Steps Through the Mist Wins Gold Award for Production

Steps Through the Mist, Aio PublishingThe Detroit Club of Printing House Craftsmen recently awarded its 2008 Gold Award to McNaughton & Gunn, the truly excellent US printing company that produces all of Aio Publishing’s books. The award was given “for superb craftsmanship in the production of Steps Through the Mist by Zoran Zivkovic,” which has been added to its Gallery of Superb Printing.

My other Aio-produced book, Seven Touches of Music, previously took top honors for design at the 55th Annual Chicago Book Clinic Book and Media Show.

It is wonderful to see that the time, effort, and artistry taken to produce such beautiful editions of my books are being recognized and awarded. My congratulations to McNaughton & Gunn!

Twelve Collections Longlisted for the BFSA

12 CollectionsIn addition to Twelve Collections and The Teashop (PS Publishing, 2007) being a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, my mosaic-novel has now been longlisted for the 2008 British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novella. The list of recommendations is as follows:

  • Deadbeat: The Dogs of Waugh, Guy Adams, Humdrumming
  • Starship Summer, Eric Brown, PS Publishing
  • The Mermaids, Robert Edric, PS Publishing
  • The Lees of Laughter’s End, Steven Erickson, PS Publishing
  • The City Beyond Play, Philip Jose Farmer and Danny Adams, PS Publishing
  • “The Helper and his Hero,” Matthew Hughes, F&SF, Feb-March 2007
  • The Crystal Cosmos, Rhys Hughes, PS Publishing
  • Dead Earth: The Green Dawn, Mark Justice and David T Wilbanks, PS Publishing
  • “The Lazarus Condition,” Paul Kane, The Lazarus Condition, Tasmaniac Publications
  • “Dalton Quayle Rides Out,” Paul Kane, Dalton Quayle Rides Out, Pendragon Press
  • After The War (Double Novella), Tim Lebbon, Subterranean Press
  • “The Master Miller’s Tale,” Ian MacLeod, F&SF, May 2007
  • Under My Roof, Nick Mamatas, Soft Skull Press
  • Time Hunter 11: Child Of Time, George Mann and David J Howe, Telos Publishing
  • All Your Gods Are Dead, Gary McMahon, Humdrumming
  • Hereafter and After, Richard Parks, PS Publishing
  • “The Palace,” Barbara Roden, At Ease with the Dead, Ash-Tress Press
  • Strawberry Man, Eric Shapiro, Insidious Publications
  • “Stars Seen Through Stone,” Lucius Shepard, F&SF, July 2007 & Dagger Key & Other Stories
  • “Dead Money,” Lucius Shepard, Asimov’s, April 2007 & Dagger Key & Other Stories
  • Black Tide, Del Stone Jr, Telos Publishing
  • Rain, Conrad Williams, Gray Friar Press
  • The Scalding Rooms, Conrad Williams, PS Publishing
  • Twelve Collections and the Teashop, Zoran Zivkovic, PS Publishing

Link to the complete longlist for each category.

“The Teashop” to be reprinted in Year’s Best anthology

2008 Fantasy BotYMy novella “The Teashop” (originally published in English in Twelve Collections and The Teashop) will be included in the 2008 edition of Fantasy: The Best of the Year, an anthology edited by Rich Horton. The book, which selects the best tales of the fantastic published in 2007, is scheduled to appear in early 2008 from Prime Books.

The table of contents (courtesy of John Joseph Adams) is as follows:

  • Daryl Gregory, “Unpossible” (F&SF, October/November)
  • Kelly Link, “Light” (Tin House, Fall)
  • Zoran Zivkovic, “The Teashop”, (12 Collections and the Teashop)
  • Noreen Doyle, “The Rope” (Realms of Fantasy, April)
  • William Alexander, “Buttons”, (Zahir, Summer/07)
  • Holly Phillips, “Brother of the Moon”, (Fantasy)
  • Andy Duncan, “A Diorama of the Infernal Regions”, (Wizards)
  • Rachel Swirsky, “Heartstrung”, (Interzone, 6/07)
  • Carrie Laben, “Something in the Mermaid Way” (Clarkesworld, March)
  • Matthew Johnson, “Public Safety” (Asimov’s, 3/07)
  • Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, “Stray” (F&SF, December)
  • Marly Youmans, “The Comb” (Fantasy, December)
  • Garth Nix, “Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again” (Baen’s Universe, 4/07)
  • Karen Joy Fowler, “The Last Worders”, (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, 6/07)
  • Theodora Goss, “Singing of Mount Abora” (Logorrhea)
  • David Barr Kirtley, “Save Me Plz” (Realms of Fantasy, October)
  • Erik Amundsen, “Bufo Rex” (Weird Tales)
  • Ian R. MacLeod, “The Master Miller’s Tale” (F&SF, May)

The 2007 Stefan Mitrov Ljubisa Award Ceremony

Last night, I was honored with 2007 Stefan Mitrov Ljubisa Award for lifetime achievement in literature. The award, named after one of the greatest Montenegrin writers of the 19th century, is a major mainstream literary prize that also includes €1,000 (US$1,300).

Here are eight exclusive photos from the award presentation ceremony, held in a ninth century church (the oldest in this part of the world) in the Montenegrin Adriatic city of Budva.

1. Screening of a film based on one of my stories.

(More photos from the award ceremony after the cut…)

The 2006 Isidora Sekulic Award Ceremony

Last night, I was honored with the 2006 Isidora Sekulic Award for my mosaic novel The Bridge. The award, named after one of the greatest Serbian female writers and essayists of the 20th century, is a major mainstream literary prize chosen by a majority vote of jury members. It comes with €2,500, or about US$3,300.

A brief speech by Prof. Slobodan Grubacic, president of the award jury, announcing the award at a ceremony at Belgrade City Hall:

The Isidora Sekulic Award for 2006 has been presented to Zoran Zivkovic for his novel The Bridge. The decision was made by majority vote of jury members.

It is not easy to interpret the work of an author who knows so much about life that he could write an encyclopedia of the living and the dead, and who knows absolutely everything about art – so much that he could easily devote his books to the supra-conceptual reconciliation of conscious and unconscious states. Nevertheless, although Zivkovic follows the principles of storytelling honed from his previous books, here the prose he offers is not full of introspection and deep internal enlightenment. He does not place his stories in astral regions, in places of an inaccessible metaphysical reality. On the contrary, he finds the fantastic of everyday events to be a highly powerful tool with which to produce unusual literary work. Furthermore, at a time in which the anecdote is easily transformed into a cosmic event, and a cosmic event into an anecdote, the fantastic has proven to be an element that successfully transports the everyday prose of events into the poetry of literature.

This principle is not forsaken in the awarded The Bridge, either. Themes of doubles, raincoats, meeting on a bridge – with us from Hoffman to Gogol and from Hofmanstal to Kafka – eloquently indicate Zivkovic’s dexterity at playing with familiar and less known themes in world literature, of which the most powerful is anagnoresis, the ancient motif of recognition. A master of brevity, the author of The Bridge uses it almost according to Aristotle: the symbols, the memories, the conclusions that are made, whether accurate or not. Illusory simplicity conceals the clusters of a perfect composition in which characters constantly examine their human essence, living their losses as their sole, inalienable possession.

Every culture wants to have a writer like Zoran Zivkovic.

(More photos from the award ceremony after the cut…)

Seven Touches of Music Wins Design Award

I am honored to announce that the Aio Publishing hardcover edition of my mosaic novel Seven Touches of Music has taken top honors at the 55th Annual Chicago Book Clinic Book and Media Show on November 9th.

Aio Publishing US editionThe design won the Award of Excellence in the General Trade Category. The Book and Media Show honors excellence in the planning, supervision, and execution of the physical and visual aspects of publishing in all genres across fourteen U.S. states. The General Trade Category heads the list of thirteen award categories.

[…]

Book printer McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., which prints more than 6,000 titles per year and manufactured Seven Touches of Music as well as Ian R. MacLeod’s novel The Summer Isles, which took top honors in the general trade category at the 2005 Chicago Book Clinic Book and Media Show, nominated the book for the award.

The design was produced in-house by Aio publisher Tiffany Jonas and art director Patrick Jonas. It was the company’s second book design. Incorporating a supple European-styled, premium-grade Skivertex cover in a deep charcoal color custom-mixed for this cover, foil embossing in black and green, and ridged black end sheets as well as black-edged interior paper, the novel was produced using animal-friendly materials and recycled, acid-neutral paper.

Link to the full press release.