Winter Solstice, Camelot Station

Poem by John M. Ford

"Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" is a poem by John M. Ford, about the Knights of the Round Table at a train station in Camelot. It was first published as Ford's Christmas card,^[1] and came to broader attention after Jane Yolen submitted it to Parke Godwin for inclusion in the 1988 anthology Invitation to Camelot.^[2]

Reception

"Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" won the 1989 World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction,^[3] and the 1989 Rhysling Award for Best Long Poem (tied with Bruce Boston's "In the Darkened Hours").^[4]

References

^ The Disappearance of John M. Ford, by Isaac Butler, at Slate; published November 15, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2020
^ Introduction to "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station", by Parke Godwin, in Invitation to Camelot; published March 1988, by Ace Books; p. 243; "Long after this volume was finished and mellowing on the publisher's shelf, Jane Yolen sent me "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" by JOHN M. FORD, and even called to herald its arrival. I told her the book was closed. 'Read it anyway,' Jane commanded. 'It's brilliant.'"
^ 1989 - the 15th World Fantasy Convention, at WorldFantasy.org; retrieved October 27, 2020
^ SFPA Rhysling Award Archive, at SFPoetry.com; retrieved October 27, 2020

World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction

1975–2000

"Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" by Robert Aickman (1975)
"Belsen Express" by Fritz Leiber (1976)
"There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding" by Russell Kirk (1977)
"The Chimney" by Ramsey Campbell (1978)
"Naples" by Avram Davidson (1979)
"Mackintosh Willy" by Ramsey Campbell (1980, tie)
"The Woman Who Loved the Moon" by Elizabeth A. Lynn (1980, tie)
"The Ugly Chickens" by Howard Waldrop (1981)
"The Dark Country" by Dennis Etchison (1982, tie)
"Do the Dead Sing?" by Stephen King (1982, tie)
"The Gorgon" by Tanith Lee (1983)
"Elle Est Trois, (La Mort)" by Tanith Lee (1984)
"The Bones Wizard" by Alan Ryan (1985, tie)
"Still Life with Scorpion" by Scott Baker (1985, tie)
"Paper Dragons" by James Blaylock (1986)
"Red Light" by David J. Schow (1987)
"Friend's Best Man" by Jonathan Carroll (1988)
"Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" by John M. Ford (1989)
"The Illusionist" by Steven Millhauser (1990)
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess (1991)
"The Somewhere Doors" by Fred Chappell (1992)
"Graves" by Joe Haldeman (1993, tie)
"This Year's Class Picture" by Dan Simmons (1993, tie)
"The Lodger" by Fred Chappell (1994)
"The Man in the Black Suit" by Stephen King (1995)
"The Grass Princess" by Gwyneth Jones (1996)
"Thirteen Phantasms" by James Blaylock (1997)
"Dust Motes" by P. D. Cacek (1998)
"The Specialist's Hat" by Kelly Link (1999)
"The Chop Girl" by Ian R. MacLeod (2000)

2001–present

"The Pottawatomie Giant" by Andy Duncan (2001)
"Queen for a Day" by Albert E. Cowdrey (2002)
"Creation" by Jeffrey Ford (2003)
"Don Ysidro" by Bruce Holland Rogers (2004)
"Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan (2005)
"CommComm" by George Saunders (2006)
"Journey Into the Kingdom" by M. Rickert (2007)
"Singing of Mount Abora" by Theodora Goss (2008)
"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson (2009)
"The Pelican Bar" by Karen Joy Fowler (2010)
"Fossil-Figures" by Joyce Carol Oates (2011)
"The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu (2012)
"The Telling" by Gregory Norman Bossert (2013)
"The Prayer of Ninety Cats" by Caitlín R. Kiernan (2014)
"Do You Like to Look at Monsters?" by Scott Nicolay (2015)
"Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" by Alyssa Wong (2016)
"Das Steingeschöpf" by G. V. Anderson (2017)
"The Birding: A Fairy Tale" by Natalia Theodoridou (2018)
"Like a River Loves the Sky" by Emma Törzs / "Ten Deals with the Indigo Snake" by Mel Kassel (2019)
"Read After Burning" by Maria Dahvana Headley (2020)
"Glass Bottle Dancer" by Celeste Rita Baker (2021)
"(emet)" by Lauren Ring (2022)