Rose Fox at Genreville emphasizes gender head-counting in her list of highlights:

Firsts: Michelle “Vixy” Dockrey points out that Seanan McGuire is the first woman to ever appear on the Hugo ballot four times in one year (twice under her own name, twice as Mira Grant). I’m pretty sure this is the first time a Hugo acceptance speech has been nominated for a Hugo award. It may also be the first time an April Fool’s joke has been nominated. Kevin Sonney says Ursula Vernon is the first woman to get a solo nomination for Best Graphic Story. And if this isn’t the first time the novella ballot has had five women on it I will be very surprised. For that matter, is this the first time any Hugo category finalist slate has contained no white men?

James Nicoll begins his comment about the Best Fan Writer nominees in ”Again with the Hugos” –

I would just like to say even I was shocked at how quickly my sense of entitlement set in and I am me so am pretty familiar with how I think.

You and me both! I’m embarrassed to admit I feel like Captain Hook’s crocodile, expecting the next bite to be right around the corner.

Cheryl Morgan confesses in “Nominee Time” how hard it supposedly was to keep from following the example of Christopher Priest:

As I noted on Twitter, not one of my nominees made it to the Best Novel short list. NOT ONE! I am totally outraged and will now go off and get very drunk, after which I will write a lengthy rant about how the Hugo Jury has failed in its duty and should be taken out and shot. But, being mildly sensible, even when drunk, I won’t post it.

Cheryl can also show you on a map where the center of the world is so far as the Hugo Awards are concerned –

My friends at BASFA have done very well. Chris Garcia is all over the ballot, but congratulations are also due to Spring Schoenhuth and Maurine Starkey who get their first and second ever nominations respectively in Fan Artist.

Finally, Cheryl’s ”Further Hugo Thoughts” reveals this news story –

There was apparently an error in the embargoed press release sent out by Chicon 7 that led to Brad Foster being left off the Fan Artist nominees in many announcements. This was another of those “tie for 5th place” issues, and somehow one of the six nominees got dropped.

One more reason to be happy I don’t get a copy of the embargoed press release.  Kevin Standlee supplied the first reason, telling readers of his LiveJournal how he received a copy to use in his work on The Hugo Awards official website and Kevin become so nervous about honoring the deadline that he made all his preparations on a computer that was disconnected from the web.

And I gave myself a panic attack anyway. When the press release popped into my in-box on Saturday I posted it as quick as I could. Then I drove off to do an errand. In the car I suddenly wondered – that wasn’t an embargoed copy, was it? I pulled over and used my Kindle to check. Whew! It was marked “For Immediate Release.”