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The Dwarf Stars Award is an annual award presented by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association to the author of the best horror, fantasy, or science fiction poem of ten lines or fewer published in the previous year. The award was established in 2006 as a counterpoint to the Rhysling Award, which is given by the same organization to horror, fantasy, or science fiction poems of any length. Poems are submitted to the association by the poets, from which approximately 30 are chosen by an editor to be published in an anthology each fall. Members of the association then vote on the published poems, and first through third-place winners are announced. The 2006 anthology was edited by Deborah P. Kolodji, and subsequent anthologies have been edited by an array of editors, including Kolodji, Stephen M. Wilson, Joshua Gage, Geoffrey A. Landis, Linda D. Addison, Sandra J. Lindow, John Amen, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and Lesley Wheeler.[1][2][3]
| Dwarf Stars Award | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | The best science fiction, fantasy, or horror poem of ten lines or fewer published in English in the prior calendar year |
| Presented by | Science Fiction Poetry Association |
| First awarded | 2006 |
| Currently held by | Jen Stewart Fueston and Mary Soon Lee |
| Website | www |
During the 17 nomination years, 57 poems by 43 poets have been selected as third place or better, including one three-way tie for second place in 2016, a two-way tie for third place in 2018 and a three-way tie in 2023, and two-way ties for first in 2022 and 2023, of which 19 poets have won outright. Jane Yolen has been noted four times, a first and a third place and two second-place results; Kolodji, Julie Bloss Kelsey and LeRoy Gorman have each received a first and a second place; Greg Beatty a first and a third place; Sonya Taaffe has received two second-place results; Sandi Leibowitz has received a second and a third-place result; and Ann K. Schwader and Sandra J. Lindow have each received two third-place results.
In the following table, the years correspond to the date in which the award was given, rather than when the poem was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in poetry". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award, while those with a gray background and a plus sign (+) took second place, and those with a white background took third.
* Winners
+ Second place
Third place
| Year | Author | Poem | Publication | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Ruth Berman* | "Knowledge Of" | Kerem | [4] |
| Peg Duthie+ | "The Stepsister" | The Magazine of Speculative Poetry | [4] | |
| Greg Beatty | "Prayer Causes Stars" | Abyss & Apex | [4] | |
| 2007 | Jane Yolen* | "Last Unicorn" | Asimov's Science Fiction | [5] |
| Jane Yolen+ | "Troll Under Bridge" | Asimov's Science Fiction | [5] | |
| Sandra J. Lindow | "Dwarves" | The Magazine of Speculative Poetry | [5] | |
| 2008 | Greg Beatty* | "Place Mat by Moebius" | Asimov's Science Fiction | [6] |
| Sonya Taaffe+ | "Muse" | Strange Horizons | [6] | |
| Ann K. Schwader | "Dancing to Van Gogh" | Mythic Delirium | [6] | |
| 2009 | Geoffrey A. Landis* | "Fireflies" | Asimov's Science Fiction | [7] |
| Elizabeth Barrette+ | "the leaf whisperer" | Doorways Magazine | [7] | |
| Jane Yolen | "Goodbye Billy Goat Gruff" | Asimov's Science Fiction | [7] | |
| 2010 | Howard V. Hendrix* | "Bumbershoot" | Abyss & Apex | [8] |
| Deborah P. Kolodji+ | "The Selkie's Children" | Goblin Fruit | [8] | |
| Stephen Wilson | "The Men All Pause" | Poet's Espresso | [8] | |
| 2011 | Julie Bloss Kelsey* | "Comet" | microcosms | [9] |
| Sonya Taaffe+ | "Tapping the Vine" | Goblin Fruit | [9] | |
| Ann K. Schwader | "Returning" | Star*Line | [9] | |
| 2012 | Marge Simon* | "Blue Rose Buddha" | The Mad Hattery | [10] |
| Greer Woodward+ | "Closure" | Illumen | [10] | |
| G. O. Clark | "Snowflake galaxies" | microcosms | [10] | |
| 2013 | Deborah P. Kolodji* | "Basho After Cinderella (iii)" | Rattle | [11] |
| Mary Turzillo+ | "The Hidden" | Lovers & Killers | [11] | |
| N. E. Taylor | "Sarcophagus" | inkscrawl | [11] | |
| 2014 | Mat Joiner* | "And Deeper than Did Ever Plummet Sound" | Strange Horizons | [12] |
| Mari Ness+ | "The Loss" | Strange Horizons | [12] | |
| David Livingstone Clink | "Hourglass" | Prism International | [12] | |
| 2015 | Greg Schwartz* | "abandoned nursing home" | Tales of the Talisman | [2] |
| Jane Yolen+ | "Princess: A Life" | Mythic Delirium | [2] | |
| Robert Borski | "The Square Root of Doppelgängers" | Star*Line | [2] | |
| 2016 | Stacy Balkun* | "We Begin This Way" | Gingerbread House | [3] |
| Julie Bloss Kelsey+ | "at the barre" | Rattle | [3] | |
| F. J. Bergmann+ | "The Doorman" | Grievous Angel | [3] | |
| Sandi Leibowitz+ | "Weathering" | Silver Blade | [3] | |
| John C. Mannone | "Alice was chasing white rabbits out of a black hole" | Abbreviate Journal | [3] | |
| 2017 | LeRoy Gorman* | "aster than the speed of lightf" | Scifaikuest | [13] |
| Holly Day+ | "Lover" | Homestead Review | [13] | |
| Sandi Leibowitz | "Loss" | Through the Gate | [13] | |
| 2018 | Kath Abela Wilson* | "The Green" | Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace | [14] |
| David C. Kopaska-Merkel+ | "If She Knew She Was a Ghost" | Polu Texni | [14] | |
| Deborah L. Davitt | "Lo Shu’s Magic Square" | Snakeskin | [14] | |
| Holly Lyn Walrath | "Lace at the Throat" | 2017 SFPA poetry contest | [14] | |
| 2019 | Sofía Rhei* (translated by Lawrence Schimel) | "embalsamados" ("embalmed") | Multiverse: An International Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry | [15] |
| LeRoy Gorman+ | "where to hide an alien in plain sight" | Scryptic | [15] | |
| Sandra J. Lindow | "Negative Space" | Sky Island Journal | [15] | |
| 2020 | John C. Mannone* | "Standing Up" | Nadwah: Poetry in Translation | [16] |
| Mark A. Fisher+ | "[There are fossils]" | Silver Blade 44 | [16] | |
| Denise Dumars | "2015 Zinfandella" | Dismal Oaks Winery Broadside | [16] | |
| 2021 | Holly Lyn Walrath* | "Yes, Antimatter Is Real" | Analog Science Fiction and Fact | [17] |
| Robert Borski+ | "The Softness of Impossible Fossils" | Asimov's Science Fiction | [17] | |
| Herb Kauderer | "Frozen Hurricanes" | Minimalism: A Handbook of Minimalist Genre Poetic Forms (Hiraeth Press) | [17] | |
| 2022 | Jen Stewart Fueston* | "Poem with Lines from my Son" | Bracken | [18] |
| Mary Soon Lee* | "What Trees Read" | Uppagus | [18] | |
| Jamal Hodge+ | "Colony" | Penumbric | [18] | |
| Gene Twaronite | "Future Portrait of Dark Matter" | NewMyths.com | [18] | |
| 2023 | Rasha Abdulhadi* | "Believe the Graves" | The Deadlands | [19] |
| Bruce Boston* | "In Perpetuity" | Analog Science Fiction and Fact | [19] | |
| Alyssa Lo+ | "Excerpt from a Proposal for the New City" | Strange Horizons | [19] | |
| Kim Whysall-Hammond | "As Slow as Starlight" | Frozen Wavelets | [19] | |
| Sumiko Saulson | "Surviving" | The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry (Dooky Zines) | [19] | |
| Warsan Shire | "Trichotillomania" | Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (Random House) | [19] |
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