In Search Of…The 2023 Hugo Awards
By Chris M. Barkley: On February 17, 2024, I received the following email:
Feb 17, 2024, 4:25 AM
Dear Hugo and Related Award Winners,
Many of you are wondering when Hugo Awards, and Finalist pins and certificates will be shipped out to those who did not take possession of them in Chengdu. We could not distribute Finalist pins to Acceptors at the convention as is generally the custom, because we were not yet in possession of a large enough supply. So only attending Finalists received pins, and we missed some of them if they showed up early.
The award materials were shipped in bulk to the US for individual mailing, and arrived just recently. We need you to send us the shipping addresses(es) of the Winner or Winners. This needs to be a facility that can take delivery of a medium sized box. A PO Box will not do, unless you have a really understanding post office or a really large PO box. While we have a list of who got their Hugo Finalist pins in Chengdu, we would appreciate you confirming that you did or didn’t receive yours in your responses so that we can be sure we’re getting everyone handled appropriately.
Even if you have previously sent us an address, we would appreciate it if you could send it to us again to confirm things before we ship items out.
Thank you so much for all your cooperation during the preparations for the Awards Ceremony. Everything went really well, and we were pleased with the participation level of our Finalists and Winners at a Worldcon so far away from many of us. The Chinese fans experiencing all of this for their first time were thrilled to see so many finalists and winners there.
Should you have any questions regarding these instructions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] and [email protected] Because, of course, the HugoTeam email address is still occasionally having hiccups.
Congratulations again to all of you.——————
Ann Marie Rudolph
Hugo Award Selection Committee
Chengdu Worldcon
https://en.chengduworldcon.com/
Now, after reading this message, I, and everyone else who received this email, had every expectation of the delivery of all of the materials and awards due to the recipients.
But this is not the case.
On January 20, fandom was rocked by the release of the 2023 Hugo Awards Long List and nominating ballot statistics, which inexplicably excluded a number of nominees and works, from within and outside the People’s Republic of China, and some without any explanation whatsoever.
Thirty-two days later, on Valentine’s Day, matters were confounded even further when my colleague Jason Sanford and I published a revealing investigative report that provided part of the answer; with material provided by award administrator Diane Lacey, it was revealed that the Chengdu Hugo Award Administration team, headed up by Dave McCarty, had ruled that some of works had been ruled “ineligible” because of their alleged or perceived bias against China.
The Hugo Awards arrived in the United States in late January, but, as I have reported here in an afterword to my interview with Dave McCarty, all of the display cases and some of the awards were damaged in transit from China. As of this writing, there has been no comment from the Chengdu Worldcon Committee how the awards were shipped nor has anyone ascertained how the damage occurred or taken responsibility for their condition.
Before and during these tumultuous events, I made several inquiries as to when the recipients might expect their awards to arrive. Other than an email asking for my correct mailing address in mid-March (from an administrator not implicated in the scandal), I have not received any other news regarding the awards.
I must take a moment to commend the work and artistry of Liu Cheng and his team, who designed and manufactured the beautiful and exquisite base of the 2023 Hugo Award. I have often said that I was envious of those who received the 2007 Hugo Award depicting the rocket alongside the Mt. Fuji and the iconic tokusatsu hero, Ultraman (designed by Takashi Kinoshita and KAIYODO).
After the ceremony, I couldn’t take a step in any direction as I was besieged by fans for nearly 45 minutes as they clamored to pose for photographs with this magnificent piece of sculpture (and me), a yearning panda, reaching out of a stargate towards the Hugo rocket. I indulged everyone I could that frenzied and crazy evening because who knows when they might have a chance to see and hold such a fine work of art.
A lot has happened since the end of the Hugo Awards Ceremony nearly eight months ago; most notably an extensive delay in the delivery of a number of Hugo Award trophies won by those residing outside of the People’s Republic of China (estimated to be 29 in total) to the United States to be dispersed by the 2023 Hugo Awards Administrator, Dave McCarty.
In the past few weeks, as I marked the seventh month since the Hugo Awards Ceremony, I began to wonder if any of the 2023 recipients had either received their awards or have had any other contact regarding their Hugo Awards.
And so, starting on May 15th, I set out to contact all of the twenty-nine recipients via email or social media to conduct a survey of who and who did not receive their Hugo Awards.
(Note: I did not attempt to contact Samantha Mills (Best Short Story, “Rabbit Test”) or Adrian Tchaikovsky (Best Series, “Children of Time”) since they have publicly declined to accept their awards due to the controversy surrounding their selection. I also did not contact any of the Chinese recipients, for obvious reasons.)
I made a concerted effort to contact the following people:
T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), Best Novel, Nettle & Bone
Seanan McGuire, Best Novella, Where the Drowned Girls Go
Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, Krzysztof Ostrowski, Best Graphic Story or Comic, Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams
Rob Wilkins, Best Related Work, Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck, Naren Shankar and Breck Eisner, Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form, The Expanse: “Babylon’s Ashes”
Neil Clarke, Best Editor – Short Form
Lindsey Hall, Best Editor – Long Form
Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, Chimedum Ohaegbu, Monte Lin, Meg Elison, Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky, Best Semi-Prozine, Uncanny Magazine
Haley Zapal, Amy Salley, Lori Anderson, and Kevin Anderson, Best Fancast, Hugo, Girl!
Richard Man, Best Fan Artist
Out of all of the queries sent, I received the following responses:
T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) conveyed to me, via social media, that as of this writing, she had not received her award. She also stated that she was vociferously ambiguous about keeping it, saying that she would decide whether or not to keep it after she received it.
Daniel Abraham’s assistant, Ms. Rogers, reported on May 23rd:
“Nope, no award, no emails, no nothing. I’m just answering for Daniel but I will check with Ty and Naren. Please keep us posted if you hear anything.”
Lindsey Hall, responding on a social media site on May 18th, was surprised; she kept her Hugo Award after the ceremony and had fully intended to have it shipped but never connected again with Mr. McCarty, so she decided to squeeze the case and award into her luggage and she cleared customs in China and the US with no problems at all. She also expressed surprise that none of the other recipients had received their awards yet.
Lynne M. Thomas commented via social media a few days ago that the Hugo Awards she and her husband Michael Damian Thomas won were dropped off at their Chicago area home by Mr. McCarty at an unspecified date. She also said that both trophies did not show any damage but they were given without the display boxes. She also stated that they did inquire by email in May about the other awards for their staff members but have not received any response as of this writing.
It turns out Lori Anderson of the Hugo, Girl podcast team was just as curious as I was; my inquiry to her prompted her to email Dave McCarty on May 28th:
Undeterred, she sent a follow up email on June 6th:
As of this writing, there has been no response from Mr. McCarty.
On May 16th, Richard Man sent this DM response via Facebook:
“Nope, heh.” And, he followed up by asking, “Have you? Has anyone?”
And I responded, nope.
As for myself, I had a chance to receive my Hugo Award twice; I considered taking it home in my luggage but decided against it on the evening of the ceremony because I did not know what level of bother to expect at customs. So, I can easily attest that my Hugo was the very first to be boxed up. Which I regret to this very day.
The second time was the weekend of Capricon 44 on February 3rd; when Juli and I arrived, we encountered Mr. McCarty in the upper-level lobby near the dealer’s room and the art show. He told me that the damage to the display box was so bad that it was totally unusable. The Hugo base needed to be tightened up and there was a notable chip in the paint on the panda. He generously offered to bring it to me to take home the next day but also said that he could have it repaired and restored.
After agonizing over it for a few minutes, I told him, yeah, please have it repaired. Which I also regret to this day because not more than an hour later I was taking custody of a flash drive and emails from Diane Lacey that would completely upend Mr. McCarty’s life, and fandom as well.
With the exception of passing along my condolences on the death of a mutual friend, I have not attempted to contact Mr. McCarty.
On Saturday, June 8th, 2024, I attended the 50th Anniversary celebration of my high school, Purcell-Marian High School, Class of 1974.
I was invited back by the alumni association on the 25th anniversary back in 1999 but I was still feeling a bit resentful and raw from my experiences there; the teasing, fights, bullying and being made to feel as though I was a social outcast still weighed heavily on me.
But I had grown a lot a quarter century ago and I decided to attend, if anything, to finally put this part of my life behind me for good.
And from the moment my partner Juli and I arrived, we were warmly greeted. Several people personally sought me out and we shared some personal memories that reminded me that not everything was as hellish as I remembered.
When they asked what I had been doing over the past 50 years, I regaled them with stories about my daughter Laura, my four grandchildren, jobs I held over the decades and my many adventures in fandom.
Of course, this all culminated with me (repeatedly) whipping out my phone and showing them a photo of myself, holding the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, proudly holding it while being in the People’s Republic of China.
I was delighted to find that there were some sff fans among my classmates and their partners who KNEW what a Hugo Award was and there was much eye-popping and praise.
And when my classmates inevitably ask where I keep it, I cryptically replied that I have a special space reserved in our dining room.
As of today, June 10th, there has been no response from Mr. McCarty, Ms. Rudolph, Chengdu Worldcon Co-Chairs Chen Shi, Ben Yalow and Hongwei He and convention liaison Joe Yao about this situation.
What we have at the moment is an astonishing lack of responsibility, accountability and transparency regarding this issue.
We all know what needs be done:
- All of the Hugo Award Finalists should be sent their pins and certificates, immediately.
- If there is a condition or repair issue regarding anyone’s Hugo Award, they should be sent a notice stating what the current situation is and when a delivery can be expected.
- If an award needs to be replaced in its entirety, the recipient should be notified.
- If the awards are going to be disbursed to everyone at the same time or as each award has been repaired, recipients should be made aware of that status.
- Each and every Finalist should receive a written apology for the convention’s lack of transparency and delay of their materials and awards.
While I can safely say that no one’s life is at stake here, I can also say that once again, fandom’s black eye from the trials and tribulations of its own making continues to be on public display and, at this point, may actually be festering.
And the silence is absolutely deafening.
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A sad story. I hope all the Finalists receive their due, soon, with the appropriate apologies
I don’t believe they’ve even asked finalists (as opposed to winners) for shipping addresses for their pins and certificates. It’s obviously much less urgent than getting the trophies to their winners.
Chengdu…the gift that keeps on giving.
Weird that people in China would think that just because the Hugo wouldn’t fit into a Post Office box they’d be, what? thrown away? Refused? My very long experience with my P.O. Box 4175, New York NY 10163, and later, Box 022730, Brooklyn NY 11202 (now both closed for decades) was that you’d get a notice in your mailbox to go to the window, where you could get the stuff that didn’t fit in the box.
I feel for the non-Hugo recipients. You had the thing in your hands, then it was snatched away “to be sent later.” Talk about bait and switch!
I’ve forwarded the link for this to Publishers Weekly, my contact at The New York Times, and others.
Good effing grief! We joked, a la a certain Big Name Pro, that WSFS spoiled our unbroken also ran record by finally awarding us a Hugo for Yandro. Then it took nine months for a world traveling fan friend to bring it across to us from London. But we DID get it, and in 1965 global travel was not so common as it is today. The 2023 Hugo disaster is waaay beyond ridiculous.
I’ve no sympathy for the guy but I get why McCarty has probably fled from anything Hugo-related since things blew up. Even so, he’s not the only North American who held a position of responsibility with the 2023 Worldcon — surely one of them could have sorted this out. Ben Yalow is an official guest at Dragoncon (https://www.dragoncon.org/people-to-see-2/professionals/#Y ) so he hasn’t vanished – surely the co-chair of the Worldcon could do something about the missing trophies?
Where are the Hugos Dave!?
Has anyone else started a pool? My guess is a landfill in Illinois.
This is just really appalling.
I think at this point we have zero evidence that the Chengdu Hugo subcommittee feels any urgency about getting the Hugos out to the winners. They just don’t want to admit they’re not going to bother.
Andrew,
The letter with instructions about PO Boxes was NOT written in China but by the North American Members of the “Hugo Award Selection Committee” who should know better.
As a child many and many years ago my family had a Post Office Box that was about big enough to hold a couple of envelopes. If we got something bigger than that we would find a slip in the box that we would have to take to the window (when it was Open) and turn it in for the package or catalogue or whatever.
I can note that the signer of that message has been in the past a person who picked up mail for a SF organization from the Post Office (said Organization does NOT want their name in any way to be connected to the Hugo debacle so they shall remain nameless)
((And Why oh Why are they calling themselves “Hugo Awards Selection Committee”? They should not be “Selecting” the Hugos. They rightly should be the Hugo Award Administration Committee
:sigh:
Dave McCarty. The gift that keeps on giving.
Some more context for our trophies:
1- We sent Dave and the rest of the Chengdu Hugo team the addresses and shipping info for our whole Uncanny team months ago. We were told that many of the trophies were damaged in shipping to the US, and it would take time for the repairs.
2- Dave contacted us about being in our area (Champaign/Urbana, which is 2 1/2 hours south of Chicago) in early March and asked if he could drop off just the Thomas trophies. We were in Chicago at Lurie Children’s Hospital with our daughter, Caitlin, so he left them, our pins, and the certificates with our catsitter. The trophies we received are undamaged. (Caitlin loved the pandas. We were very glad she saw the trophies before she died.)
3- We’ve emailed Dave and the Hugo team again for an update about the rest of the Uncanny trophies a couple of weeks ago, but there has been no response yet.
What a blessing you could share this with Caitlin.
Indeed and agreed
I am sorry about the situation. I wish I could do something to alleviate it. But I have reached out multiple times to both Dave and Ben for updates, and have not received any response. I have abandoned my monitoring of the Chengdu email address since there was nothing I could do or response I could make, to any of the inquiries that were sent there.
I do want to extend my appreciation to all of the Hugo nominees for their forbearance. You all have my personal email address due to the Chengdu email issues, and I have not been inundated with email regarding this.
My name is connected to this and I am not happy about this failure.
I think I have done everything that I can to move this forward, short of driving to Chicago and wresting control of the Hugos for myself. I am not prepared to do that. But you can imagine my own concern about this delay by my having actually considered this action. Seriously.
Ann Marie Rudolph
I don’t. It just brings more shame to himself and the Hugo Awards not to send these out or even answer questions from the extremely patient winners about their status.
i want to state, for the record, that Ann Marie has worked her ass off for the Hugos and has been soundly ignored by those in charge. She deserves no blame and has had consequences from this that others, so much more deserving coughBen Yalowcough (as well as myself) have not AFAIK had to deal with.
FWIW, Ann Marie has my support.
Shenanigans with trophies/pins/certificates are adding insult to injury.
I see your point – I just mean that if I’d done what Dave McCarty did, I’d have changed my name dyed my hair, grown a long beard and moved to another country and then hid myself under a rock.
Indeed. I notice that his co-chairing of Chengdu is listed as one of his achievements on the Dragoncon bio.
There’s a page where the guest list is organised by the date they were announced and Ben Yalow is in the 18 January group – so just a few days short of everything melting down. Presumably, when he submitted that bio, “co-chairing the 2023 WorldCon in Chengdu, China” sounded more like “captained a luxury cruise liner” rather than “steered the Titanic into an iceberg”
I note the File770.com article was linked to in today’s edition of Publishers Weekly.
As of now, one could begin to wonder if a legal remedy could be applied to this situation.
We KNOW that an administrator has the awards in their possession and, at one point, they actively disseminated several to their rightful owners. But the other awards in their possesion have not.
At what point can it be considered either a withholding of goods or just plain theft?
The awards were provided by the Chengdu Worldcon, BUT, as one of the Co-Chairs, what part has Ben Yalow played in the inaction of his subordinate?
(putting on former Hugo admin team hat)
The only excusable element here is that if many/most of the awards were damaged in transit, getting new ones made and shipped from China, or existing ones repaired, really could be taking this long. By way of comparison, for CoNZealand (held in very early August 2020), the awards shipped from NZ did not arrive at Hugo Admin in the USA until December and were re-shipped to winners right around Christmastime. I remember this rather clearly because tracking all the Fedex packages with the trophies was my last CoNZ staff task.
That was also without having to get new trophies made. There were some damaged in transit that year and subsequently repaired or replaced, but at that stage I was no longer involved, so I can’t say how long it took. So repairing or re-making some/many trophies may have added (or still be adding) considerably to the delay, especially if it involved two more transPacific odysseys. That still does not excuse lack of communication with the winners or not sending out the pins and certificates, which is a trivial task compared to safely shipping heavy and fragile trophies.
Understood.
What country?
I think Tonga is about equally far away from the USA and China
Excellent choice. You will get to see a haka.
Now I’m wondering what locations are equidistant between Chengdu and Washington DC.
He could set up an ASFiC bid and we could all cry Yakutsk! just like in our old board game days.
Side comment, but as an alum of a Cincinnati Catholic high school myself, I was pretty delighted to see a reference to Purcell-Marian in the wild here.
@Andrew (not Werdna): That can’t be a difficult problem in spherical geometry. If it were earlier in the day here I might have a go at it.
I found a website that claimed to do this but it only showed the line of points on one side of globe (running through Africa and Europe) and not the equivalent points that I assume run through the Pacific. https://www.freemaptools.com/line-of-equidistance-between-points.htm
However, the line did intersect with the remote Arctic island of Svalbard. Now notably Svalbard has no visa requirements to visit or work and so has many advantages as a place to hide from a horde of angry Hugo Finalists waving torches and pitchforks and copies of the SWFS constitution.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard