The Space Crone Prize: Read the winners and shortlist!

Image: Ben Rivers, Still from Look then Below, 2019. Courtesy the artist.

We are delighted to announce the winners of The Space Crone Prize for speculative and science short fiction. The special one-off prize, established by Silver Press in collaboration with The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust, celebrated the publication of Space Crone by Ursula K. Le Guin, a selection of writings edited by So Mayer and Sarah Shin. 

The winner and shortlist were announced at Burley Fisher Books’ BFDay23 on Friday 22 September 2023. The winner and shortlist were chosen by a selection panel including Sophia Al Maria, India Downes-Le Guin, So Mayer, Una McCormack, Josie Mitchell, Nisha Ramayya, Sarah Shin, Angelique Tran Van Sang and Isabel Waidner.

The winning entries have been published by Granta, and the shortlisted entries are published on the Silver Blog.

Winner

Sever Babylon by Fer Boyd

Elemental sighs, memories misting the face, before lying back and opening the eyelids, showing the corneas to the heavens. ‘When we fucked, language blistered. The silvering of our shared aura broke a sweat that slid down to our heels. We flared the same colour, as our hearts jumped out of our chests. We briefly swapped them, something I had never done before. Afterwards, I thought of their heart often, wanting to feel it heavy inside my chest again. My identity has always been in flux, gathering pace, gaining, losing . . . But it was in their shifting skin that I first recognised both myself and the world.'

Available to read now at Granta.

Runner Up

Green Shade by E de Zulueta

I could write to tell her that the jungle is home to the largest flower on the planet, it is called the corpse flower. They call it this because it stinks of rotting flesh, it is pollinated by carrion flies who are attracted by the smell. It has no stem, no roots or leaves, it exists as a network of thread-like mycelium which embed themselves intimately into the tissue of its host, drawing from these tissues everything it needs to survive. When it is ready to reproduce it sends out reddish-brown knobs which grow into huge fleshy flowers. I wonder if every person is simply an endless series of variations on the same theme, the same flaw.

Available to read now at Granta.

Shortlist – Available to read on the Silver Blog

King Henry by Kerry Andrew
The Banyan, Bahuchar, & the In-Between by Mudra Joshi
Dancing in the Maw of an Other by Fraser Taylor
In/To by Beth Williams

Longlist