Theodora Goss and Elis Montgomery Win 2026 Rhysling Awards for Speculative Poetry

Who won the 2026 speculative poetry awards? The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) named the winners of its three member-voted awards on Saturday, October 17, 2026, at a virtual ceremony. The association posted the full results on its website the same day.

Linda D. Addison and Jamal Hodge took first place in the full-length book category of the Elgin Awards for Everything Endless. Theodora Goss won the Rhysling Award for short poems with "How to Become a Sea Witch," and Elis Montgomery won the long-poem Rhysling with "Hex Supply Customer Support Log." Robert Frazier's "Concrete Cuneiform Poem #1" won the Dwarf Stars Award for very short poems.

Elgin Awards (poetry books)

The Elgin is named for Suzette Haden Elgin, who founded the association. It honors poetry collections published in the previous two years, in two size classes.

Full-length books

• First: Everything Endless by Linda D. Addison and Jamal Hodge
• Second: Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray
• Third: Sleepless Nights in the Dreamers Mall by Herb Kauderer

Chapbooks

• First: The Women of Myth by M. Frost
• Second: Over It: Goddesses Who've Reached Their Limit by Gerri Leen
• Third: Risk Assessment by David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Rhysling Awards (single poems)

The Rhysling dates back to January 1978, when Elgin started the group (then called the Science Fiction Poetry Association) along with its newsletter, Star*Line. It takes its name from the blind poet Rhysling in Robert A. Heinlein's story "The Green Hills of Earth."

Short poems (11 to 49 lines)

• First: "How to Become a Sea Witch" by Theodora Goss
• Second: "The Mourning Robot" by Angela Liu
• Third: "Final Moments of a Witch: A Poem Told in Reverse" by Pedro Iniguez
• Honorable mentions: "Reaper" by Mary Soon Lee; "I Try to Explain the Concept of Teeth to My Alien Roommate" by Rachel Linton; "I Was Lt. Uhura" by January Gill O'Neil

Long poems (50 to 299 lines)

• First: "Hex Supply Customer Support Log" by Elis Montgomery
• Second: "His New Antlers" by Rick Christiansen
• Third: "One Hundred Thousand Legends and the Longing Underneath" by Gwendolyn Hicks
• Honorable mentions: "Components" by PS Cottier; "A Priestess of Bast Reflects on a Past Life" by Clarabelle Miray Fields; "Stationary" by David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Dwarf Stars Award (ten lines or fewer)

The Dwarf Stars cover speculative poems of one to ten lines published the year before. Members vote from an annual anthology.

• First: "Concrete Cuneiform Poem #1" by Robert Frazier
• Second: "bound with plaited grass" by F. J. Bergmann
• Third: "What Black Holes Read" by Mary Soon Lee
• Honorable mentions: "Familiar Spirit" by Sarah Cannavo; "Mushroom Lung" by Yuliia Vereta; "The Point of Measurement" by Lynne Sargent

The same post also lists the winners of the association's annual contest for original, unpublished poems. Michael Bailey won the dwarf form with "Unauthorized Territory," Hinse Mutter won the short form with "The Wind Always Returns," and Izzy Toy Rettke won the long form with "The Abyss Between One and Two." F. J. Bergmann's name appears in all three contest categories, as well as in the Dwarf Stars results.

How the awards work

The Elgin, Rhysling and Dwarf Stars are peer awards. There is no judging panel. SFPA members put forward the work and members choose the winners.

For the Rhysling, each member can nominate one poem in each of the two length categories. The nominated poems are gathered into the Rhysling Anthology, and the membership votes from that book.

The Elgin is more open than many authors expect. Under the award's rules, ebooks are eligible as well as print. A nominated book doesn't have to be by a member to be nominated or to win. Members may nominate several books but not their own. Voting runs from July 1 to September 15, and digital copies of the nominated books go to voters.

The AI rule

One condition matters for any poet thinking about these awards. In May 2024 the membership voted on a statement on generative AI. Of 168 votes, 69% backed a complete ban and 25% a limited one. Under the policy, published work created "wholly or in part" with a generative tool is not eligible for SFPA awards.

A clarification added in June 2024 says spell checkers and grammar checkers that only flag mistakes are fine. Tools that write sample sentences, rewrite a draft or build outlines from a prompt are not. The statement names the rephrase tools in some popular writing apps as examples.

Why it matters for authors

Small presses and self-published poets can win. Ebook eligibility and the rule that books need not come from members leave the door open for collections from small presses or self-published poets. If you published a speculative poetry book in 2025 or 2026, it could be in the running next year. The catch is that someone in the membership has to nominate it.

Check your writing tools before you submit anywhere. SFPA's policy is stricter than many publishers' rules. Built-in "rewrite" or "suggest" features count as generative here. The same question is coming up across the industry, as PT's report on the Authors Guild's AI guidance for publishers shows.

Genre poetry has its own prize circuit. Awards like these, along with the British Fantasy Awards, give genre work recognition from its own community. A placing is something you can put on a cover, in a bio or in a pitch to the next editor.

Sources

• Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association: 2026 Dwarf Stars, Elgin, Rhysling Winners Announced (October 17, 2026)
• SFPA: About the Rhysling Awards, About the Elgin Award and SFPA Statement on Generative AI