The SLF is delighted to announce the results of our 2005 Travel Research Grant judging!
The Travel Research Grant is awarded to assist a writer (speculative fiction, poetry, drama, creative nonfiction) in his or her research. The 2005 Travel Research Grant includes $600 to be used to cover airfare, lodging, and/or other travel expenses. The grant is awarded by a committee of SLF members on the basis of interest and merit. Our jurors for 2005 were: Tiffany Jonas, editorial director for Aio Publishing Co, LLC in the United States, and Colin Harvey, author, in the United Kingdom.
Winner:
Christopher Barzak
The jurors offered the following comments on Christopher’s writing sample and grant application:
- Colin Harvey:
- “Chris’ application was supported by a fine piece of fiction, that with its cool, limpid prose, shone like a gem, presenting a different facet on each reading.”
- Tiffany Jonas:
- “The quality of the applications was again excellent, and we especially appreciated the diversity-we received proposals for works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and a screenplay. Christopher’s work was particularly lyrical. His writing sample was fraught with humanity, singing with hopeful, tenuous emotion. His description of the project and its speculative elements certainly piqued our interest.”
And our winner, Christopher Barzak, said this:
- Christopher Barzak:
- “A year ago I moved to Japan .. I began writing a series of stories set in Japan, featuring characters who were Japanese as well as foreigners living in Japan, including Americans, French, English, Indian, Turkish, and other nationalities. At first I thought I was writing a series of stories until I realized that many of the stories overlapped, intersected at some key juncture, that the characters were affecting one another’s lives with or without knowing they were doing so. Once that realization occurred, I began to work on these stories not as individual entities but as a novel told in stories.
The stories are quite different from each other, but share setting, tone, overarching themes, and characters. They are most often told in the mode of magical realism and contemporary fantasy, drawing on Japanese folklore and fairy tales, as well as Japanese superstition and ghost stories to reveal the characters whose lives are led in a supernatural world (also often without their knowing it).”
Christopher will use the grant to research cultures and settings in southern Japan, including travel to the cities of Kyoto and Nara.
Christopher has published short fiction in publications such as Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Ideomancer, The Third Alternative, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, in addition to poetry published in Icon and The Penguin Review. His work has also appeared in anthologies: his short story ‘Plenty’ appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (Vol. 15) and his story ‘Dead Boy Found’ appeared both in Small Beer Press’ anthology Trampoline and Carroll & Graf’sThe Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (vol. 15). Wheatland Press, Viking, and Haworth Press will publish more of his short fiction in 2005, 2006, and 2007 respectively.
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Click here for more information on the Travel Research Grant.
To discuss the Travel Research Grant, visit the SLF Forum page.
Questions about this year’s travel grant process may be directed to either of the jurors at travel@speculativeliterature.org
Applications for next year’s Travel Grant will open on July 1st, 2006.
