The SLF is delighted to announce the results of our 2007 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 2007 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 2007 were: Tiffany Jonas, editorial and publisher for Aio Publishing Co, LLC in the United States, and Colin Harvey, author of Lightning Days, in the United Kingdom.
Winner:
Matt Hughes
Hughes will use the $600 grant to travel to Seville, Ecuador, to research records concerning the Spanish Inquisition and the history of a local family for a historical novel with elements of magical realism.
Historical novelist Cecelia Holland advised Hughes to let his novel emerge from the actual history. “I intend to follow her advice,” he said, noting that he has wanted to write the novel for more than thirty years, since coming across a report of a historic shipwreck in the area.
Hughes’ novels have been published by Warner Aspect, Tor, the Science Fiction Book Club, Night Shade Books, Pocket Books, PS Publishing, Robert J. Sawyer Books, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, and Doubleday Canada. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Storyteller, Interzone, and Postscripts Magazine as well as anthologies Best Short Novels of 2005, Fantasy: Best of the Year (2006), Tesseracts 10, and Forbidden Planets(2006).
The jurors offered the following comments on Hughes’s writing:
Colin Harvey:
“Matt’s stories are lush, sometimes using verbs and nouns that are so strong that they give his stories a baroque feel, but there is a crispness to his writing and plotting that underpins that superficial opulence.”
Tiffany Jones:
“Though we enjoyed all the submissions, we found Matt’s writing sample clever, sophisticated, and imbued with a delightful sense of tongue-in-cheek humor. We’re eager to see the results of this particular research on the bookshelves soon.”
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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, 2008.
