Jason Sanford
Encyclopedia
Jason Sanford is an American science fiction author best known for his short story writing. His fiction has been published in Interzone
, 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 two-time winner of the Interzone Readers' Poll and his novella
"Sublimation Angels" was a finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella
. Interzone published a special issue on his fiction in 2010.
. He attended Auburn University
, where he studied anthropology
and archaeology
. 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.
, founded the literary magazine storySouth
, which focuses on literature from the "New South." One of the early journals of the online literature movement, 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. 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 and his essays on the affair being mentioned in the subsequent press coverage.
Sanford turned over publication of storySouth to Spring Garden Press in 2009 and now serves as Editor Emeritus for the journal, but no longer handles day-to-day editorial responsibilities.
In 2004, Sanford started the storySouth Million Writers Award, which highlights each year's best online short stories. Even though Sanford turned over storySouth to a new publisher, he continues to run the award.
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
. 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."
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 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.
His critical essays and book reviews have been published in The New York Review of Science Fiction
, 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," 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.
Interzone (magazine)
Interzone is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction magazine. Published since 1982, Interzone is the eighth longest-running science fiction magazine in history and the longest-running British SF magazine...
, Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, Year's Best SF 14
Year's Best SF 14
Year's Best SF 14 is a science fiction anthology edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer that was published in 2009...
, and other magazines and anthologies. He also founded the literary magazine storySouth
StorySouth
storySouth is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best short stories published each year in online magazines or...
and runs their annual Million Writers Award for best online short stories.
Sanford is a two-time winner of the Interzone Readers' Poll and his novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
"Sublimation Angels" was a finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Nebula Award for Best Novella
Winners of the Nebula Award for Best Novella. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.-Winners and other nominees:-External links:**...
. Interzone published a special issue on his fiction in 2010.
Life
Sanford was born in Alabama and raised outside of WetumpkaWetumpka, Alabama
Wetumpka is a city in Elmore County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 5,726.The city is the county seat of Elmore County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state....
. He attended Auburn University
Auburn University
Auburn University is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 25,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state. Auburn was chartered on February 7, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts...
, where he studied anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
. After college Sanford served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
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.
Editing career
In 2001 Sanford, along with poet Jake Adam YorkJake Adam York
Jake Adam York is an American poet. He has published three books of poetry: Murder Ballads, which won the 2005 Elixir Prize in Poetry; A Murmuration of Starlings, which won the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry; and Persons Unknown, an editor's selection in the Crab Orchard Series in...
, founded the literary magazine storySouth
StorySouth
storySouth is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best short stories published each year in online magazines or...
, which focuses on literature from the "New South." One of the early journals of the online literature movement, 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. 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
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
of Southern author Brad Vice
Brad Vice
Brad Vice is a fiction writer whose short story collection, The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction from the University of Georgia Press...
, with Sanford defending Vice's work and his essays on the affair being mentioned in the subsequent press coverage.
Sanford turned over publication of storySouth to Spring Garden Press in 2009 and now serves as Editor Emeritus for the journal, but no longer handles day-to-day editorial responsibilities.
In 2004, Sanford started the storySouth Million Writers Award, which highlights each year's best online short stories. Even though Sanford turned over storySouth to a new publisher, he continues to run the 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 |
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
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
and the early writings of Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
. 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."
Sanford's science fiction and fantasy has been published in Interzone
Interzone (magazine)
Interzone is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction magazine. Published since 1982, Interzone is the eighth longest-running science fiction magazine in history and the longest-running British SF magazine...
, Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, Year's Best SF 14
Year's Best SF 14
Year's Best SF 14 is a science fiction anthology edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer that was published in 2009...
, InterGalactic Medicine Show
Intergalactic Medicine Show
InterGalactic Medicine Show is an American online fantasy and science fiction magazine. It was founded by multiple award-winning author Orson Scott Card. An anthology also called Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show was published by Tor in August, 2008, featuring selected stories from...
, Tales of the Unanticipated
Tales of the Unanticipated
Tales of the Unanticipated, known as TOTU, is a semiprozine that was founded under the auspices of the Minnesota Science Fiction Society , and has since become independent...
, 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 and his novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
"Sublimation Angels" was a finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Nebula Award for Best Novella
Winners of the Nebula Award for Best Novella. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.-Winners and other nominees:-External links:**...
. He has also received a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and been nominated for the BSFA Award
BSFA award
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association to honor works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members...
, the British Fantasy Award
British Fantasy Award
The British Fantasy Awards are administered annually by the British Fantasy Society and were first awarded in 1971. The membership of the BFS vote to determine recommendations, short-lists and winners of the awards...
, and the Pushcart Prize
Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....
. SF critic and reviewer Patrick Wolohan named Sanford to his list of 25 authors worth watching in 2010 and beyond.
His critical essays and book reviews have been published in The New York Review of Science Fiction
The New York Review of Science Fiction
The New York Review of Science Fiction is a monthly literary journal of science fiction that was established in 1988. It includes works of science fiction criticism, essays, and in-depth critical reviews of new works of fiction and scholarship. It is published by Dragon Press and the managing...
, 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," which ripped both the claimed incestuous nature of Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
programs and flash fiction
Flash fiction
Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...
. The essay prompted a large amount of online discussion on the merits of Sanford's claims.
Short stories
- "The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola" - Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 20, Dec. 2010.
- "Memoria" - Interzone 231 (Nov./Dec. 2010).
- "Peacemaker, Peacemaker, Little Bo Peep" - Interzone 231 (Nov./Dec. 2010).
-
- Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in July 2011.
- "Millisent Ka Plays in Realtime" - Interzone 231 (Nov./Dec. 2010).
- "Plague Birds" - Interzone 228 (May/June 2010).
- Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in February 2011.
- "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).
- "Here We Are, Falling Through Shadows" - Interzone 225 (Nov./Dec. 2009).
- Longlist for 2010 British Fantasy Award.
- "Sublimation Angels" Interzone 224 (Sept./Oct. 2009).
- Finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best NovellaNebula Award for Best NovellaWinners of the Nebula Award for Best Novella. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.-Winners and other nominees:-External links:**...
. - Winner of the 2009 Interzone Readers' Poll.
- Longlist for 2010 British Fantasy Award.
- "When Thorns Are The Tips Of Trees" - Interzone 219 (Nov./Dec. 2008).
- Winner of the 2008 Interzone Readers Poll.
- Reprinted in Apex DigestApex DigestApex Magazine, also previously known as Apex Digest, is an American horror and science fiction magazine which began publishing in 2005 out of Lexington, Kentucky. In 2008, Apex Digest ceased printing the American digest size print version and opted to move the magazine online. This free webzine,...
, May 2009. - Reprinted in the Czech SF magazine Ikarie.
- Podcast in audio on StarShipSofaStarShipSofaStarShipSofa is a Hugo-Award-winning science fiction podcast from the UK hosted and edited by Tony C. Smith. It was the first ever podcast to be both nominated for and win a Hugo Award. StarShipSofa was also nominated for Best Fan Podcast in the 2007 Parsec Awards...
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.
- Longlist for 2009 British Fantasy Award.
- 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 EsliEsliEsli is a Russian science fiction magazine, concentrating on science fiction in its written form.It won the European Science Fiction Award for best science fiction magazine in 2000.-See also:* Science fiction magazine...
.- "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 Magazine3:AM Magazine3:AM Magazine is a literary magazine, which was set up as 3ammagazine.com in April 2000 and is edited from Paris. Its editor-in-chief since inception has been Andrew Gallix, a lecturer at the Sorbonne ....
, 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.
- Podcast in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine in July 2011.