Awards Season
What Whould I Wear to the Oscars?
Awards season starts at the beginning of the year for pretty much every industry. I mean, sure, there’s the Oscars, which was a big deal in my Hollywood-born family (to which we wore pajamas because we watched from home while eating Mexican food each year!), but I bet there are awards out there for best EMT or carpet fitters. If not, there should be! And even here in my corner of the publishing industry—the spot where the SFF/H nerds all hang out—there are awards, and the lists start getting announced early in the year.
Each association related to these genres has its own awards and often convention also have their own associated awards. For example, the Hugos are announced each your at Worldcon, and the SFWA runs the Nebula awards. Here in the UK, we have the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) and the British Fantasy Society (BFS). The BSFA is connected with Eastercon (to be held in Belfast this year), and the BFS is connected with Fantasycon. This year, Fantastycon has been folded into the World Fantasy Convention, which is happening over Halloween weekend in Brighton (I’ll see you there!).
ANYWAY the BSFA announced the longlist for the 2025 awards recently and my name popped up on there three times! First as the co-author (with Val Nolan) of Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 2: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing More Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Volume 1 was on the finalist list last year, so we would be so honored to make the shortlist again this year. If you are a BSFA member, you can vote to get books on the shortlist and then vote again for the winners.
I was also surprised that two of my short stories made the longlist for best short fiction, a first for me! First up is “The Oracle at Dairy” at Trembling with Fear via HorrorTree.com, a story about a woman who keeps hearing warnings about her children from behind the milk cooler in her supermarket. Also longlisted is "Until the Wheel Spins Round Again", Great British Horror 9: Something Peculiar, Black Shuck Books, about a woman who flips houses for a living who takes on an old house and hears a baby cry every night in the dark and the teenage girl who lived there 400 years before, but the girl’s story is told backwards.
Locus magazine, a mainstay in the SFF world, also has awards. Last year, Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 1 made the Recommended Reading List for nonfiction, and this year Volume 2 made the list as well. Anyone (yes, even you!) can vote for the various categories of these awards here: https://locusmag.com/2025/02/2024-recommended-reading-list/ Take a look at the list because it’s a great source to make your TBR list even bigger!
Where I’ll be:
The UK Ghost Story Festival started today online, and tomorrow I’ll be running the writing workshop Who’s Haunting You? The event goes on for 3 days and ticket-holders will have access to recordings if they can’t make it to events. Go to the website for tickets to the online festival and for the in-person festival to be held later this month: https://www.ukghoststoryfestival.co.uk/
Happy Valentine’s Day and have a good rest of your February!