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news Upcoming Events March 6 - 7, 2015 Santa Barbara Women's Literary Festival Santa Barbara, CA March 12 - 15, 2015 Mennonite/s Writing VII: Movement, Transformation, Place Fresno Pacific University Fresno, CA Awards Winner: World Fantasy Award for Best Novel Crawford Award for Best Fantasy Debut John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer British Fantasy Award for Best Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award) Finalist: Hugo Award ("Selkie Stories Are for Losers") Nebula Award (A Stranger in Olondria, "Selkie Stories Are for Losers") World Fantasy Award ("Selkie Stories Are for Losers") British Science Fiction Association Award ("Selkie Stories Are for Losers") Locus Award for Best First Novel (A Stranger in Olondria) Rhysling Award ("APACHE CHIEF") Calvino Prize (Monster Portraits--not yet published) Reviews A nice write-up by Tobias Carroll for Vol. 1 Brooklyn: "There is the central story, in which a young man visits a distant country and finds himself enmeshed in deep societal conflicts; there's a surreal ghost story; there's a loving and complex meditation on reading, writing, and language." Read more.  A Stranger in Olondria is one of The Guardian's Best Science Fiction Books of 2013. "Sofia Samatar's debut fantasy A Stranger in Olondria (Small Beer Press) is gloriously vivid and rich." "For its lyricism, its focus on language, and its concern with place, it belongs on the shelf with the works of Hope Mirrlees, Lord Dunsany, and M. John Harrison -- but for its emotional range, it sits next to books by Ursula K. Le Guin or Joanna Russ." ~ Jane Franklin, Rain Taxi "[J]ust about every piece is in place here -- it's the rare first novel with no unnecessary parts -- and, in terms of its elegant language, its sharp insights into believable characters, and its almost revelatory focus on the value and meaning of language and story, it's the most impressive and intelligent first novel I expect to see this year, or perhaps for a while longer." ~ Gary K. Wolfe, Locus. Read more. "With characteristic wit, poise, and eloquence, Samatar delivers a story about our vulnerability to language and literature, and the simultaneous experience of power and surrender inherent in the acts of reading and writing." ~ Amal El-Mohtar, Tor.com. Read more. "What if you came from a country with a purely oral tradition, and then you had to learn the written language of another culture? That's the magical question at the heart of a brilliant new novel, Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria." ~ Na'amen Tilahun, io9. Read more. "A Stranger in Olondria is a richly rewarding experience for those who love poetry and non-traditional narratives." ~ Craig Laurance Gidney, author of Bereft. Read more. "One of the (many) great things about Small Beer Press is that they can be relied upon to discover great new writers that mainstream publishers might be reluctant to take a risk on. Karen Lord was one such discovery. This year's gem looks like being Sofia Samatar." ~ Cheryl Morgan. Read more. Interviews NPR interview: "New African Voices." I'm interviewed along with other writers including Nnedi Okorafor and Lauren Beukes. Diriye Osman interviewed me for The Huffington Post. Worldbuilding, diversity in SFF, and what I look for as an Interfictions editor. Read the interview. Aaron Bady interviewed me as part of the "African Writers in a New World" series. Am I an African writer? Read the interview. Alicia Cole interviewed me for Black Fox Literary Magazine. Literacy, interstitiality, dichotomy. Read the interview. Sarah McCarry interviewed me for Tor.com: languages, books, why Small Beer Press is awesome, and a weird coincidence. Read the interview. I talked about genre fiction, travel and language with Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan. You can listen in at Episode 156 of The Coode Street Podcast. Listen to the interview. "So then I had a realist phase. I wrote a Hemingwayesque novel about card sharps. AWFUL." ~ From my interview with Ideomancer. Read the interview. "I didn't imagine the books as a long series, but I did imagine two Olondria books." ~ From my interview with Locus. Read an excerpt of the interview. "Do I like discussing books and teasing them apart? Yes. Does it teach me things about structure? Sure. Does it make me a better writer? No idea." ~ From my interview with Strange Horizons. Read the interview. Past Events December 2 - 3, 2014 Symposium for African Writers University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX November 6 - 9, 2014 World Fantasy Convention Washington, DC August 30, 2014 SFWA Southern California Reading Series (with Stephen Blackmoore and Sherwood Smith)  Redondo Beach, CA July 16, 2014 Fantastic Fiction at KGB (with Victor LaValle) New York, NY July 10 - 13, 2014 Readercon Burlington, MA June 20, 2014 Long Hidden West Coast Launch Party Los Angeles, CA May 15 - 18, 2014 Nebula Awards Weekend San Jose, CA March 19 - 23, 2014 The 35th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA): "Fantastic Empires" Orlando, FL December 19, 2013 The Empty Globe Betalevel, Los Angeles, CA November 30, 2013 Indies First! Borderlands Books, San Francisco, CA November 9, 2013 Stories Behind the Stories: CSUCI English Faculty Reading and Discussion E.P. Foster Library, Ventura May 24 - 27, 2013 WisCon 37 Madison, WI April 26, 2013 A Stranger in Olondria Launch Party A Room of One’s Own Bookstore Madison, WI