It’s Hugo Award nomination time, kids. This is when folks who attended last year’s WorldCon and those who have already signed up for this year’s can nominate stories, books, people and magazines for awards. Exciting! I have not been to WorldCon in a number of years and that isn’t likely to change soon. I’ll have to settle for recommending things for you folks to nominate.
Weird Tales has helpfully put together this Year In Review, which highlights some of their more awesome endeavors. i think they’re angling for that Best Semiprozine nom, and I personally feel they deserve it. Seriously, when was the last time you read something cool and entertaining and weird in Locus? When was the last time Locus held a spam fiction contest? Hmm? Weird Tales is where it’s at. And while you’re at it, perhaps you should consider nominating some of their excellent fiction for an award, too.
As I mentioned last week, Fantasy has a Best Story of 2008 poll going on (and contest… did I mention contest? Go enter the contest!) which provides a helpful list of all our 2008 fiction with links. We’re going to announce the winner next week along with some of the editor’s picks for top stories. Nominating people might want to read those stories for consideration.
On the Best Editor front, there are, of course, many fine editors out there. Ann Vandermeer of Weird Tales and various anthologies, Cat Rambo of Fantasy Magazine, Susan Groppi, Jed Hartman, and Karen Meisner of Strange Horizons, Rachel Swirsky of PodCastle… really, you have many good choices. But if I were nominating, the people I just mentioned would be it.
There’s one last category that I think most people who read this blog don’t pay much attention to: Best Fan Writer. This is anyone who has published stuff in fanzines/semipro zines/on the internet relating to SF/F fandom, etcetc. That includes the non-fiction writers who have appeared in Fantasy. Last week I put up our Best of 2008: Columns post and I still have the Best of Interviews & Articles to do. But may I recommend the following writers to nominate for this category:
And in non-Fantasy noms, I think miss Cleolinda deserves some credit and recognition for enduring the Twilight series so we didn’t have to.
I’m sure I will think of more Best Fan Writer people in the next few days.
And finally (you knew this was coming, right?) I would like to point out that I had a story published in 2008 and I am totally eligible for the Fan Writer award, not just for Fantasy stuff, but also for the ABW. So keep that in mind ;D