Lauriat, the World Fantasy Awards and International Speculative Fiction – Roberto Mendes interviews Charles Tan

Dear ISF readers,

We are proud to offer you an Interview with Charles Tan (World Fantasy Award nominee). 

Don’t miss the opportunity to read what Charles has to say about a variety of topics, such as his new Filipino-Chinese Anthology of Speculative Fiction,  his nomination for the World Fantasy Awards, his view on the International Speculative Fiction scene  and much more…

Roberto Mendes

Editor in Chief

Hi Charles, You seem to have been very busy: a nomination, for the second year running, for the World Fantasy Award (for the Bibliophile Stalker) and you have just released your new anthology, Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology. Congratulations! Really well done! Lets start by the nomination, How does it feel to be nominated for such a special award?

I’m honored, especially for a relatively unknown person like myself to represent both the Philippines and the contributions of blogging to the genre.

And what is the relevance of such a nomination for you?

Again, I’m honored and thrilled, but the honest answer is that life goes on as usual, regardless of the award nomination or not. Various projects are still underway, and I continue to do the various blogging that I do. It helps with the promotion to have “World Fantasy Award nominee” attached but aside from that, we do the work that we do not because we think it will win us awards, but because this is what we’re passionate about.

Cheryl Morgan interviews Anne Leinonen

Dear ISF readers: We are back!

We will start publishing new short stories and articles as soon as possible but, until then, Cheryl Morgan offers us the opportunity to get to know more about Anne Leinonen (Finland) and her work.  Anne is a very important Finish writer and editor and a winner of multiple awards. So, wait no more: 

Cheryl Morgan interviews Anne Leinonen

This interview was conducted on board the MS Europa on the way back to mainland Finland after Åcon.

Cheryl: Anne, I know you mainly as a writer of excellent short stories, and also as a tireless promoter of your fellow Finnish writers through the Usva International magazine, but I gather now that you are starting to do very well with your novels.

Anne: I have been writing novels for ten years with my writing partner, Eija Lappalainen. We now have eight books published. We started with mainstream fiction, which is perhaps why you haven’t heard about my novels before. But we have been gradually introducing fantastical elements to the stories. For example, one book is set in Iceland, and has Icelandic elves in it.

Cheryl: Have you had any luck selling the books outside of Finland?

Anne: We’ve been with the same publisher all of the time, and they have been trying from the start to sell our books elsewhere in Europe, but until recently they haven’t had much money to invest in foreign rights sales. Now they have money and things are going much better.

Cheryl: Also you have been a finalist for a very major award, which must help. Tell me a bit about the book.

ISF is Back

After a small break, ISF is back!

We have a lot of new things coming up:

– An interview to Anne Leinonon, by Cheryl Morgan;

– The third part of the article “Short (Hi)Story of Romanian Speculative Fiction” by Cătălin Badea-Gheracostea;

– The first ISF Anthology of Fiction;

– The e.pub version of the ISF Magazine n.º zero;

and much, much more!

For now, here is a link with the first review to ISF Magazine n.º zero:

“My first take on this is that it’s based on concept quite new and it’s a good idea to divulge non-Anglophone authors and their writings. English is the language of the modern world after all and it does make sense that most writers end up experimenting in its realms.