Jason Sanford

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Jason Sanford
Born Alabama
Occupation Writer
Nationality  United States
Genres Science Fiction
www.jasonsanford.com

Jason Sanford is an American science fiction author best known for his short story writing. His fiction has been published in Interzone, Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Year's Best SF 14, and other magazines and anthologies. He also founded the literary magazine storySouth and runs their annual Million Writers Award for best online short stories.

Sanford is a three-time winner of the Interzone Readers' Poll and his novella "Sublimation Angels" was a finalist for the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novella.[1] Interzone published a special issue on his fiction in 2010.[2] His short story collection Never Never Stories was published in 2011.[3] His fiction has been reprinted into a number of languages, including Czech, French, Russian, and Chinese.

Life

Sanford was born in Alabama and raised outside of Wetumpka. He attended Auburn University, where he studied anthropology and archaeology.[4] After college Sanford served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, where he taught English in a junior high school. He also met his wife, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, while in Thailand. After the Peace Corps they moved to Minneapolis, where Sanford worked as an editor.[4]

Editing career

In 2001 Sanford, along with poet Jake Adam York, founded the literary magazine storySouth, which focuses on literature from the "New South."[5] One of the early journals of the online literature movement,[6] works published in storySouth have been reprinted in anthologies such as Best American Poetry 2008, Best of the Web 2008, and e2ink: The Best of the Online Journals, and have won a number of awards and honors.[7] Sanford served as the fiction and nonfiction editor, while York served as poetry editor. Both editors were heavily involved in the debate around the alleged plagiarism of Southern author Brad Vice, with Sanford defending Vice's work[8] and his essays on the affair being mentioned in the subsequent press coverage.[9][10]

Sanford turned over publication of storySouth to Spring Garden Press in 2009[11] and now serves as Editor Emeritus for the journal, but no longer handles day-to-day editorial responsibilities.[5] In 2004, Sanford started the storySouth Million Writers Award, which highlights each year's best online short stories.[12] Even though Sanford turned over storySouth to a new publisher, he continues to run the award. In 2012 he edited two anthologies of stories from the Million Writers Award.

Writing career

"One of the reasons I write fiction is as a literary experiment to understand life – not only for the reader but also for myself. Even though I usually have a destination in mind with my stories, I continually discover that where I thought I was going isn’t where I should be going. That discovery of new destinations and understandings while I write is what I love about fiction. Only by allowing stories to find their own destination can authors truly explore both their own selves and the greater world around them."

—Jason Sanford[13]

Sanford is best known as a science fiction author, although he also writes fantasy and has been published in other literary genres. His fiction has been described as "new weird SF," and compared to both the anime of Hayao Miyazaki and the early writings of Brian Aldiss.[14] Sanford has described his writings and those of others as part of an emergent storytelling form called SciFi Strange, "which sets high literary standards, experiments with style, is infused with a sense of wonder, takes the idea of diverse sexuality for granted, focuses on human values and needs and explores the boundaries of reality and experience through philosophical speculation."[15]

Sanford's science fiction and fantasy has been published in Interzone, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Year's Best SF 14, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Tales of the Unanticipated, and other magazines and anthologies. His non-genre works have been published in The Mississippi Review, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, and other places. He is a two-time winner of the Interzone Readers' Poll[16][17] and his novella "Sublimation Angels" was a finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella. He has also received a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and been nominated for the BSFA Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Pushcart Prize. SF critic and reviewer Patrick Wolohan named Sanford to his list of 25 authors worth watching in 2010 and beyond.[18]

His critical essays and book reviews have been published in The New York Review of Science Fiction,[19] The Pedestal Magazine, and The Fix Short Fiction Review. Among Sanford's more influential essays is "Who Wears Short Shorts? Micro Stories and MFA Disgust,"[20] which ripped both the claimed incestuous nature of Master of Fine Arts programs and flash fiction. The essay prompted a large amount of online discussion on the merits of Sanford's claims.[21]

Bibliography

Books

  • Never Never Stories - Short story collection, Spotlight Publishing, 2011.[22]
  • Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy - (edited), anthology of short fiction, Spotlight Publishing, 2012.[23]
  • Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices - (edited), anthology of short fiction, Spotlight Publishing, 2012.[24]

Short stories

  • "Heaven's Touch" - Asimov's Science Fiction, August 2012.
  • "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues" - Interzone, issue 236, Sept./Oct. 2011.
Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in March 2012.
Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine XB-1.
  • "Her Scientifiction, Far Future, Medieval Fantasy" - Interzone, issue 234, May/June 2011.
  • "The Blue Room" - Daily Science Fiction, April 2011.
  • "The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola" - Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 20, Dec. 2010.
Reprinted in InterGalactic Medicine Show Awards Anthology, Volume I.
  • "Memoria" - Interzone 231 (Nov./Dec. 2010).
Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine XB-1.
  • "Peacemaker, Peacemaker, Little Bo Peep" - Interzone 231 (Nov./Dec. 2010).
Podcast on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in July 2011.
  • "Millisent Ka Plays in Realtime" - Interzone 231 (Nov./Dec. 2010).
Reprinted in the Russian magazine Esli.
  • "Plague Birds" - Interzone 228 (May/June 2010).
Winner of the 2010 Interzone Readers' Poll.
Podcast on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in February 2011.
Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine Ikarie.
  • "A Twenty-First Century Fairy Love Story" - Tales of the Unanticipated, issue 30, spring 2010.
  • "Cwazy" - OCHO #28.
  • "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas" - Interzone 226 (Jan./Feb. 2010).
Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine XB-1.
  • "Here We Are, Falling Through Shadows" - Interzone 225 (Nov./Dec. 2009).
Longlist for 2010 British Fantasy Award.[25]
Reprinted in Apex Magazine, Czech SF magazine Ikarie and the French book anthology Ténèbres.
  • "Sublimation Angels" Interzone 224 (Sept./Oct. 2009).
Finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella.
Winner of the 2009 Interzone Readers' Poll.[16]
Longlist for 2010 British Fantasy Award.[25]
Reprinted in the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World and the Czech SF magazine Ikarie.
  • "When Thorns Are The Tips Of Trees" - Interzone 219 (Nov./Dec. 2008).
Winner of the 2008 Interzone Readers Poll.
Reprinted in Apex Digest, May 2009.
Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine Ikarie.
Podcast on StarShipSofa in May 2009.
  • "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain" - Interzone 217 (July/Aug.2008).
Nominated for the 2008 BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction.[26]
Longlist for 2009 British Fantasy Award.[27]
Reprinted in Year's Best SF 14, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine Ikarie and Russian magazine Esli.
  • "Where Away You Fall" - Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Dec. 2008.
  • "Book Scouts of the Galactic Rim" - Menda City Review, Dec. 2007.
Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in May 2009.
  • "Freelanga" - I Am This Meat e-anthology, 2007.
Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in March 2009.
  • "Rumspringa" - Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 5, July 2007.
  • "For Aging Kids Who Dream of Star Treks" - Tales of the Unanticipated, April 2002.
  • "Whack a Cracker Upside the Head" - Fiction Warehouse.
Winner of the 2005 Fiction Warehouse Hypnologic Experiment writing contest.
  • "Enucleation Means to Remove an Eye" - Southern Gothic Online.
Nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
  • "One More Expert Speaks to Jury" - Diagram 4.6.
  • "Blue Doily Dreams" - Fiction Warehouse.
  • "God's Words to Bucky Guisman, Airport Angel" - Pindeldyboz, summer 2002.
Reprinted in 3:AM Magazine, January 2003.
  • "Links" - The Mississippi Review, winter 2000.
  • "Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye" - Newfangled Fairy Tales, Book #2, edited by Bruce Lansky, Meadowbrook Press, 1998.
  • "Maps of the Bible" - Monsters and Critics, April 2008.
Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in March 2010.
  • "Mai's Magic" - Girls to the Rescue, Book #4, edited by Bruce Lansky, Meadowbrook Press, 1998.

References

  1. ↑ 2009 SFWA Final Nebula Awards Ballot, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Inc., accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  2. ↑ "Jason Sanford Special Issue," Interzone, issue 231, November - December 2010.
  3. ↑ "Short Fiction Reviews by Richard Horton," Locus, October 2011, Issue 609, Vol. 67 No. 4, page 17.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "An Interview with Jason Sanford" by John Coyne, Peace Corps Writers, July 2007, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 storySouth "About Us" page, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  6. ↑ The 100 Best Trends, 2006: Emerging Developments You Can't Afford to Ignore by George Ochoa and Melinda Corey, Adams Media Corporation, 2005, page 55.
  7. ↑ http://www.storysouth.com/about/ storySouth "About Us" page, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  8. ↑ The literary lynching of Brad Vice StorySouth November 4, 2005, accessed February 20, 2010
  9. ↑ "A Charming Plagiarist: The downfall of Brad Vice" by Robert Clark Young New York Press, Vol 18, Issue 48, November 30-December 6, 2005. Accessed February 20, 2010
  10. ↑ "The Strange Case of Brad Vice: In defense of a destroyed treasure" by Michelle Richmond, The Oxford American, Issue 55, winter 2006.
  11. ↑ "Southern Literary Journal Relaunches with New Editors" by Jessica Schneider, April 4, 2009, Monsters and Critics, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  12. ↑ "Million Writers Award: more than 100 top short stories" by Carolyn Kellogg, The LA Times Jacket Copy column, April 23, 2009.
  13. ↑ Confronting the Unfamiliar: Interview with Jason Sanford" by Andy Hedgecock, Interzone 231, page 46.
  14. ↑ Introduction to "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by Their Rains," Year's Best SF 14, edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, HarperCollins, 2009, page 377.
  15. ↑ Confronting the Unfamiliar: Interview with Jason Sanford" by Andy Hedgecock, Interzone 231, page 48.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 http://ttapress.com/846/2009-readers-poll-results/0/4/ 2009 Interzone Readers' Poll, Interzone, May 7, 2010.
  17. ↑ The Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards, compiled by Mark R. Kelly, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  18. ↑ "25 Authors Worth Watching in 2010 and Beyond," Stomping on Yeti, Feb. 15, 2010, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  19. ↑ Review: From the blogs by Sarah Crown, The Guardian Newspaper, page 23, July, 07 2007.
  20. ↑ "Who Wears Short Shorts? Micro Stories and MFA Disgust" by Jason Sanford, StorySouth, fall 2004, accessed Feb. 20, 2010.
  21. ↑ Short shorts, Meta Filter discussion, November 22, 2004, February 4, 2007; MFA: Many Fools Available on The Grumpy Old Bookman, February 25, 2005, accessed February 20, 2010.
  22. ↑ Short Fiction Reviews by Richard Horton, Locus, October 2011, Issue 609, Vol. 67 No. 4, page 17.
  23. ↑ Spotlight Publishing website, accessed March 20, 2012.
  24. ↑ Spotlight Publishing website, accessed March 20, 2012.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 2010 British Fantasy Award longlist, The British Fantasy Society website, accessed March 20, 2010.
  26. ↑ 2008 BSFA Award Nominations, The British Science Fiction Association website, accessed March 20 20 2010.
  27. ↑ 2009 British Fantasy Award longlist, The British Fantasy Society website, accessed March 20, 2010.

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