Tag Archives: World Fantasy Award

Villafranca’s Winning World Fantasy Award Design Revealed

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Vincent Villafranca’s design for the new World Fantasy Award trophy has been chosen the winner by the World Fantasy Awards Administration and the Board of the World Fantasy Convention following a year-long public competition.

Villafranca, the Chesley Award-winning sculptor and designer of the 2013 Hugo base, was among several artists invited to participate:

Professional artists already proficient in 3-D arts working within the fantasy/horror community were invited to submit designs in the first instance, and those shortlisted were then asked to supply a model and specifications. A professional foundry provided a quote to produce the awards in the future, to ensure it would be within the budget of the seated World Fantasy Convention as well as future conventions.

Villafranca will be at the 2017 WFC in San Antonio, Texas, where the awards will be presented for the first time.

Last year’s WFA winners, given certificates at the 2016 award ceremony in Columbus, OH will get copies of the new statuette, too, once they have been cast.

The press release reiterated the Board’s reasons for asking artists to do the design work without payment, which had aroused intense discussion among professional artists:

There is no financial remuneration for the winner, as the Awards Administration and the Board of the World Fantasy Convention are not fund-holding entities; each convention is run by a discrete group of people and is self-funding, so this was not a commercial opportunity for the winning artist. However, Vincent Villafranca will receive two life memberships to the World Fantasy Convention as a small token of our thanks.

Semi-finalist Misty Hawkins will receive two memberships to the 2017 World Fantasy Convention.

The move to replace the WFA’s bust of Lovecraft, designed by Gahan Wilson, gained impetus in 2014 when Daniel Jose Older collected over 2,500 signatures on a petition calling for the replacement of “avowed racist and a terrible wordsmith” H.P. Lovecraft on the World Fantasy Award. Discussion snowballed in social media and many authors – including past WFA winner Nnedi Okorafor – urged award administrators to move on from the Lovecraft image. Within a few months The Guardian was reporting that the board of the World Fantasy awards “was ‘in discussion’ about its winners’ statuette”. When Sofia Samatar won in 2014, she made a statement about the controversy in her acceptance speech, saying “I just wanted them to know that here I was in a terribly awkward position, unable to be 100% thrilled, as I should be, by winning this award, and that many other people would feel the same, and so they were right to think about changing it.” However, the Board continued using the Lovecraft trophy through 2015.

Given the reason for changing the trophy, it will be interesting to see how authors receive the decision to perpetuate the Lovecraft image in the WFA nominee pins —

The Board of the World Fantasy Convention and the Awards Administration would like to thank world-famous artist Gahan Wilson, who sculpted the original WFA Statuette. The bust of HP Lovecraft, which was in use for more than four decades, was donated in perpetuity and will continue to live on in the shape of the nominee pins given out to all those shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award.

A thorough interpretation of the new design was also part of the press release:

The Awards Administration wanted something representational that would reflect the depth and breadth of the fantasy field, from horror to high fantasy and all stops in between. Trees—good trees, evil trees, prophetic trees, harboring trees, forests full of demons, forests of sanctuary—turn up throughout art and literature from the very beginning. They represent life, strength, nature, endurance, wisdom, rebirth, protection; they symbolize the link between heaven and earth. In Christian mythology, mankind starts with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In Norse mythology, the entire structure of the universe is dependent on the giant ash Yggdrasill, the World Tree, which many Eastern European countries see as a home to the spirits of the dead. Indian mythology has the cosmic tree Asvattha, and there are plenty of fantastical trees in Greek and Roman mythology too, including dryads, the nymphs who inhabit trees, the Dodona grove of prophetic trees, and Argo, Jason’s ship, which maintained the magical properties of the tree which provided its wood.

The Green Man is a magical figure in many countries; druids are tied to the oak and the ash; some oak trees were thought to be oracular. Yews guard the entrance to the underworld, rowan keeps witches away. In Native American myth the hero Gluskap created humans by shooting an arrow into the heart of a birch. In Persia, the tree which grew from the decomposing corpse of the first human split into a man and woman, and the fruit became the other races of mankind. Buddha reached enlightenment under a Bodhi tree, which in turn inspired Robert Jordan’s Chora trees.

Trees bestride fantasy literature, from Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber to Robert Holdstock’s WFA-winning Mythago Wood cycle, C.S. Lewis’ Narnia chronicles to Michael Sullivan’s Age of Myth cycle, the godswoods of Westeros in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ents and Enid Blyton’s Magical Faraway Tree.

But not all trees are nurturing: it’s the treatment of a Chora sapling which begins a bloody war in Jordan’s books. Tolkien’s Mirkwood is as evil as its denizens and Weasels and Stoats rampage around Kenneth Grahame’s Wild Wood; J.K. Rowling’s Whomping Willow has terrified millions, while Patrick Rothfuss’ Cthaeh, lurk unseen in the branches of a giant tree in the fae realm. There’s the baobab tree in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, Ray Bradbury’s The October Tree, the apple tree in The Wizard of Oz, and many more.

Vincent Villafranca has encapsulated the worlds of fantasy in the branches of our new award, and we thank him.

The 2017 World Fantasy Convention takes place in San Antonio from November 2-5.

2017 World Fantasy Award Judges Named

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Judges have been empaneled for the 2017 World Fantasy Awards, for work published in 2016.

  • Elizabeth Engstrom (USA)
  • Daryl Gregory (USA)
  • Nalo Hopkinson (USA)
  • Juliet Marillier (Australia)
  • Betsy Mitchell (USA)

The judges will be reading and considering eligible materials until June 1, 2017. All forms of fantasy are eligible, e.g. epic, dark, contemporary, literary.

The award trophies will be presented at World Fantasy Con 2017 in San Antonio, TX to be held November 2-5.

The award categories are: Life Achievement; Best Novel; Best Novella (10,001 to 40,000 words); Best Short Story; Best Anthology; Best Collection; Best Artist; Special Award — Professional; Special Award — Non-Professional.

[Thanks to Peter Dennis Pautz for the story.]

World Fantasy Award Trophy Update

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The World Fantasy Award administrators, who decided a year ago to stop using the Lovecraft bust created by Gahan Wilson, are just weeks away from making a decision in the competition to design the new World Fantasy Award trophy.

Editor Ellen Datlow, of World Fantasy Con’s awards administration, explained how winners were acknowledged at last weekend’s ceremony, and how near the competition is to being decided. “Each winner received a certificate indicating they’ve won. Once the Awards Administration picks the new award sculpture (hopefully within the next several weeks — we’re working with two finalists, tweaking their designs) the new awards will be sent out to the current crop of winners.”

2016 World Fantasy Awards

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The 2016 World Fantasy Award winners were announced October 30 in Columbus, OH.

World Fantasy Life Achievement award recipients David G. Hartwell and Andrzej Sapkowski were also honored.

NOVELS

  • Anna Smaill, The Chimes (Sceptre)

LONG FICTION

  • Kelly Barnhill, The Unlicensed Magician (PS Publishing)

SHORT FICTION

  • Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” (Nightmare magazine, Oct. 2015)

ANTHOLOGY

  • Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles, eds., She Walks in Shadows (Innsmouth Free Press)

COLLECTION

  • C. S. E. Cooney, Bone Swans (Mythic Delirium Books)

ARTIST

  • Galen Dara

SPECIAL AWARD – PROFESSIONAL

  • Stephen Jones, for The Art of Horror (Applause Theatre Book & Cinema Book Publishers)

SPECIAL AWARD – NONPROFESSIONAL

  • John O’Neill, for Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Pixel Scroll 7/11/16 The Coal Equations

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(1) OH, PUH-LEEZE. Hoping to prove his superiority to his critics, Simon Pegg resorts to the Quantum Defense as he justifies a gay Sulu, in “A Word About Canon”

The main thrust for those who aren’t keen on our LGBT Sulu, seems to come down to two things. Firstly, why Sulu? It’s a good point, I mean it could have been anybody: Kirk is a pansexual fun seeker; who knows why Bones got divorced? Nobody said Spock and Uhura were exclusive; Chekov is just permanently horny and let’s face it, there’s more to Scotty and Keenser than meets the eye. The fact is, we chose Sulu because of George, there was something sweet and poetic about it. Introducing a new gay character had its own set of problems, as I mentioned before, the sexuality of that character would have to be addressed immediately and pointedly and the new characters in Star Trek Beyond have enough on their plate, without stopping to give us the intimate details of their personal lives. We were concerned it might seem clumsy, tokenistic or worse, too little too late, raising and exasperated, “finally!” from those who’ve been waiting for representation for the last 50 years.

So why persist when George Takei wasn’t keen? The thinking behind embracing an existing character was that it felt as though it retroactively put right something that had long been wrong. By the time, we mentioned it to GT, the idea had taken shape, it felt good, interesting and worthy of thought and conversation. We were disappointed that George didn’t see it that way but, truth be told, Sulu Prime seemed to be missing a very important point. With galaxies of respect to the great man, this is not his Sulu. John Cho does not play a young George Takei, nor does he play the same character George Takei played in the original series. He is a different Sulu. This brings me to the second point of contention, Canon.

With the Kelvin timeline, we are not entirely beholden to existing canon, this is an alternate reality and, as such is full of new and alternate possibilities. “BUT WAIT!” I hear you brilliant and beautiful super Trekkies cry, “Canon tells us, Hikaru Sulu was born before the Kelvin incident, so how could his fundamental humanity be altered? Well, the explanation comes down to something very Star Treky; theoretical, quantum physics and the less than simple fact that time is not linear…..

Wouldn’t he have done better to skip that part and go right to his closing argument?

…I know in my heart, that Gene Roddenberry would be proud of us for keeping his ideals alive. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, this was his dream, that is our dream, it should be everybody’s.Ultimately, if we love Star Trek, we are all on the same page, we all want Gene’s idea of a tolerant inclusive, diplomatic and loving Universe to become a reality.

(2) BIG BOOK LANDS TOMORROW. Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s Big Book of Science Fiction will be released July 12, 750,000 words and 1,216 pages.

(3) THE PACE OF FEAR. At the Horror Writers Association blog, Mac Childs begins his series “And the Clock Strikes Midnight: Time and Timing in Terror, Part I” with this advice —

Whether it’s the beeping of an alarm clock marking a night over too soon, a school buzzer announcing the start of a test period, or the chime of a grandfather clock in an old house declaring the start of the witching hour, there are lots of ways that time can provoke dread. So, when writers look no further than flashbacks and verb tenses, they miss out on timely tension opportunities.

With a little attention towards the timing of the horrors in your story—pacing as well as narratively—you can save yourself time in revisions, time better spent dreaming up new nightmares to implant in the fertile minds of your young readers.

First, you’ve got to figure out the best times for your horrors to strike. For this, you need to keep two axes (plural of axis, not axe) in mind: the external, physical timeline of pages experienced by the reader between scares, and the in-story time passage experienced by the characters. While it’s great when these two lines meet and overlap (e.g. during a tense scene when the protagonist experiences time in slow motion, with a reader savoring the moment), too much intersection becomes narratively unsustainable easily, or for some audiences unfeasible, because of the need to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

(4) IT COULD BE VERSE. Bertie MacAvoy discusses ”Poetry and Song”.

I don’t think that, prior to the wide use of the printing press, there was any distinction between poetry and song. It was only when a person could buy an edition of someone’s poems, and read them – not knowing at all how the writer had meant them to sound aloud – that a branch of poetry that consisted of interesting mind pictures could exist.

And that explains my preference over the poetry of Yeats to that of Eliot….

(5) ERRATA. Lee Gold sent me a link to Jack Bennett’s poem “Ben Ali the Egyptian” which appeared in 1893 in St. Nicholas Magazine, having just learned the authorship was misattributed to Randall Garrett in the collection Takeoff Too, which was assembled when his medical condition did not allow him to be consulted. I see the Internet Science Fiction Database already captured that information. Though as long as I had the link I took a look at the poem and now I understand its fannish appeal.

(6) DEFINING ACTIVISM. John Scalzi answers another writer’s question in “Activism, and Whether I Do It”.

My answer to her was no, I don’t really consider myself an activist. The reason I gave her was pretty straightforward: I’m too lazy. Which is to say that while I have my beliefs and principles and largely follow them (sometimes imperfectly), and will happily tell others what those beliefs and principles are, the sort of committed action that to me defines activism — and the continued proselytization for a belief that activism often requires, including the desire to inspire others to take moral action — is not something I usually undertake.

There are other reasons for this besides laziness, including work and the desire to have other interests in my life, but laziness really is a large part of it. Activism is work. I’m glad other people do it, and admire their effort. But it’s not something I put much effort in.

But you write here all the time on political and social topics! Yes I do. But this is not a blog for activism, it’s a blog for whatever I feel like writing — or, when I’m writing a book as I am now, what I have time for writing. The blog is like me; all over the place and a bit pixelated….

Good Lord, it’s contagious!

(7) GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA PEOPLES. National Geographic reports on the unique discovery of a Philistine cemetery at the site of ancient Ashkelon in Israel.

An unrivaled discovery on the southern coast of Israel may enable archaeologists to finally unravel the origins of one of the most notorious and enigmatic peoples of the Hebrew Bible: the Philistines.

The discovery of a large cemetery outside the walls of ancient Ashkelon, a major city of the Philistines between the 12th and 7th centuries B.C., is the first of its kind in the history of archaeological investigation in the region. (Read more about ancient Ashkelon.)

While more than a century of scholarship has identified the five major cities of the Philistines and artifacts distinctive to their culture, only a handful of burials have been tentatively identified.

Simply put, archaeologists have found plenty of pots, but very few people.

(8) LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR POLISH WRITER. Piotrek celebrates “Andrzej Sapkowski with World Fantasy Award” at Re-enchantment of the World.

Andrzej Sapkowski is a big guy in Polish fantasy. The big one. Was big long before The Witcher games. Well, some young people might disagree. There are some more popular authors now. But he is… GRRM of our fantasy? Terrible movie/tv series adaptation of Witcher being as good Game of Thrones as our tv is capable of delivering … At a first glance a bit of Tolkien in him as well, adapting folklore for his stories. But if you read it – definitely a post-tolkienite.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • July 11, 1913 – Cordwainer Smith

(10) OH YES JOHN RINGO. Ringo told his Facebook followers —

It got announced at closing ceremonies that I’m to be the LibertyCon guest of Honor for LibertyCon 30. (I was in a meeting at the time so couldn’t make it to closing) They are calling it XXX. I hope there is no connection implied.

Here is the link to LibertyCon.

(11) 2016 LIBERTYCON REPORT. Jeb Kinnison has a gallery of photos to go with his account of attending his first LibertyCon.

…One obvious difference at LibertyCon — it’s a Red Tribe con, meaning most attendees are in the liberty-loving, military-respecting, rural-BBQ-and gun-loving population typical of the US away from the coastal urban enclaves. Since I grew up with those people and understand them well, I’m not frightened by guns, blades, military uniforms, seared meat, or the occasional less-than-sensitive remark….

(12) EATING THE FANTASTIC, DONUT EDITION. Scott Edelman found it was easy to get more than a dozen authors at Readercon to participate in his podcast, with an assist from Dunkin’ Donuts.

I planted myself in the lobby (as captured in the photo below by Ellen Kushner), where I offered free donuts to the first 12 random passersby willing to give brief interviews about their favorite Readercon memories.

I had no idea who might wander over, but knew that something entertaining would surely come out of this sugary experiment. And it did! I ended up with 15 guests digging into those 12 donuts—the differential being because there were three who eschewed—in a “lightning round” 13th episode I’ve decided to call the Readercon Donut Spectacular. Surprise visitors included Greer Gilman, Maria Dahvana Headley, Rajan Khanna, plus a dozen more.

Guests—some of whom had attended nearly every Readercon, and some for whom this was their first—shared their peak Readercon moments, many of which revolved around Samuel R. Delany.

 

Scott Edelman
Terence Taylor
Victoria Janssen
Joel Adamson

(13) BUSIEK PRAISED. At Black Gate, Nick Ozment pays tribute to “Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. Also Joyce, Hemingway, Faulkner, and a tangent on Modernism”.

Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is one of my favorite superhero comics. It consistently delivers brilliant, funny, poignant, human stories in a colorful, wonderfully idiosyncratic comic-book world. It is Busiek’s magnum opus — like Bendis’s Powers, it towers above his other work for the big publishers using their branded characters. He brings the sensibilities he honed in the groundbreaking Marvel miniseries Marvels to his own universe and, beneath all the ZAP! BANG! POW!, weaves tales you will never forget.

What Marvels did that was so fresh in 1994 is it “lowered the camera” from the god-like supers knocking each other through buildings and focused in on the ordinary humans down here at street level, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, watching it happen. What impact did the existence of such powers have on their day-to-day lives?

(14) TOIL, TEARS, AND SWEAT NOT ON OFFER. “Finally, you can buy Richard Garriott’s blood” reports Ars Technica.

…Richard Garriott selling vials of his blood for thousands of dollars is one of those stunts.

Yes, Lord British himself, the 55-year-old creator of the Ultima series and noted space tourist, is auctioning off samples of his actual blood to raise money for his new fantasy RPG, Shroud of the Avatar. The six reliquaries—which we’ll note again are full of Richard Garriott’s actual blood—are being marketed as limited-run art pieces, “made of bakelite, copper, nails, glass, and mirrored glass that can be hung on your wall.”

…Bidding for the vials starts at $5,000.

The items originally were offered on eBay, then were removed, speculates Ars Technica “ quite possibly because it’s a violation of eBay’s policy against selling human remains and body parts.”

The listings have been moved to Shroud of the Avatar‘s own Make a Difference store, where two reliquaries have already sold for $6,000 and $8,000 each, and another is still available for $11,000.

(15) ACCEPTING FOR. While researching the Geffen Award, I came across these humorous tweets from a 2015 accepter –

https://twitter.com/gilibugg/status/649612959929397249

https://twitter.com/gilibugg/status/649712293337559040

(16) MAGIC MAKEOVER. The Sun interviewed a family that’s redone its dining room Harry Potter-style. (I was charmed all to heck by the replica of Dobby, looking like a mummy that’s seen better days…)

Charlotte, 31, her husband Andrew, 39, and kids Eleni, three, Max, four and Kiri, six, are all massive fans of the magical movies.

After visiting Warner Bros. Studios: The Making of Harry Potter, the family decided to splash out on some renovations to their home.

It wasn’t a quick turnaround though – the family spent 18 months perfecting the room, which now boasts a sorting hat, props from the films, wooden panelling and a large table…..

“We have a lot of replica props and two original props from the films.

“We have one of the letters thrown through the fire place which we bought from a dealer, which cost us about £200.

“We also have a witch in a jar which was from Professor Lupin’s office in the third film. That cost £350.”

One of the most exciting items are the ‘moving pictures’ – which show the kids riding broomsticks and were cunningly created using an iPad.

In all, the Harry Potter dining room has cost the family a whopping £13,004.72.

(17) TOY DEPARTMENT. On sale soon, Game of Thrones stuffed direwolves:

With this year’s Comic-Con right around the corner, details are spilling out as to what goodies you’ll find down in San Diego this year. Factory Entertainment has just revealed some of their OMG products for this year’s line-up, and our favorite product is by far the collection of direvolves. ALL SIX OF THEM! FOR ALL SIX STARK CHILDREN!

The Stark direwolves come in three sets, priced depending on how many direwolves you’re getting for your dollar. The first set is $30, and includes Shaggydog, Summer, and Lady. Set two is $40 and now includes GHOST! The last set, and the best set, has all six dogs for a steal at $55. You’ll get Rickon’s Shaggydog, Bran’s Summer, Sansa’s Lady, and now also Arya’s Nymeria, Robb’s Grey Wind, and of course, Jon’s Ghost.

direwolves

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Scott Edelman, Cat Eldridge, and DMS for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.] 

World Fantasy Awards Final Ballot

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The final ballot and named Life Achievement awards for this year’s World Fantasy Awards has been announced.

The awards will be presented in October at this year’s World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, OH:

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

  • David G. Hartwell
  • Andrzej Sapkowski

NOVELS

  • Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant (Knopf/Faber& Faber)
  • N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (Orbit)
  • Naomi Novik, Uprooted (Del Rey Books/Macmillan UK)
  • K. J. Parker, Savages (Subterranean Press)
  • Anna Smaill, The Chimes (Sceptre)
  • Paul Tremblay, A Head Full of Ghosts (William Morrow & Co.)

LONG FICTION

  • Kelly Barnhill, The Unlicensed Magician (PS Publishing)
  • Usman T. Malik, “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” (Tor.com, Apr. 22, 2015)
  • Kim Newman, “Guignol” (Horrorology, edited by Stephen Jones, Jo Fletcher Books)
  • Kelly Robson, “Waters of Versailles” (Tor.com, June 10, 2015)
  • Bud Webster, “Farewell Blues” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan./Feb. 2015)

SHORT FICTION

  • Selena Chambers, “The Neurastheniac” (Cassilda’s Song, ed. Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. Chaosium Inc)
  • Amal El-Mohtar, “Pockets” (Uncanny Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2015)
  • Sam J. Miller, “The Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History” (Uncanny Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2015)
  • Tamsyn Muir, “The Deepwater Bride” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/Aug. 2015)
  • Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” (Nightmare magazine, Oct. 2015)

ANTHOLOGY

  • Ellen Datlow, ed., The Doll Collection (Tor Books)
  • S. T. Joshi, ed., Black Wings IV: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (PS Publishing)
  • Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles, eds., She Walks in Shadows (Innsmouth Free Press)
  • Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., ed., Cassilda’s Song: Tales Inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow Mythos  (Chaosium Inc.)
  • Simon Strantzas, ed., Aickman’s Heirs (Undertow Publications)

COLLECTION

  • C. S. E. Cooney, Bone Swans (Mythic Delirium Books)
  • Leena Krohn, Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction (Cheeky Frawg Books)
  • V. H. Leslie, Skein and Bone (Undertow Publications)
  • Kelly Link, Get in Trouble (Random House)
  • James Morrow, Reality by Other Means: The Best Short Fiction of James Morrow (Wesleyan University Press)
  • Mary Rickert, You Have Never Been Here (Small Beer Press)

ARTIST

  • Richard Anderson
  • Galen Dara
  • Julie Dillon
  • Kathleen Jennings
  • Thomas S. Kuebler

SPECIAL AWARD – PROFESSIONAL

  • Neil Gaiman, Dave Stewart, and J. H. Williams III, The Sandman: Overture (Vertigo)
  • Stephen Jones, for The Art of Horror (Applause Theatre Book & Cinema Book Publishers)
  • Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons, The Wheel of Time Companion: The People, Places and History of the Bestselling Series (Tor Books)
  • Joe Monti, for contributions to the genre
  • Heather J. Wood, for Gods, Memes and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary (Stone Skin Press)

SPECIAL AWARD – NONPROFESSIONAL

  • Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Literary Adventure Fantasy
  • Jedediah Berry and Eben Kling, for The Family Arcana: A Story in Cards (Ninepin Press)
  • John O’Neill, for Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature
  • Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein, for Letters to Tiptree (Twelfth Planet Press)
  • Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, for Uncanny Magazine
  • Helen Young, for Tales After Tolkien Society

[Thanks to Peter Dennis Pautz for the story.]

2016 World Fantasy Awards Nominations Accepted Until June 15

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The nominating ballot for the 2016 World Fantasy Awards has been posted. Voters have been given an incredibly short turnaround time: the deadline is June 15.

Eligible to nominate are those who were members of of the World Fantasy Con in Washington D.C. (2014) and Saratoga Springs (2015), or of this year’s convention in Columbus.

The form itself confusingly says “The ballot must be postmarked by May 31, 2016”, however, the June date was announced today on WFC’s Facebook page by WFC Board Co-chair Meg Turville-Heitz.

[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh for the story.]

The Awards Missing From Rowling’s Resume

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One of the leading fantasy writers of her generation, the extremely popular creator of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, has won —

  • a Hugo (2001, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire),
  • a Locus Award (2000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban),
  • two Bram Stoker Awards (2000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2004, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix),
  • SFWA’s Andre Norton Award (2008, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), and
  • a Mythopoeic Award (2008, for the series as a whole).

Yet Rowling has never even been shortlisted for, much less won, the World Fantasy Award.

She also has yet to be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Fans can do something about one of those omissions today, if they choose.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame is celebrating its 20th anniversary by opening the nominations and allowing the public to help choose the works and creators they have been most inspired by. Vote here.

Nominate your favorite science fiction and fantasy Creators (e.g. director, actor, writer, animator, composer, etc.) and Creations (e.g. a movie, video game, book, comic/graphic novel, superhero, etc.) by clicking the link below.

In the past the final inductees have been chosen by a panel of sf/f authors, artists, editors, publishers, and film professionals. But according to the message returned when I made my nomination, once the Hall of Fame committee narrows the field to 8-10 selected finalists, people will be able to vote on the selected finalists from April 27-May 11, 2016.

Everyone obviously can nominate anyone you please – just thought I’d get in first with my suggestion….

[Thanks to Steven H Silver for the story – who, by the way, recommends you nominate Murray Leinster.]

Update 04/06/2016: Inserted finalist voting info based on email received from EMP SFF Hall of Fame.

World Fantasy Award Design Competition Announced

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The World Fantasy Award administrators, who decided last year to stop using the Lovecraft bust created by Gahan Wilson, have opened a competition to design the new World Fantasy Award trophy.

Lovecraft’s place will not be taken by another writer:

The ideal design will be simple and elegant, representing both fantasy and horror, without bearing any physical resemblance to any person, living or dead.

The winning design must be sturdy, and able to survive shipping undamaged.

The award statuette will need to fit on a base capable of displaying the name of the award recipient, the year and the award category. The size should be similar to that of the current award (approx. 10″ high x 4″ wide x 5″ deep). It will also need to be a robust piece of work that can travel safely-in the past, awards have been sent to South America, Great Britain, Europe and Australia, so they cannot be fragile, fiddly, prone to come apart or change form with age or extremes of temperature. In the world we live in, they are routinely subjected to security search, so please bear that in mind as well.

… There must be space for a plaque with the details of the specific award, the winner(s) and the year.

The deadline to enter is September 30, 2016. The first round of submissions should include drawings, and give an estimated cost to produce individual copies of the award — up to 20 may be needed in any one year.

Then, up to four artists will be asked to prepare a maquette (a scale model) for review. The board expects to choose the winning design from this group. The winner will be kept secret until the 2015 award winners are revealed at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus on October 30.

The administrators’ announcement also stressed — with boldface type — that the winning artist will not receive any money for the work, which may have overshadowed the other perks being offered:

Whilst there will be no monetary remuneration, as the WFA is not a financial body and does not hold funds of any kind, the winning artist will be publicised as widely as possible. In addition, the winning artist will, for the next ten years, receive two complimentary memberships to the World Fantasy Convention. Also, that artist will receive two complimentary tickets to the 2016 banquet, and complimentary space in the Columbus art room. The winning artist will receive discounted art space for the ten years after 2016.

The new competition is a reboot of last November’s call for artists to submit new award designs. The earlier call did not mention any compensation, which at the time provoked John Picacio to author an “Artists Beware” post.

The latest announcement was greeted with a fresh expression of outrage by Mary Robinette Kowal (“MRK’s very strong feelings about the WFC award specs and paying artists”), a blog post paraphrasing her letter to the award administrators —

…So when World Fantasy announced that they were going to replace the existing award, I asked for more information.

Today I got it. And it is bullshit.

I say this with some pain. A couple of the people on the committee are friends and I feel like they should know better. So I sent back a letter saying that I would not be submitting a design and asking them to change their award criteria.

Here are the points I made, in a slightly edited for in order to provide more information for anyone who is considering submitting a design.

  1. “there will be no monetary remuneration”– World Fantasy is “not a financial body and does not hold funds of any kind.” Okay, fair enough, but if you can require conventions to give away memberships, then you can require them to compensate the artist for their time. There’s also this thing called crowdfunding that would allow payment of an artist and could be done in cooperation with another organization.
  2. “The copyright of the piece must remain with the WFA for the lifetime of the award.” — While a buyout is not uncommon for work-for-hire, it usually comes at a higher price to represent the value of the copyright. There are multiple legal options to allow the artist to maintain the copyright, while at the same time protecting World Fantasy’s right to use and control the use of the image. An unpaid copyright grab is unnecessary and inappropriate….

However, John Picacio responded more favorably to the latest call because the winner will now receive some compensation, even if it is not in cash.

On the subject of the World Fantasy Awards design competition: I’m glad I spoke out in November. I’m glad Mary Robinette Kowal shared her eloquence today. We stand with working artists. May I say this though: Let’s please not lose sight of the fact that the World Fantasy Awards administration is now offering to the winning artist two complimentary memberships for ten years + two complimentary 2016 banquet tickets + complimentary space in the 2016 art show + discounted art space for ten years in the the art show. This is a SIGNIFICANT improvement from their November announcement, and I credit them for doing so, and I credit ALL who continue to speak up on behalf of working creators throughout this process. I’m not sure if the new announcement as posted on Rodger Turner’s site is even fully finished yet, so I won’t share it yet in case further improvements are added.

For example, two WFC memberships per year multiplied by 10 years amounts to several thousand dollars in value.

But Picacio continues to make the point that better compensation will lead to a superior design.

Kowal and World Fantasy board member Ellen Datlow spent the day in a Twitter dialog. With fuller information Kowal agreed one of her objections did not apply.

[Thanks to Mark-kitteh for the story.]

2016 World Fantasy Award Judges Named

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Judges have been impaneled for the 2016 World Fantasy Awards, for work published in 2015.

  • Laird Barron (USA)
  • Rani Graff (Israel)
  • Elaine Isaak (USA)
  • Kay Kenyon (USA)
  • Konrad Walewski (UK)

The judges will be reading  and considering  eligible materials until June 1, 2016. All forms of fantasy are eligible, e.g. epic, dark, contemporary, literary.

The award trophies will be presented at World Fantasy Con 2016 in Columbus, OH, to be held October 27-October 30.

The award categories are:  Life Achievement; Best Novel; Best Novella (10,001 to 40,000 words); Best Short Story; Best Anthology; Best Collection; Best Artist; Special Award — Professional; Special Award — Non-Professional.

[Thanks to Peter Dennis Pautz for the story.]