CSFFA Newsletter: May 2026

In this newsletter:

• Announcing the 2026 Aurora Award Finalists

• Instructions for Accessing the Aurora Award Voters’ Packet

• Aurora Book Club Meets May 29 on Discord

• You’re Invited to our Discord community

Announcing the 2026 Aurora Award Finalists

This ballot is for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works originally done in 2025 by Canadians. The Aurora Awards are nominated by members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. The top five nominated works were selected. Additional works were included where there was a tie for fifth place. An online awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, August 9th, 2026, at 5pm EDT, with hosts Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Elizabeth May Anderson.

Click here for a printable version of the ballot.

Note: Works are sorted by title. Voting will be done online by CSFFA members when they log into their account.

BEST NOVEL
The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Del Rey
Blight, Rachel A. Rosen, The BumblePuppy Press
Direct Descendant, Tanya Huff, DAW Books
The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine, Robert J. Sawyer, Audible Originals/Shadowpaw Press
Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales, Heather Fawcett, Del Rey
A Shift of Time, Julie E. Czerneda, DAW Books
Written on the Dark, Guy Gavriel Kay, Viking Canada

BEST YOUNG ADULT (YA) NOVEL
Breath of the Dragon, Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee, Wednesday Books
Fireboy, Edward Willett, Shadowpaw Press
A Lion’s Head, D.M. De Alwis, Ahasae Tharu Publications
Minotaur, Jamieson Wolf, Rebel Satori Press
One Morning Sun, Avi Silver, Molewhale Press
Winging It, Jen Desmarais, Renaissance Press

BEST NOVELETTE/NOVELLA
The First Thousand Trees, Premee Mohamed, ECW Press
“In the Gardener’s Service“, Michèle Laframboise, Asimov’s, July/August
“The Lure of Stone“, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Uncanny Magazine, Issue Sixty-Six
A Palace Near the Wind, Ai Jiang, Titan Books
The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar, Tordotcom

BEST SHORT STORY
“Hunted To Extinction“, Premee Mohamed, Gallery Books
“I Ain’t Your Doll Face“, Jacqueline Thorpe, Polar Borealis Magazine #33
“the love song of house and lake“, Gillian Secord, On Spec Magazine, Issue #133
“The Stone Played at Tengen“, R.H. Wesley, Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 230
“What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?“, Rachel A. Rosen, Antifa Lit Journal, Volume 1

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL/COMIC
Atana and the Jade Mermaid, Vivian Zhou, HarperAlley
“Bonds of the Forest“, Ally Rom Colthoff, Augur Magazine, Issue 8.3
It Never Rains, Kari Maaren, webcomic
Questionable Content, Jeph Jacques, webcomic
Shark Girl, Kate Beaton, Roaring Brook Press

BEST POEM/SONG
“At the Spaceport Bar“, Lisa Timpf, Polar Starlight Magazine #17
“Bigfoot Farewell“, Carolyn Clink, Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters
“Dragon Karaoke“, David Clink, Polar Starlight, Issue #18
“Explosive“, Derek Newman-Stille, Polar Starlight #20
“flowers without meadow“, Tiffany Morris, Eye to the Telescope #56
“From Dust“, J. Y. Zhang, Small Wonders

BEST RELATED WORK
As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories, Terese Mason Pierre, House of Anansi Press
Augur Magazine, Issues 8.1-8.3, Kerry C. Byrne, Toria Liao, André Geleynse, Kelley Tai, and Azure Arther
On Spec Magazine, Issues #131 – 134, Vol 35, Diane L. Walton, Managing Editor, The Copper Pig Writers’ Society, Publisher
One Message Remains, Premee Mohamed, Psychopomp
Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three, Stephen Kotowych, Editor, Ansible Press

BEST COVER ART/INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION
Dancing With the Holly King, Janice Blaine, On Spec Magazine, Issue #134
Seance, Alice M., Heartlines Spec, Issue 7
Lunar Base, Dan O’Driscoll, On Spec Magazine, Issue #132
Starship Librarians, Lorna Antoniazzi, Tyche Books Ltd.
Listen to Me and I’ll tell You a Story, Ejiwa “Edge” Ebenebe, Uncanny Magazine, Issue Sixty-Six

BEST FAN WRITING AND PUBLICATION
Amazing Stories online columns, Numbers 405-420, Steve Fahnestalk, AmazingStories.com
Book Reviews in The Ottawa Review of Books, Robert Runté
Polar Starlight Magazine, Issues 17-20, Rhea E. Rose, editor
Speculative Poetry and the Hugos, Lynne Sargent, Strange Horizons
Young People Read Old Science Fiction, James Davis Nicoll, online

BEST FAN RELATED WORK
Can*Con, Marie Bilodeau, chair and Brandon Crilly, vice-chair, Ottawa
Scintillation, Jo Walton and Rene Walling, co-chairs, Montreal
Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi, Troy Harkin and David Clink, podcast
Wizards & Spaceships, Rachel A. Rosen and David L. Clink, podcast, Night Beats
The Worldshapers Podcast, Edward Willett
2026 Aurora Awards Voters’ Package

This year’s Aurora Voters’ Package is now available for CSFFA members to download.

The purpose of the Voters’ Package is simple: Before you vote for the Aurora Awards this year, we want you to be able to read as many of the nominated works as possible, so you can make an informed decision about what your favourite works are from this year’s ballot.

Each download file contains a List and Links PDF document for that specific category. This document tells you what files are contained in the Zip folder along with any web links.

For a complete list of what is in all download files we have created a special PDF that you can read before you start to download, Complete Aurora Voters Package lists and links

Voting for the Auroras begins: June 6 and closes July 18 at 11:59 EDT.

NOTE: This download page will close on July 12th (Sunday). This is almost one week before voting closes. You can still get a CSFFA membership for 2026 and access the Voters’ Package at any time up until this point. Please, make sure that you have downloaded any works you wish to read prior to this date.

The e-versions of the Aurora Awards nominated works are made available to you through the generosity of the nominees and publishers. We are grateful for their participation and willingness to share with CSFFA members. We have made each category a separate file so we can track how many times a work is downloaded. If you like what you read, please support the creators by purchasing their works, which are available in bookstores and online.

The works in the Aurora Awards Voters’ Package are without Digital Rights Management, because the authors and publishers trust that you will use this Aurora Awards Voters’ Package as it was intended – to help you make the best choice for the Aurora Awards. Due to this generosity, any downloads are for your personal use only and not to be shared.

E-books will be in one or more of the following formats: Adobe Reader (.pdf) or eReader (.epub and mobi).

This year’s awards ceremony will be held online on Sunday, August 9th starting at 5pm EDT. It will be livestreamed on YouTube. The link to the ceremony will be posted and announced in our newsletter in early August.

Aurora Book Club May Updates

For the month of May 2026 with the Aurora Awards Retrospective Book Club, we’re reading Book 2 of Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry, The Wandering Fire.

MAY BOOK CLUB MEETING: May 29, 8:00pm EDT / 5:00 PM PDT on Discord

More info on the book club:

Starting in January 2026, we’re inviting everyone to join us for the Aurora Awards Retrospective Book Club. The aim of the Book Club is to read every “Best Novel” Aurora Award winner in the association’s history, in time for CSFFA’s 50th anniversary. We envision the book club wrapping up by the proposed Edmonton Worldcon in 2030, where we hope to host some form of anniversary celebration.

Learn more about the book club, how it works, and see the full schedule at the book club page of the CSFFA website.

We’re happy to announce that CSFFA is joining the great Discord bandwagon, and has created a community server where fans, readers, creators, and all Canadian SFF enthusiasts can gather online to discuss Canadian speculative fiction and the Aurora Awards. The Discord server is open to the public, and you can join us using this link.

(Sometimes Discord invite links don’t work as intended, so if you find that to be the case, please reach out and we’ll try to get you sorted.)