FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Welcome to Our 61st Annual Nebula Awards Programming!
San Francisco, CA – April 6, 2026
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is proud to launch its preliminary program for its 61st Annual Nebula Awards Conference, running from June 3-7 in Chicago, Illinois.
The Nebulas are an opportunity to celebrate SFWA’s latest finalists and their works in Chicago this June 3-7, along with SFWA’s 42nd Grand Master N. K. Jemisin, latest Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award recipient David Langford, and current Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award recipient Gay Haldeman.
The Nebula Awards Conference is also an excellent opportunity to network with fellow writers, expand industry horizons, and pursue professional development goals in science fiction, fantasy, and related genres.
This year’s conference is packed with in-person and virtual offerings and strongly celebrates our theme of Worldbuilding & Worldbreaking. You can check out our preliminary schedule at our new programming station on SFWA.org. Full panelist complements and final modifications will be added soon.
New Merch Alert!
You can also celebrate this year’s Nebula conference theme with new items at the SFWA Store, where $25 USD from every purchase of these specialty goods goes to our Finalist Scholarship Fund.
Many of this year’s Nebula Finalists would love to celebrate their achievement in community this June in Chicago, and you can help us get them there – while snagging a great new t-shirt or notebook for longterm use. Direct donations to the fund are always welcome.
Spread the Joy in Community
A ticket to the online Nebula Conference also gets you online attendance to the 10th Annual StokerCon – completely free! At StokerCon, which runs from June 4 to 7, you can celebrate Linda D. Addison, one of this year’s inaugural Nebula Award Finalists for Best Poem, and a Guest of Honor at the 10th-anniversary event run by the Horror Writers Association.
Congratulations to our peer organization, the Horror Writers Association, on its decade of conference craft for genre writers!
Details will be sent to registrants. Enjoy two cons for the price of one!
Get to Know Some of Our Headlining Presenters!
Toastmaster Tananarive Due is not only guiding our Nebula Awards Ceremony on Saturday, June 6, but also presenting a Crash Course in Speculative Screenwriting on Saturday, with accomplished husband and creative partner Steven Barnes. This creative duo has made significant contributions to the world of speculative horror, with a focus on Black histories within the genre and the role of genre in general for the heady work of resistance and renewal.
Are you ready to deepen your thematic storytelling in multimedia forms? Join us for this enriching conversation in June!
Gay Haldeman is receiving this year’s Service Award for a career of building out SFF culture in support of her husband’s writing, including through her work with SFWA. On Thursday, June 4, we’ll be hearing from SFWA Grand Master Joe Haldeman himself, in an insightful panel titled “Historical Perspective: The Evolving World of SFF”. This conversation is a critical part of this year’s conference theme, because writers are forever building upon layers of lore that are easily lost in the shifting landscape of our industry.
Where are we reinventing the wheel? What has consistently preoccupied us in genre, and where are we forging new ground? What is uncannily similar and wildly different about the way writers have built their creative lives and careers over the decades – and where might all these historical signs be pointing us next?
Join us for an excellent panel discussion with a star writer who has embodied dedication to his ever-changing community for decades.
And on Friday? Well, that’s when Grand Master N. K. Jemisin will offer a special presentation, a Crash Course in Worldbuilding and Worldbreaking. Learn more from the master herself about how many ways our worldly expectations – of a world, a city, a culture, or a shared reality – can be spun up in readers’ heads and then brought crashing down, only to be remade in more interesting forms.
This spotlight event will lift you up and invigorate the writer in you before we head into our very special evening of star-studded celebrations. After our Nebula Finalist Reception, our Nebula Finalists and VIP Autographing event will be open to the public, and a terrific opportunity to mingle and get to know some of the brightest lights in our “Nebula” this year.
RSVP today to be added to a giveaway draw, too – so tell all your friends in Chicago and its vicinity to bring their books for signing!
Remember: Nebula Banquet Tickets Are in Limited Supply! Purchase Yours Today!
WRITERS!
GET YOUR HEADSHOTS AT THE NEBULAS
We are honored this year at the Nebula Awards Conference by the repeat appearance of photographer Kaitrin Acuna, who last year made our 60th anniversary shine, and left smiles on the faces of authors who secured appointments for headshots. (Check out last year’s gallery yourself!)
This year, Kaitrin is back, and with an incredibly generous offer to help SFWA support the general SFF community. When you book an author headshot appointment with Kaitrin for a window during our conference in Chicago, 15% of the fee will go to our Givers Fund, a SFWA-driven outreach program that distributes micro-grants to SFF projects every year.