The Washington Science Fiction Association has announced the finalists for the 2011 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction:

• “After the Dragon” by Sarah Monette, published in Fantasy Magazine (January 2010), edited by Cat Rambo and Sean Wallace.
• “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams.
• “The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams
• “The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” by Catherynne M. Valente, published in Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, Apex Book Co. (May 2010).
• “Enid and the Prince” by RJ Astruc, published in Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely, FableCroft Publishing (June 2010).
• “Lord Bai’s Discovery” by Jean Marie Ward, published in Dragon’s Lure, edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jennifer Ross, and Jeffrey Lyman, Dark Quest Books (June 2010).

The winner will be selected by vote of WSFA members who participate in a blind judging process – reading the texts with identity of the author, publisher and editor hidden.

The winning story will be revealed at Capclave, held this year on October 14-16 in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The full press release follows the jump.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The Washington Science Fiction Association is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2011 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction (published in 2010):

“After the Dragon” by Sarah Monette, published in Fantasy Magazine (January 2010), edited by Cat Rambo and Sean Wallace.

“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams.

“The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams,

“The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” by Catherynne M. Valente, published in Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, Apex Book Co. (May 2010).

“Enid and the Prince” by RJ Astruc, published in Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely, FableCroft Publishing (June 2010).

“Lord Bai’s Discovery” by Jean Marie Ward, published in Dragon’s Lure, edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jennifer Ross, and Jeffrey Lyman, Dark Quest Books (June 2010).

The award honors the efforts of small press publishers in providing a critical venue for short fiction in the area of speculative fiction. The award showcases the best original short fiction published by small presses in the previous year (2010). An unusual feature of the selection process is that all voting is done with the identity of the author (and publisher and editor) hidden so that the final choice is based solely on the quality of the story.

The way the blind judging works is all stories submitted during the first of the year are sent to the award administrator who removes all identifying information regarding author, publisher, and editor from the stories and then send them on to the committee.  The award committee then narrows the selection of stories down to 5-8 finalists.  These final stories, still with no identifying information, are then read and voted on by the membership of the Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA).  After the votes are in, the list of finalists is announced to the committee, the club, and the general public.

The winner, chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association (www.wsfa.org), is announced at their annual convention, Capclave (www.capclave.org), held this year on October 14th-16th  in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

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Gayle Surrette
Brandywine, MD 20613
Email: davinci (at) amperzen.com
Blog: http://amperzen.com/blog