback]
- The Mermaids, Robert Edric [hardcover, jacketed hardcover]
- The Scalding Rooms, Conrad Williams [hardcover, jacketed hardcover]
Novelette:
- "Thumbprint", Joe Hill (from Postscripts #10) [hardcover]
Congratulations, one and all! Click through on the links above to purchase copies of these acclaimed works at the PS Publishing Webstore.
Jack Dann’s ‘Rings Around the Moon’ shortlisted for 2008 Darrell Award
Posted by Darren on March 12th, 2008 at 10:26
The Darrell Awards are given annually by the Mid-South Science Fiction & Fantasy Association (MSSFFA) for the Best Midsouth SF/F/H fiction in Short Story, Novella, Novel and Other Media categories.
This year, Jack Dann has been shortlisted in the Best novella category for Rings Around the Moon, which we published last year in our Promised Land collection.
This year's winners will be presented at Midsouthcon on Saturday, March 29, 2008. Good luck, Jack!
‘Postscripts’ writers achieve double Stoker Award nomination
Posted by Darren on February 29th, 2008 at 18:08
We're delighted to announce that two pieces of Postscripts-published fiction have been nominated for the Horror Writer Association's prestigious Stoker Awards for 2007.
The two nominated works are:
- 'Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man' by Scott Edelman - nominated for superior achievement in long fiction - first published in Postscripts #12
- 'Closet Dreams' by Lisa Tuttle - nominated for superior achievement in short fiction - first published in Postscripts #10
Congratulations to both Scott and Lisa on their nominations, and fingers very firmly crossed for the announcement of the winners, which will happen at the World Horror Convention, over the weekend of March 27th - 30th at the Radisson Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Tim Lebbon wins Black Quill plaudit for ‘Discovering Ghosts’
Posted by Darren on February 6th, 2008 at 13:21
Horror fiction webzine Dark Scribe recently announced the results of their inaugural Black Quill Awards.
One of the winners was Tim Lebbon, who took the 'Best Dark Scribble (Editor's Choice)' award for his incredibly powerful and cathartic story, 'Discovering Ghosts', which was first published in Postscripts #10.
Many congrats to Tim!
‘Lilies Awards’ outed as a scam…
Posted by Darren on December 13th, 2007 at 15:53
We're sorry to have to report that the mystery 'Lilies' that PS Publishing apparently won back in November have turned out to be fakes after all.
Alas, we rather suspected as much. Our man Robert Wexler noted that the book that apparently won the majority of categories was only published in October, but was already picking up these "awards" in November.
Then we received an email from David Herter, author of On the Overgrown Path, which "won" one of the awards. He told us: "By the way, that bit of news about the mysterious Lilies award. I managed to track down the guy and tell him what a let-down it was to win a fake award. Turns out (according to the guy, at least), his two girlfriends put up the fake webpage to promote his novels."
So, there you have it. A fake award, the main "beneficiary" of which was someone whose name unfortunately escapes me now and can't be double-checked, because the www.thelilies.org web-page has been taken down since. So at least someone had the decency to do that.
But still, a salutory lesson for would-be self-promoters in this age of Google Alerts and the global village gossip vine: even a large dose of chutzpah is worthless without an added measure of integrity.
Mystery awards: PS Publishing wins two ‘Lilies’
Posted by Darren on November 23rd, 2007 at 12:59
T.M. Wright dropped Pete a line recently to let him know that PS seems to have won two 'Lilies', awards given to independent publishing houses by the 'League of Independent Literature' and announced online at www.thelilies.org.
So, we're delighted to announce two winners:
- On the Overgrown Path by David Herter, in the Fantasy/Gothic category
- Flavors of My Genius by Robert Reed, in the Science Fiction category
...and two runners-up:
- Illyria by Elizabeth Hand, in the Romance Noir category
- I Am the Bird by T.M. Wright, in the Horror category
... but the thing is, we have no idea who the organisers of 'The Lilies' are, or when the awards were first announced, or anything else. There are no contact details on the website, nothing useful that Google can find, and the organisers haven't been in touch at all... we asked our chums at www.sfawardswatch.com and they were just as non-plussed... which is all very odd.
So, if you do know anything about The Lilies, or who we should send our thank-you email to, please do leave a comment below, or get in touch and let us know, won't you?
On those BFS Award wins…
Posted by Darren on September 26th, 2007 at 7:01
I asked Pete if he might have a few words to say on those BFS Award wins - a few words? I might as well have asked Bill Gates if he could spare a dollar... ;) - and Nicky had something she wanted to add as well...
Pete on Joe Hill's 'Sidney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer':
"We were delighted to discover that Joe had won the British Fantasy Society's Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer simply because it was just so absolutely the right choice. There are always going to be debates - and reasonably so - about whether so-and-so deserved such-and-such an award but in Joe's case, with the formidable potpourri of by turn phantasmagoric, poignant and chilling tales that was 20th Century Ghosts and then his masterful Heart-Shaped Box full-length debut, there really could be no realistic alternative. I reckon we'll be hearing a lot more from Mr. Hill in the years to come."
Nicky on Vincent Chong's 'Best Artist' Award:
"I've been working alongside Pete for over three years now and perhaps the most exciting part of the job for me is searching for artwork for our covers. Sometimes it involves buying the rights to existing works and sometimes a particular book requires us to commission new art.
"There are some incredible artists turning out fabulous work using a wide range of different techniques and styles... and a good cover is always important. More often than not, unless I know the writer really well, a cover can sell a book to me... and I've discovered new authors by the covers on their books, just as I'm sure I've possibly missed some other fine books because their covers did not press all the required buttons.
"Here at PS, we've got some great artists producing our covers giving them that all-important pick-me-up appeal: one of them is, of course, Vinny Chong. He's a consummate professional and a delight to work with and we're thrilled that his talents have been recognised this year with the British Fantasy Society's Award for Best Artist.
"A final note: many thanks to all the artists who have sent us examples of their work and their website details. Every one is looked at and replied to, and those whose style best suits our needs are kept on file for possible future use."
Pete on Mark Morris's 'Best Non-Fiction' Award:
"Mark Morris is a fine writer, a good friend and a regular visitor to Crowther Towers. But with Cinema Macabre he's shown himself to be an exceptional editor to boot (not to mention a man with very saleable ideas!).
"Nicky and I have attended many FantasyCons at which Mark was shortlisted for an award (usually Best Novel or Best Short Fiction) and we've seen him manfully gritting his teeth to applaud - and applaud very generously - the writer who just pipped him at the post. So it was particularly gratifying to see him burst through the finishing tape in first place with this year's British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction with Cinema Macabre. Bravo, Mark - you did good!"
Pete on Winning the 'Best Small Press Award'
"And finally, we picked up the Award for Best Small Press - for the sixth time out of seven. We're delighted... absolutely over-the-moon thrilled to bits. To all those who ask me if they still mean anything let me say immediately that the Award still means as much as it ever did... but possibly even more.
"Before you win one, you're just a contender trying to get a bit of recognition. But as time goes by, and you've won once, and then twice and then three times and so on, if you miss winning on any particular year then it must mean that you've dropped your game. Sure, it can mean that someone else has lifted their game, but generally, it means you've taken your eye off the ball.
"In all areas of our genre - writing, artwork, editing and so on - there are some fantastic talents at work. But in the British small press publishing arena, particularly over the past four, five or six years, the quality of the output has charged forward in leaps and bounds to become truly formidable. David Howe's Telos, Guy Adams's Humdrumming, Chris Teague's Pendragon, Andrew Hook's Elastic and Gary Fry's Gray Friar and many more... they're all of them exemplary, and the fact that PS edged its nose to the front of the shortlist for yet another year is all of the praise we could possibly hope to receive (though, of course, the actual Award is nice!).
"So, many thanks to everyone who voted for us; and thanks to all the other presses I mentioned, plus those I haven't, for pushing the standards ever higher. We're constantly being pushed and we love it.
"And, lest I forget, huge personal thanks from me to the rest of the team who put up with me and manage to turn out wonderful books despite my best efforts to mess things up: Nick Gevers, my fellow editor; Robert Wexler, chief designer and general design overseer; Nicky, office and process manager and my own personal general right- and left-hand co-ordinator; Ariel, webguy, marketing and publicity; Theresa Loosely, our print superviser; and Aimee Bolton, our mailing and storage manager. You're all wonderful! Onwards!"
PS Publishing celebrates double British Fantasy Society Award win
Posted by Darren on September 24th, 2007 at 11:44
We're delighted to announce that everyone here at PS Publishing is celebrating a handsome brace of awards at the 2007 British Fantasy Awards, which were announced yesterday, at the awards & closing ceremony of this year's British Fantasy Convention, Fantasycon.
The first award, for Best Non-Fiction, went to Mark Morris, for his editorial work on Cinema Macabre, our collection of short essay pieces on the subject of horror cinema, written by some of the top international names in the horror genre.
Mark said how delighted he was to win the British Fantasy award and have it presented at Fantasycon, especially as the project was conceived (in the bar), planned (in the bar) and launched (again...) at various Fantasycons over the last three years...
The second award - Best Small Press - was accepted by our very own Pete Crowther on behalf of all of us here at PS Publishing. Pete paid tribute to the extremely strong field of shortlisted nominees, whose consistently excellent work throughout the year is a constant incentive for us all here at PS Publishing to make damn sure that we never rest on our laurels and work our fingers to the bone to keep bringing out as wide and as excellent a range of titles as we possibly can. I'll post a comment from the man himself just as soon as he gets back to the office, but I think 'chuffed to bits' is a pretty good summary for now...
We'd also like to heartily congratulate Joe Hill on winning the inaugural Sidney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. We still have a few paperback copies of 20th Century Ghosts left in stock, folks, if you want to grab yourself a piece of this incredibly talented rising star's publishing history!
Likewise Vincent Chong on winning a thoroughly deserved Best Artist Award. Vincent's artwork has graced several of our covers to-date and will certainly be gracing a fair few more in the future...
Full details of all the winners have been posted over at UK SF Book News.
Zoran Živković wins 2007 Stefan Mitrov Ljubisa award
Posted by Darren on September 4th, 2007 at 15:30
PS author Zoran Živković has been in touch to let us know that he has been named the winner of the 2007 Stefan Mitrov Ljubisa Award for life achievement in literature. The award was presented at a ceremony in the Montenegrin city of Budva on August 29th this year and everyone here at PS would like to send him our heartiest congratulations!
Zoran tells us: "The award, named after one of the greatest Montenegrin writer of the 19th century, is a major mainstream literary prize that also includes 1,000 euros in prize money."
The photos below were taken by Slaven Vilus and are used here with his kind permission. The first shot shows Zoran receiving his award from award jury member Professor Bozena Jelusic, and in the second he's catching a few well-earned rays down at the Budva marina...
PS is proud to be the UK publisher of the following titles by Zoran Živković:
- Impossible Stories
- Twelve Collections and the Teashop
- The Last Book (forthcoming, 2008)
- The Bridge (forthcoming, 2008)
- The Book, The Writer, The Reader (forthcoming, 2008)
His short fiction has also appeared in various issues of our Postscripts magazine and we'll be publishing his new novel The Last Book towards the end of the year. We also have some more Živković news to announce in the near future...
PS Publishing scoops five BFS Award 2007 shortlist nominations
Posted by Darren on August 7th, 2007 at 14:06
Here at PS Publishing we're extremely pleased and proud to have heard - just this morning - that we have been nominated in no fewer than five categories of the British Fantasy Awards for 2007.
Our nominations this year include:
Best Novel
The Face of Twilight by Mark Samuels
Best Short Fiction
'The Veteran' by Conrad Williams, published in Postscripts #6
Best Small Press
Peter Crowther, PS PUBLISHING
Best Artist
Les Edwards*
Best Non-Fiction
Cinema Macabre, edited by Mark Morris
Pete is, naturally, chuffed to bits, and had the following to say on the subject: "The announcement of this year's BFS Awards shortlists prompted the usual run of good-natured badinage about PS being up for the Best Small Press Award for the umpteenth year (Tim Lebbon even quipped that there were moves afoot to change it to the PS Publishing Award! What a fine idea!)
"But all such banter aside, I'd just like to say this: Award nominations put forward by the great book-buying public - and the BFS Awards are exemplary in this respect - are the only measure by which a publisher - or, indeed, a writer, an editor or an artist - can guage the esteem in which his or her work is held and the entertainment quotient that such work promotes. Of course I want for PS and PS books and stories to win, but I have to say that looking through recent years' shortlists (and this year's is a particularly fine example), it really is enough just to be nominated.
"For instance, in the actual Best Small Press category, we're up against Andy Cox's TTA, Andrew Hook's Elastic, David Howe's Telos and Chris Teague's Pendragon. I'm honoured for PS to be considered an equal of those imprints.
"And whoever picks up the Award on the day, there'll be drinks to be had and old friends (as well as new ones!) to spend some time with. Maybe we'll see you there..."
Looking forward to it immensely, meself...
*Okay, we might be stretching it a bit to claim Les Edwards as a fifth PS-specific nomination, but we do like to think of him as most definitely one of ours. In fact, it's not particularly widely-known, but Les actually resides in a dank cellar here at PS-HQ, where we keep him chained to a radiator with little more than a sketch pad and easel within arm's reach; only occasionally letting him out (suitably electronically tagged, obviously) to do bits and bobs for other publishers... :)
STOP PRESS! PS wins HWA Speciality Press Award
Posted by Peter Crowther on March 16th, 2007 at 12:01
I’ve always loved saying that… or even “Hold the front page!” Well, I reckon we can say both today.
We found out this morning (thanks to a bevy of congratulatory e-mails… and when I hadn’t yet had my cup of tea and piece of toast and marmalade — sacrilege!) that we’re due to receive the prestigious Horror Writer’s Association Speciality Press Award for 2006 at this year’s Banquet at the World Horror Convention.
We’re hugely grateful to the Board of Trustees for this honour and you can be assured that we’ll continue to live up to it in the months and years ahead. So from Ariel, Dean, Derek, Luis, Nick, Nicky and Robert, plus our chums Aimee (DHL GlobalMail) and Theresa (Biddles) - and me, of course - many many thanks indeed. here’s the full announcement from HWA’s website:
PS Publishing, of East Yorkshire, England, will receive the Horror Writers Association’s Specialty Press Award for 2006. The award will be presented during the Bram Stoker Award Banquet at the World Horror Convention, held this year in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 29-April 1.
The annual Specialty Press Award recognizes a publisher outside the mainstream New York City publishing community that specializes in dark-themed fiction. Winners are typically “small presses” specializing in limited editions, small print runs, or the work of new and relatively unknown authors. The winner of the award is determined by a majority vote of the HWA Board of Trustees.
Deborah LeBlanc, HWA president, said, “PS Publishing has been producing excellent work in the genre for several years now. Its consistent output of high-quality work and reputation of treating authors with respect makes PS Publishing an excellent choice for this award.”
Founded in the spring of 1999, PS Publishing built its reputation by publishing novella-length works. The company has expanded and now releases full-length novels, collections and non-fiction books. PS Publishing began collecting awards for its output in 2001 and has regularly picked up multiple genre awards each year since. Last year, PS Publishing, or its authors or books, received two of HWA’s Bram Stoker awards, four British Fantasy Awards and the William L. Crawford Award.
PS Publishing authors include genre grandmasters like Ray Bradbury and Ramsey Campbell along with recognized pros such as Tim Lebbon and T.M. Wright. Newer authors include multiple-award-winner Joe Hill and Steven Utley.
In addition to publishing books, PS Publishing also releases Postscripts, a quarterly print magazine covering horror, fantasy, science fiction and crime fiction.
Lisa Morton, HWA’s World Horror Convention liaison and Stoker Award chairperson, said having PS Publishing winning the Specialty Press Award this year adds to the uniqueness of the convention.
“This is the first time the World Horror Convention has been held outside the United States,” Morton said. “Having the convention in Canada, and recognizing an excellent publisher from England truly shows that horror is a global genre.”
Recent past winners of the Specialty Press Award include Necessary Evil Press, Delirium Books and Earthling Publications. Cemetery Dance won the first Specialty Press Award in 1997.
Fantastic!