This year marks the inaugural launch of the Cosmic Chronicles Literary Award, and it has been thrilling to witness the global enthusiasm for this new initiative. Submissions have come in from around the world and from a wide range of voices: space scientists, experimental poets, teachers, artists, and even a 13-year-old poet. To evaluate this remarkable diversity of work, we have invited three exceptional literary talents to join the jury, and we are eager to begin our readings. You can find more information about the jury below.
As always, make sure to catch up on our SETI AIR’s news and events.
Clear skies,
Bettina
AIR Program Spotlight
Cosmic Chronicles Literary Award
The Cosmic Chronicles Literary Award is a new contest for emerging authors from the SETI Institute’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program. In an Open Call we invited writers and poets working in literature, speculative fiction/sci-fi, experimental poetry, and philosophy to submit original, unpublished creative work that reflects on the themes of intelligence and consciousness before the September 1, 2025 deadline.
We have received a high number of submissions from 33 countries, including Peru, New Zealand, Ghana, India, Japan, all over Europe, Canada, and the USA. Entries included visual poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and vignettes. The submissions are now being reviewed by Gregory Betts, Advisor of the Cosmic Consciousness Literature and Poetry residency, Bettina Forget, Director of the SETI AIR program, and three invited jurors who are outstanding talents in the fields of science fiction and contemporary poetry.
Amy Catanzano
Recipient of the PEN USA Literary Award in Poetry and the Noemi Press Book Award in Fiction, Amy Catanzano publishes poetry and fiction, poetic theory, and multimodal literary art, including web-expanded literature. Writing in parallel to cutting-edge physics as well as the literary and artistic subcultures of the avant-garde, she forges innovative connections between literature, science, and the arts.
www.amycatanzano.com/
Eric Choi
Eric Choi is a Hong Kong born aerospace engineer, writer, and editor, currently based in Toronto, Canada. He is the recipient of two Aurora Awards and an Asimov Award (now Dell Award) for his hard SF short stories and anthologies. Over the course of his aerospace engineering career, he has worked on a number of space projects including the Meteorological (MET) payload on the Phoenix Mars Lander and the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station.
www.aerospacewriter.ca/
Peter Watts
https://rifters.com/
SETI AIR Artist News & Events
Patterns in Perception of a Simulated Extraterrestrial Message
Presentation, with primatologist Mary Lee Jensvold, at the PSETI Symposium
Daniela Brill Estrada, Bart Kuipers, Julie-Michèle Morin
Taboo, Transgression, Transcendence
Kino Šiška, Ljubljana
September 9 - 13, 2025
Shift Rotate Reflect
Exhibition at Illinois State University, Normal IL, USA
August 15 - December 10, 2025
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