SF authors, small press publishers and WSFA members have until April 8 to nominate stories for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award.

Eligible nominees are English-language works of short fiction up to 17,500 words long in the sf, horror and fantasy genres, published for the first time in 2017 by a small press in book or periodical form.

• Book: A small press is defined as a hard copy print or web publication house releasing no more than 45 titles in the year that the story is published.
• Periodical: Small press periodicals are paper publications with a circulation of fewer than 10,000 paper copies, or web publications with fewer than 10,000 subscriptions and/or patrons on Patreon in the year that the story is published. Periodicals must compensate authors in some manner, and authors must not contribute financially to the publications.

The winner will be chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association. Blind voting is done using texts with the identity of the author and publisher stripped.

According to The Rules: “A single representative of a small press or periodical may nominate no more than three (3) stories, which may include stories published by the press/periodical or others. This representative may be the publisher, editor, or an official designee. An author may nominate one (1) story, published by themselves or others. A WSFA member may nominate one (1) story.” Then five members of WSFA screen the submissions and produce the list of finalists.

Submissions should be sent to [email protected]

See the complete guidelines on The Rules page.

Members of the WSFA Small Press Award Committee are Courtni Burleson, Roger Burns, Cathy Green, Kimberly Hargan, Sam Lubell, and Carolyn Frank (Administrator).

The award, consisting of a small acrylic trophy, and a monetary prize of $500, will be presented at WSFA’s annual convention, Capclave. Certificates of recognition will be presented to the other finalists.