#kitschies

After a year of hiatus, we are OPEN for submissions. We can’t wait to read all your lovely special snowflake books about death, giant grasshoppers, the prison industrial complex, broken cities, mothers dying, and the mare’s urine based beauty industrial complex. You never really can go home.

All the submissions details are here but a few things:

We want books published by everyone: don’t forget the women, LGBTQAIU (and anyone that bag of letters may have missed), people of colour, immigrants, refugees – if Nigel Farage hates them, we’d like to read them.

We want that book that you loved which might or might not make it in the market – don’t look at our winners, look at our shortlists. We love books about immigration, death, floating obelisk monsters, race, bio-augmented racing dogs, silkpunk, gender, blood, gore, and yes, tentacles. That book that you read out of the slush pile that you fought your senior to publish because you know that it’s going to touch people even if it only sells 150 copies (but you think it might be the next A Monster Calls? That one. The odd one sitting in the corner that doesn’t quite fit, its feet too big and its specs askew on its spotty face. We’re going to love it send it to us. We’ll be kind, even if we don’t shortlist it.

The Kitschies celebrate progressive, intelligent and entertaining books that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic. All submissions should keep these criteria in mind.

Any queries should be sent to [email protected].

Please read the details below carefully and contact us before submitting your book(s) for the addresses and shipping details.

There is no submission fee for The Kitschies. Please note the following:

The Kitschies prefer digital submissions (ebooks). You may send us physical books but it’s easier on all our judges to have ebooks. Please be prepared to send us physical copies if you are shortlisted, however.

Although there is no limit on the number of titles than can be submitted from each publisher or author, we do ask that publishers not send us their entire catalogue.

Please select your books that deserve to be recognised as progressive, intelligent, and entertaining.

Please send us books throughout the year, not in one almighty paper flood in late November.

Please note that the closing date for submissions is 1st November. If you can’t get books to us before then, you can let us know ahead of time.

The closing date for The Kitschies is midnight (GMT), 1 November 2017. There are no exceptions. For books published between 2nd November 2017 and 31 December, 2017, we are happy to accept advance or proof copies, or to receive them after the deadline by prior arrangement. This means you need to email us before midnight, 1st November and let us know what and when to expect the books.

Thank you very much for your support.

Exhibit A: the Kitschies, a niche and wonderful SFFH awards ceremony, pub basement, published authors heckling delightfully, squishy awards having the winner's name frantically sewn on by the founder, getting pub-wine-drunk with MY PEOPLE (fabulous geeks). I drank wine with Lauren Beukes! Lavie Tidhar was there! I want to read ALL THE BOOKS!! Swag: an enamel pin badge commemorating the very last Kitschies ever 💔

Exhibit B: lovely husband's investment firm presenting this year's portfolio (a word I hate unless it's my friend's amazing art in physical format), veh veh nice wine but full of dull white dudes over 40 describing their unnecessary new apps as "sexy/funky/disruptive", also "a media". At one point I did Colin Robinson feeding-face at spouse. After 2 glasses of wine and a tempura prawn I went home gracefully. Swag: a clicky pen with a brand name, and further confirmation that only SFFH is sexy, funky, and disruptive, and wayyy too cool to describe itself thusly.

The link below is to an article that reports on the winners of the 2020 Kitschies in the United Kingdom. For more visit: https://bookriot.com/2020-kitschies/

The award for the year’s best speculative and fantastic fiction, sponsored by Blackwell’s.

The Kitschies, the prize awarding the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining fiction containing elements of the speculative and fantastic, are delighted to announce 2019’s titles. Previous winners include:  Margaret Atwood, Madeline Miller, Nina Allen, Alex Wells, Ahmed Saadawi, Karen Lord, Patrick Ness, Lauren Beukes, Ruth Ozeki and China Miéville.

The Fire Starters, by Jan Carson (Doubleday) won the Red Tentacle (Novel) category, receiving £1,000 and a hand-crafted tentacle trophy. The prize was introduced by judge Kirsty Logan.

Jelly by Clare Rees (Chicken House Books) won the Golden Tentacle for Debut, receiving £500 and a hand-crafted tentacle trophy. The prize was introduced by judge Alasdair Stuart.

Red and Gold Tentacle judge, Kirsty Logan said:

“Choosing winners from such strong shortlists was a huge task, and we’d happily have awarded all the books prizes! Ultimately, we chose our winners for their ambition, immersive storytelling and refusal to shy away from difficult topics. We felt The Fire Starters right in our bones: it cast a shivering, glittering spell over me and we were changed by having read it. Jelly is a surreal, darkly humorous adventure that leans right into its delightfully weird premise. Congratulations to our winners, our shortlisted writers, and to everyone in the publishing world who was involved in putting out a book last year: your work benefits every reader.”

Tyler Comrie received the Inky Tentacle for cover design for The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Vintage), receiving £500 and hand-crafted tentacle trophy. The prize was introduced by Kim Curran.

Inky Tentacle judge, Kim Curran said:

“While it wasn’t an easy decision, the cover for Memory Police finally clinched it because we felt it perfectly encapsulated what the Kitschies is about. It drew us in with the blend of photographic and sketched illustration and incorporating the title and author into the stamp creates intrigue and hinted at the story, without taking away from the striking simplicity of the cover. Design at its finest”

Award directors Leila Abu el Hawa and Anne Perry said:

“Ten years of handing out Tentacles to the most progressive, intelligent and entertaining fiction has shown us there are authors and publishers, big and small who are not afraid to take risks in bringing everyone the best speculative and fantastic fiction has to offer. Our judges did a fantastic job in putting together an amazing shortlist and the difficult job of choosing the winners. Many congratulations to you all.”

About Blackwell’s

Trading since 1879, Blackwell’s is the largest independent bookseller in the UK. In addition to flagship shops in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and London, it has a presence on campus at 30 universities around the UK, from Aberdeen to Exeter, complemented by a complete online offering serving customers across the UK and the world at Blackwells.co.uk

About The Kitschies

The Kitschies is a not-for-profit association dedicated to promote the discussion of genre literature in all its many forms. To that end it hosts a range of events and runs an eponymous award each year, celebrating progressive, intelligent, and entertaining literature with an element of the speculative or fantastic. Previous winners include Margaret Atwood, Madeline Miller, Nina Allen, Alex Wells, Ahmed Saadawi, Karen Lord, Patrick Ness, Lauren Beukes, Ruth Ozeki and China Miéville.

This review was written by Lat Lea, a Blackwell’s bookseller in Oxford

Record of a Space Born Few – This novel by Becky Chambers is the third of three novels (the first is the Kitschies Golden Tentacle-shortlisted A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and the second is A Closed and Common Orbit)  set in the future, in a fictional universe  that Chambers calls the “Galactic Commons”, i.e. our galaxy and the name of the vast alliance that loosely governs the known intell1gent species in the galaxy.  There are 10 of those, including human beings. Most are technically more advanced, more populous and more powerful than humans.   These other species are a range of physical types, roughly corresponding to various “lower” species on earth, molluscs, crustaceans, insects, birds, apes and so on.   The history of the Solar System is gradually gleaned from the three novels:  as the ecology on Earth declined, wealthy people colonized Mars and partly terra-formed it, whereas those remaining on the home planet eventually built a fleet of spaceships, the Exodus Fleet, and set forth for parts unknown.   At the beginning of the series, humans have been accepted into the Galactic Commons and are gradually spreading out into the galaxy, integrating themselves into the diverse worlds and societies that comprise the “Commons”.

Becky Chambers is astonishingly inventive and more than any other science fiction novelist that I have read, she manages to address the physical, cultural and social implications of her universe.  Plus she has written three novels with quite different plots and themes that nevertheless develop her main idea:  what it means to be tolerant and coexist with other species.  All that could be read as a blue print for future co-existence and tolerance of different races and religions in our current situation.  She considers the technical challenges of communicating across species as well as cultural challenges and she even considers the implications of inter-species sex and love.  That can be seen as an analogy to contemporary concerns about non-gendered sexuality and LBGT issues.  (One glib reviewer called the first novel “science fiction for the Tindr generation”.)   On top of that, one of the other themes is whether AIs are human. In the GC (although they are illegal) it’s possible for an AI to obtain a body.   Can one love an AI especially after it’s in a body, and what is its gender?  

In addition, Becky Chambers explains plausibly and in practical terms a range of technical and scientific questions that any future technology will have addressed.   There are many invented basic technologies, “dent bots” as well as more complex ones, e.g. various forms of interstellar travel and types of spaceships.   All of these are carefully thought through.  Thank goodness:  no fantasy mumbo jumbo in these novels.

This particular novel is set on one ship in the Exodus fleet and is probably the most domestic novel of the three.  It opens with a large explosion on one of the ships in the fleet and then describes the period leading up to the explosion. There’s a family, mother, Tessa, mostly off-ship father, George two boys and small girl. Plus, grandad AKA Pop.  The eldest boy, Kip, is on the cusp of adolescence and accordingly rebellious.  He’s unsure of his future, like anyone his age, but also because the “traditional” society of the Exodus fleet is no longer the only option available to people on the fleet.  They can leave and the fleet is no longer going anywhere; it’s a habitat in space circling around.   Another character, Eyas, is a caretaker, who manages funerals and the disposal of dead bodies, a significant issue on a spaceship.  Plus, there’s Isabel, an elderly archivist on board the ship who is tasked with hosting a Harmagian scholar (a slug like species) who is researching life on the Exodus fleet as a sociologist or anthropologist.  There is also Sawyer, a young man trapped in a dead-end job on a multi-cultural planet who tries to join the fleet, because his family came from it a generation previously, and he believes it will offer him a better, more complete life.

Thus, Record of a Sapce Born Few is about a range of characters, grappling with family life, job responsibilities, aging, living in the same space for generation in a static society, ambition, education and how best to live a good life.  It’s a gentle novel, but then, all three novels are suffused with kindness and sensitivity.

Read it for those qualities but also for the exceptional imagination of Becky Chambers, who uses her Galactic Commons to create an intensely plausible but different future.

This book was reviewed (for the Inky Tentacle) by Blackwell’s bookseller Aleida Gómez de Caso in Oxford

When I first saw The Book of Joan in the shop I had to pick it up. It was by the till, marked as a recommendation by a fellow bookseller, who pointed out that I was not the only buyer struck by the cover. They say ¨you should never judge a book by its cover,¨ but this one is not just a stunning piece of art, it also represents the book well.

The actual Book of Joan in this book is written on human flesh, the last expression of the self that humans can resort to in this dystopian future where the story is set. After abusing the planet and its resources, humans find the Earth inhospitable and it can no longer be “home” for our species anymore. What´s left of humanity suffers from devolution and, as in Margaret Atwood´s famous dystopia, human´s reproductive systems deteriorate, in this occasion to the extreme point of losing our organs and not being able to procreate at all. Part of what remains of our species follows a totalitarian leader into space whilst the rest try to survive on the decaying planet.

The book is an ode to nature and art. In a world where there the wonders of nature do not exist, and the design of the new world makes other forms of art such as architecture or painting impossible, humans turn to their own bodies to express themselves and create entertainment.

Through skin extension and tattooing, they narrate entire stories on their bodies as well as graphs and symbols. They get rid of clothes and these tattoos cover their decaying bodies, replacing both fashion and social status.

For this reason, I found “The Book of Joan” has a cover that you appreciate twice, for you´ll understand more to it after reading the book. When I first saw it the famous image of the German sci-fi movie Metropolis came to me, and I wondered if the book would also be set in a scarily technological dystopian future. It was, and furthermore I enjoyed the idea of that perfect world living above and slaving the resources of the one underneath, used in Metropolisand so many other fearful projections of the human future.

I also enjoyed the patterns around the V shape of the cover, which after reading the book evoke the almost alien graphs that humans tattoo on their bodies in the story, and reminded me of matter and biological composition as well, for they follow a pattern or structure like chemical elements do. I also appreciate how the typography manages to be at the same time trendy and “alien” looking, effect achieved by changing the shape of the letter “A”.

The colour, not so commonly used in book covers, is striking and modern like the story. The Book of Joan is not only a science fiction book, it tackles gender, sexuality, the human condition and makes relevant reference to climate change, human cruelty or animal experimentation. So this is very much a book of our times and the coming generation, that represents the troubles and ideas that are currently being discussed.

Whether intended by the artist or not, I also associate the cover with totalitarianism, so present in the story. Partly because of the god like look of the one figure at the centre, with its hands shaping a crown; and the Earth and stars above her are shaped into a military style hat. The piece is in line with other Florian Schommer works, like the designs for Mantar and Henfen, beer brands that also benefit from his pattern-like graphs and iconography.

The Book of Joan is a stunning and thought provoking piece of work both outside and inside, worth reading, if possible next to a green area to remind you we are still in time to fight for our planet.

The Book of Joan was Designed by Rafaela Romaya and Illustrated by Florian Schommer

    In a ceremony at the Star of Kings pub in London the winners of the 2017 Kitschies tentacles were announced. The judges commented on the state of genre, the pleasureable tactility of the books, the wonderful and difficult job of judging, and the pleasure of working with the genre community.

2017’s shortlisted books were narrowed down from 142 submissions, coming from over 48 publishers. The shortlists come from the largest literary and genre names in publishing to the smallest of independents.

The Red Tentacle (Novel) winner:

The Rift

Nina Allan

(Titan)

    The rest of the shortlist

  Black Wave

Michelle Tea

(& Other Stories)

    We See Everything

William Sutcliffe

(Bloomsbury)

    Fever

Deon Meyer, translated by L. Seegers

(Hodder)

    City of Circles

Jess Richards

(Hodder)

The Golden Tentacle (Debut) winner:

Hunger Makes the Wolf

Alex “Acks” Wells

(Angry Robot)

    The rest of the shortlist

How Saints Die

Carmen Marcus

(Harville Secker)

      Age of Assassins

RJ Barker

(Orbit)

    The Black Tides of Heaven

JY Yang

(Tor.com)

    Mandlebrot the Magnificent

Liz Ziemska

(Tor.com)

    The Red and Gold tentacle judges were Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Leila Abu El Hawa, Joshua Idehen, Ewa Scibor-Rylska, and Alasdair Stuart

The Inky Tentacle (Cover Art) winner:

The History of Bees

Maja Lunde

Design by Jack Smyth and the S&S Art Department

(Scribner)

  The rest of the shortlist included

The Land of Neverendings

Kate Saunders

Illustrated by David Dean

(Faber and Faber)

  Black Wave

Michelle Tea

llustrated by Rose Stafford at Print Club, design by Hannah Naughton

(& Other Stories)

    The Real-Town Murders

Adam Roberts

Jacket design and illustration by Black Sheep

(Gollancz)

  Our Memory Like Dust

Gavin Chait

Design by Richard Shailer

(Transworld)

  The Inky Tentacle judges are Dapo Adeola, Sharan Dhaliwal, Jet Purdie, and Stuart Taylor

Blackwell

The winners can be easily found and purchased at any Blackwell’s shop or online. Details can be found on the Blackwell’s dedicated Kitschies website.

  About Blackwell’s

Blackwell’s began 139 years ago in Oxford and has a worldwide reputation for unrivalled customer service, specialist knowledge and passion for bookselling.  We continue to be a values led business where putting our customers first, taking personal ownership, being professional and having integrity are part of who we are.

We have 32 shops including Flagship shops in Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh. There are 23 academic and campus shops with strong partnerships with their host universities. We have pop-up bookshops (called Connects) in many other HE UK institutions.

Blackwells.co.uk is growing rapidly in UK and international markets. The platform is designed and managed in-house from a London development office

About The Kitschies

The Kitschies are a not-for-profit association dedicated to promote the discussion of genre literature in all its many forms. To that end it hosts a range of events and runs an eponymous award each year to a range of books, celebrating progressive, intelligent, and entertaining literature with an element of the speculative or fantastic. Previous winners include Margaret Atwood, Karen Lord, Patrick Ness, Becky Chambers, Lauren Beukes, Ruth Ozeki and China Miéville.

The year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining science fiction, sponsored by Blackwell’s.

      Every year brings challenges, excitement, and something new: this year was no different. We’re thrilled to see the return of some old favourites as well as voices that mightn’t be considered speculative fiction. The breadth of all three lists is stunning.

–  Award Directors Glen Mehn and Leila Abu El Hawa

London — The Kitschies, the prize for “novels containing elements of the speculative and fantastic” have revealed their shortlists for the most “progressive, intelligent and entertaining” books of 2017.

This year’s shortlisted books are narrowed down from 142 submissions, coming from over 48 publishers. The shortlists come from the largest literary and genre names in publishing to the smallest of independents.

The Red Tentacle (Novel)

  Black Wave

Michelle Tea

(& Other Stories)

    The Rift

Nina Allan

(Titan)

    We See Everything

William Sutcliffe

(Bloomsbury)

    Fever

Deon Meyer, translated by L. Seegers

(Hodder)

    City of Circles

Jess Richards

(Hodder)

The Golden Tentacle (Debut)

How Saints Die

Carmen Marcus

(Harville Secker)

    Hunger Makes the Wolf

Alex “Acks” Wells

(Angry Robot)

    Age of Assassins

RJ Barker

(Orbit)

    The Black Tides of Heaven

JY Yang

(Tor.com)

    Mandlebrot the Magnificent

Liz Ziemska

(Tor.com)

    The Red and Gold tentacle judges are Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Leila Abu El Hawa, Joshua Idehen, Ewa Scibor-Rylska, and Alasdair Stuart

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Red/Gold judge, said of the shortlists, “The sheer range and quality of the books submitted for both the gold and red award was dazzling. It was hard enough to pick five and reducing the shortlists to a single winner in each category is going to be near impossible.”

The Inky Tentacle (Cover Art)

The Land of Neverendings

Kate Saunder

Illustrated by David Dean

(Faber and Faber)

  Black Wave

Michelle Tea

llustrated by Rose Stafford at Print Club, design by Hannah Naughton

(& Other Stories)

  The History of Bees

Maja Lunde

Design by Jack Smyth and the S&S Art Department

(Scribner)

  The Real-Town Murders

Adam Roberts

Jacket design and illustration by Black Sheep

(Gollancz)

  Our Memory of Dust

Gavin Chait

Design by Richard Shailer

(Transworld)

  The Inky Tentacle judges are Dapo Adeola, Sharan Dhaliwal, Jet Purdie, and Stuart Taylor

Jet Purdie, winner of the 2015 Inky Tentacle, and Inky Tentacle judge, said “There were loads of gorgeous entries but I felt the selected finalists took the biggest risks, working extra hard to create something original that caught the eye and drew the reader into the story.”

Blackwell’s Blogging

The wonderful Blackwell’s booksellers will be blogging about the shortlist and promoting the books in their shops and social channels. Details can be found on the Blackwell’s dedicated Kitschies website.

The winners

The winners will be announced in a ceremony at The Star of Kings on 9th April, and receive a total of £2,000 in prize money, as well as one of the prize’s iconic Tentacle trophies.

  The prize, sponsored by Blackwell’s, is now in its eighth year, with previous winners including Margaret Atwood, Tade Thompson, Hermione Eyre, Nick Harkaway, Lauren Beukes, China Miéville, and Patrick Ness.

About Blackwell’s

Blackwell’s began 139 years ago in Oxford and has a worldwide reputation for unrivalled customer service, specialist knowledge and passion for bookselling.  We continue to be a values led business where putting our customers first, taking personal ownership, being professional and having integrity are part of who we are.

We have 32 shops including Flagship shops in Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh. There are 23 academic and campus shops with strong partnerships with their host universities. We have pop-up bookshops (called Connects) in many other HE UK institutions.

Blackwells.co.uk is growing rapidly in UK and international markets. The platform is designed and managed in-house from a London development office

About The Kitschies

The Kitschies are a not-for-profit association dedicated to promote the discussion of genre literature in all its many forms. To that end it hosts a range of events and runs an eponymous award each year to a range of books, celebrating progressive, intelligent, and entertaining literature with an element of the speculative or fantastic. Previous winners include Margaret Atwood, Karen Lord, Patrick Ness, Becky Chambers, Lauren Beukes, Ruth Ozeki and China Miéville.