How To Lose A Hugo

Over the past several years, we’ve received DMs and emails from authors and artists asking variations of the question: “How can I lose at the Hugos?”

The joy of losing a Hugo Award is 
one known by few. We're fortunate
to have lost four times. 
(Olav Rokne photo)

There is, of course, no magic formula to ensure anything loses at the Hugo Awards. It is, after all, a community-led, democratic process. Despite one’s best efforts, you might never end up losing a Hugo.

But, having lost at the Hugo Awards four times now, we feel somewhat qualified to provide advice on this subject.

Some years ago, Hugo-winning fanwriter Jim C. Hines summarized nicely and succinctly advice for those seeking to make a splash in SFF awards. He wrote:

• Write the best stuff you can.
• Never assume you’re entitled to an award.
• Don’t be a dick.

Frankly, it’s excellent advice even if you don’t care about awards.

Armed with a heavy dose of humility and a few years of watching how people campaign for SFF literary awards, we have a handful of additional observations to share.

Engage With The Community

When it comes to the Hugo Awards, it’s worth remembering that they are a community award that masquerades as a literary institution. These awards are nominated and voted on by a self-selected group that loosely organizes itself around a series of conventions. That means that how well someone is known and how they are seen within the community will inevitably affect whether or not their work is recognized by the community.

Social media is awash with accounts run by authors who rarely post anything other than promotional content aimed at selling their own books. It’s also worth letting people know who you are, what books you enjoy, and what your general vibe is.

Engaging with the community isn’t just about telling people how good you think your book or art is, it’s about listening and talking about the things that are important to them. Talk about politics, talk about art, talk about architecture, talk about music, and be authentic.

An excellent example of this is Marie Vibert. Years before she became a Hugo finalist, and even before we’d read any of her fiction, we already had a suspicion that she was a good writer because her Tweets were engaging, funny, and interesting. When her byline was in Clarkesworld, a lot of people in the community checked out her work in part because they already know who she is, and were happy to see her getting published.

Lift Other People Up

Worldcon is a community and many of the Hugo voters know each other. And they talk.

When you see something done within the genre that you enjoy, tell people about it. Being part of a community means celebrating the accomplishments of others in that community.

If you spend most of your time lifting other people up, then when you show enthusiasm for your own work it’s more likely to come across as genuine and joyful instead of self-serving.

Listen to Community Voices

Look at which publications tend to carry Hugo-shortlisted works. It’s worth subscribing to a couple of the major SFF magazines, and knowing who your peers are in the SFF creative community.

There’s a lot of great community-based content in fanzines such as Nerds of a Feather and Galactic Journey. If you’re a podcast listener, take the time to tune into a couple of community focused podcasts like Hugo Girl and If This Goes On. Maybe even reach out to Seth at Hugos There, and see if there’s an opportunity to talk about an old book you love. Submit an article to a fanzine like Journey Planet. Send a news item to File 770.

Hugo winner Paul Weimer
has written for … countless
fanzines and guested on
innumerable podcasts.
(Olav Rokne photo) 

It doesn’t hurt to contribute to these types of projects; people remember that sort of stuff. This is not to suggest that there’s any sort of quid-pro-quo, but rather that people are likelier to pay attention to works written by people they know to some degree.

When you look at lists of existing Hugo winners, remember that the reason these works won is that people within the community voted for them. If you are overly vocal in your disdain for these works, their supporters will likely infer that your work is dissimilar to the stuff they like and will consequently not bother to read it.

If you loathe the Hugo Awards, and hate the people at Worldcon, don’t be surprised if the people at Worldcon are not fans of yours either.

It’s fascinating to see people on social media writing screeds about how much they hate the people who vote on Hugo Awards, while simultaneously complaining that they don’t win Hugo Awards.

Be Aware Of Community Standards

As with any community, there are some unwritten rules about what is considered acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. With the Worldcon community, there are several things that are generally considered to be unacceptable, including racism, transphobia, and sexism.

These standards have obviously evolved over time (for the better), and much of the conduct that was once ignored or even encouraged would probably (and correctly) preclude some celebrated authors of the past from winning today.

It’s also worth noting that people who are mean or condescending towards people within the community are less likely to earn Hugo Award nominations. We have seen at least one writer whose published work is brilliant … but who fails to earn award nominations. We suspect it’s largely because of how consistently they talk down to people. 

Find Your Niche

A work doesn’t have to appeal to everyone for it to be worthwhile. Hugo nominations often come from creating something that has deep resonance with a significant minority of fandom, even if it doesn’t connect with the broader Worldcon audience.

This blog, for example, has built a following for both talking about the political economy of speculative fiction, and for a quirky iconoclastic humour. Both of these have niche audiences, and we’re continuously amazed — and thrilled — that our work has been appreciated by that portion of the Worldcon membership.

Humour is however … a bit like Marmite-flavoured icecream. Not every flavour is right for everyone.

Conclusion

More science fiction is being published now than ever before, and thanks to the internet, much of it is available more widely. There are more worthy works in every category every year than could possibly be recognized, consequently don’t take it as a slight if you don’t make the shortlist. If you’re fortunate enough to make the shortlist, don’t take it as a slight if your work doesn’t get a trophy.

Of course, there are a lot of readers, and a lot of active fans, who are not Hugo voters, so one can have a successful career without any risk of being nominated for this award simply because the two circles don't happen to overlap.

The Kaiju Extension Eligibility Society

Godzilla Minus One puts human-scale characters
in the foreground, while the kaiju casts a shadow
over their lives. (Image via IMDB.com)

This spring, almost 70 years after the original hit cinemas, Godzilla Minus One became the first movie in its franchise to win an Academy Award, for best visual effects. By our estimation, this marks the first time since 2006 that an Academy Award-winning SFF movie did not also earn a Hugo nod.

It’s a perplexing omission. Written and directed by Takashi Yamazki, Godzilla Minus One is a compelling and nuanced take on the kaiju cinema subgenre. Using the monster itself as a metaphor for militarism, for cultural trauma, and for guilt, the director has crafted a beautiful allegory about the power of community and rebuilding.

The protagonist, Koichi, is a former kamikaze pilot who is wracked with guilt over his decision to reject a pointless suicide mission at the end of the Second World War, and is haunted by memories of

The team behind Godzilla were
so enthusiastic at the Oscars,
how can you not cheer them on?
(Image via People.com)

an encounter with a massive lizard monster that nobody believes he saw. Trying to rebuild his life in the ruins of bombed-out Tokyo, he finds meaning in caring for Noriko, a woman who has also lost almost everything in the war, and Akiko, an orphaned baby.

Godzilla Minus One is a movie about human characters whose lives are upended by forces beyond their control. Their struggles to rebuild against the horror of their past are exacerbated by an impressively imagined monster. Godzilla's appearances are more genuinely frightening because we were so invested in the lives of the people.

Enhancing this first-rate script is a subtle and thoughtful approach with the special effects, and action scenes that emphasize the terror such a monster could evoke. The train carriage scene might be one of the greatest moments in kaiju history.

During an era in which the Hugo Awards seem to be beginning to embrace an international mandate of a “World” Science Fiction Convention, there had been hopes that Godzilla Minus One

Warner Brothers (the studio run by
everyone's favourite CEO David Zaslav)
 forced Godzilla Minus One out
of the cinemas early, thus
limiting its audience in America.
(Image via Warner Brothers)

might become the first live-action Japanese movie to earn a nomination for the award.

The fact that Godzilla Minus One does not appear on the Hugo Award Ballot likely has to do with the fact that it was released late in the year, hitting cinemas in the United States on November 29, 2023. Although it opened as a wide release, it did not have the marketing budget of a movie like Dune or Spider-Man. And although it was relatively successful in the box office, it was pulled from distribution early because executives at Warner Brothers didn’t want a Japanese kaiju movie competing with the American kaiju movie Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire which opened a few weeks after Godzilla Minus One.

These are circumstances relatively similar to those in 1981 that prompted the adoption of WSFS rules that enable the business meeting to extend the eligibility of a movie. If you’ve not read our blog post on the subject, here’s the relevant clause of the constitution:

3.4.3: In the event that a potential Hugo Award nominee receives extremely limited distribution in the year of its first publication or presentation, its eligibility may be extended for an additional year by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the intervening Business Meeting of WSFS.

Given that Godzilla Minus One earned a respectable $56 million in North America, and was on more than 2,000 screens (compared to the English-language Godzilla x Kong, which made almost $500 million on 3,900 screens), it’s not exactly a clear-cut case that this movie was unavailable to Hugo nominators. Nevertheless, a compelling argument could be made that it was denied a fair shot at Hugo nod based on the studio shenanigans and the late-in-the-year release.

We’ll be putting forward an eligibility extension motion at this year’s business meeting. We hope you will support it, and consider it for the Hugo Award in 2025.

The Maginot Line of Fandom

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau famously quipped that “generals are always preparing to fight using the tools of the last war.”

Built by France in the wake of the First World War,
the Maginot Line was an engineering marvel 
completely unsuited to the challenges
of the Second World War.
(Image via History.com) 

At the time of this writing All Fandom Is Plunged Into War, and we are left wondering if some of the tools adopted in the wake of the last battle are suited to today’s conflicts. Is E Pluribus Hugo the Maginot Line of fandom?

This is the seventh year that the E Pluribus Hugo (EPH) methodology of tabulating Hugo Award nominations has been in effect.

Since it was ratified at the business meeting in 2016, EPH has weighted nominating votes in an attempt to ensure that the shortlist is more representative of Worldcon fandom than it was in years past. By our count, the use of EPH has resulted in changes to the Hugo shortlists on 35 occasions. Over the past eight years, this system has removed some works from the shortlist in favour of other works that were nominated by a smaller (but hypothetically more representative) demographic.

Given that there have been almost 900 finalists across all Hugo (plus Lodestar and Astounding) categories since EPH went into effect, that means the new system has made about a four per cent difference to the shortlist.

In essence, EPH created noise around the edges of the data, to little benefit.

EPH was proposed in the wake of the 2015 Hugo Awards controversy, during which a co-ordinated minority of fans were able to overwhelm the nomination process. It was one of a variety of solutions proposed as a remedy to the problem of slate voting.

At the time, those involved with this blog were in support of the EPH proposal. Sure, sometimes it produced weird results like keeping Arkady Martine off the Astounding Award ballot in 2020 … but that seemed like a small price to pay to prevent another year like 2015, in which havoc raged and resulted in five categories resolving as “no award.”

It's worth noting who gets added and who
gets removed from the shortlist due to EPH.
(Image via Hugo Awards 2017 nominations)

In the intervening years, EPH has not been faced with a significant challenge. From 2017 to 2022, nomination patterns among Worldcon members was as expected, with no “slate” that needed to be accounted for. If the data from this year is correct, however, the highly-correlated list of finalists that all received similarly inflated numbers of votes does more than just resemble a ‘slate.’ (This is not to imply malicious action on the part of those casting nominating ballots, but to say that clustered votes that are correlated due to a highly influential recommended reading list will be treated by the EPH system in a way that is similar to a slate of nominators.) And in the face of this trial by fire, EPH has failed.

EPH has also not lived up to the promise that it would ensure that different factions of fandom would be represented in the final ballot. Looking over the list of those who have been excluded from the Hugo Ballot because of EPH, you’ll find some excellent folks who have yet to receive their first nominations. If not for EPH in 2022, Black Nerd Problems would have become the first fanzine made by Black SFF fans to receive a Hugo nomination. If not for EPH in 2020, Priyanka Krishnan would have been the second-youngest editor ever shortlisted for a Hugo Award. Meanwhile, EPH has secured additional nominations for some of the folks who have been recognized the most often in the past. It was a solution that may have reinforced systems of power instead of mitigating their impact.

Another issue with EPH is that it can be gamed. Sufficient people nominating only one item in a category are likely to boost that one finalist through a process that’s been dubbed “bullet voting.” The effects of this can be extreme. In 2023, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s short story Destiny Delayed was omitted from the Hugo Award ballot … despite receiving almost twice as many votes as the shortlisted work Resurrection by Ren Qing.

Equally if not more damning, EPH has created a barrier to the public understanding of how the Hugo Award nominees are selected. The integrity of the nominations process, and thus the awards themselves, is being questioned for a variety of reasons, and an arcane system of tabulation only adds to the problem. People are unlikely to trust a system that they don’t understand, and an obfuscatory system they are expected to participate in is anathema to public trust and participation.

EPH doesn’t offer better results, it simply picks different finalists in a way that seems to increase the democratic deficit in our community instead of removing it.

Fundamentally, we’ve seen that “E Pluribus Hugo” has not functioned as intended, produces a shortlist that less accurately reflects the will of the Worldcon community, and adds confusion to the process. It’s time to abandon it altogether. It’s time to craft tools appropriate for tomorrow’s awards.

Indie Cinema And The Hugo Of Doom

At the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting, a constitutional amendment was passed that would (if ratified at the 2024 Business Meeting) add two new categories to the already long list of Hugo Awards: Best Independent Short Film and Best Independent Feature Film.

Independent Cinema is awesome, but ill-defined.
(Photo by Daniel Penfield via Wikipedia) 

The beauty and diversity of global cinema and of independent film is something that should be more celebrated at the Hugo Awards. But despite our love of independent SFF cinema, we are firmly opposed to the creation of a secondary award for a specific type of movie.

Here’s the motion that succeeded by a vote of seven to five:

3.3.X: Best Independent Short Film Award. Awarded to science fiction or fantasy productions presented in the short film format (under 45 minutes) for the first time in the previous calendar year. The films should not be funded by a major studio or distribution label/platform/streamer. Films can be funded by national film/arts grants like the BFI or TeleCanada. The award should not include broadcast or streaming television series episodes.

3.3.X+1: Best Independent Feature Film Award. Awarded to science fiction or fantasy productions presented in the long film format (over 61 minutes) for the first time in the previous calendar year. The films should not be funded by a major studio or distribution label/platform/streamer. Films can be funded by national film/arts grants like the BFI or TeleCanada.

“Although we already have a [Hugo] award for films, those films are usually mainstream. They’re already commercially very successful,” Xia Tong, one of the two fans who proposed the new categories, said. “There are a lot of art movies and Indian films that are quite popular among our fandom. They need more encouragement.”

These are sentiments with which we largely agree. What we don’t agree with is the idea that Indie films need a separate award to be recognized for their value by Worldcon members … and the idea that allowing the existing categories to remain the domain of mainstream films will help.

In the independent movie Prospect, Pedro Pascal
plays a grizzled loner hanging out with a kid,
a role completely unlike any other he's taken.
(Image via Wikipedia)  

In recent years, sub-par corporate works such as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Avengers Endgame have received Hugo nods ahead of significantly better independent and foreign movies such as Robot & Frank and Prospect. That does point to problems with the category. But the solution is advocacy. People who care about independent cinema should be working to encourage Hugo voters to check out a wider variety of films, and then giving them the time to watch those movies by WSFS extension of eligibility under rule 3.4.3.

Over the past four years, we have filed extension of eligibility motions (allowing a longer time for Hugo voters to consider nominating) on lower-budget SFF movies like After Yang, Strawberry Mansion, Neptune Frost, Mad God, Nine Days, Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, Psycho Goreman, The Color Out Of Space, and Prospect. We are passionate about celebrating and promoting independent SFF movies. However, we do not think that the best way to recognize that is with the creation of new Hugo Award categories, seemingly based on how much money a film makes.

There are a number of problems with the idea of a Hugo Award for independent cinema. The first and most significant to us is that creating these categories positions independent cinema as something other than “real” movies. Hiving off independent cinema into its own special category creates a ghettoized award that is inherently lesser than mainstream studio movies. As an analogy, nobody markets Billie Eilish’s When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? as the winner of the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album … because it also won the Grammy for Best Album of the Year. The category with a more restrictive set of eligibility criteria is going to be seen as less prestigious.

The definition of what counts as "independent" is
quite nebulous — and could even include 
music videos such as Skibidi.
(Image via YouTube)

On a practical level, it is difficult to parse out which works might be eligible for these awards. As an example, this year’s Hugo-winning movie Everything Everywhere All At Once has been categorized as an independent film (and was honoured by the Independent Spirit Awards). Although Everything Everywhere All At Once was not funded by one of the Big Five Studios (Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Sony Pictures), the production was funded by IAC, a firm with $10 billion in holdings. Likewise, the 2009 Hugo-winning movie Moon can be categorized as an independent film (winning the BIFA award for Best British Independent Film), but the production was funded by Stage 6 Films, which is wholly owned by Sony Pictures. In addition, a reasonable argument could have been made that Iron Man might have been classed as “independent,” since Marvel Studios self-financed the movie and was at that time not part of Disney. Parsing out the differences between “Independent” and “Studio” films would be a significant challenge for Hugo administrators.

This also raises the question of whether a single work should be eligible for two separate Hugo Awards. In the past, the awards have operated on a premise that recognizing a single work with two separate trophies would be akin to gilding a lily. It seems likely that if these awards had existed in 2023, Everything Everywhere All At Once would have been honoured with both the Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form Hugo, as well as the Best Independent Feature Film Award. (Unlike with the Best Series Hugo which was introduced in 2017 and can bend this principle, the creation of the Independent Cinema Hugos would break the principle fully.)

As of 2024, there will be no fewer than 18 permanent categories at the Hugo Awards. The ever-expanding slate of categories is creating an increasing burden on the event, its volunteers, and the voting membership. This is not the main reason to oppose these new categories, but it should be a significant consideration.

The wording for these awards as it stands would exclude any movies that are between 46 and 60 minutes in length; the short movie award caps out at 45 minutes, and the long form is not available for anything shorter than 61 minutes. This is a nitpick rather than a substantive criticism, but it does seem ill-considered.

2023 Hugo Winner Everything
Everywhere All At Once also
won the Independent Spirit
Award for Independent Cinema.
(Image Via Wikipedia)

Several attendees of the business meeting spoke in favour of these new categories, including Louis Savy who has done excellent work to promote independent SFF movies as the organizer of the Sci-Fi London Film Festival. On Facebook, organizers of other science fiction film festivals have indicated an intention to attend the next Worldcon to vote for this motion. The question, however, is if new Hugo Awards should be created to meet the needs of a small group of professionals, or in the interests of the Worldcon membership.

This blog has a history of championing independent and smaller-budget SFF films. We would suggest that many of the small-budget SFF movies are more ambitious, daring, provocative, and thoughtful than the endless cavalcade of costumed CGI-generated crimefighter movies that are churned out by large studios. As we have previously argued, the role of the Hugos as they were initially envisioned in 1953 was “to make the great works of science fiction better known to the world,” and by this measure the Best Dramatic Presentation category does not serve its purpose by routinely honouring the big-budget blockbusters of which the world is already well aware. The solution is not to create new categories, but to make more use of WSFS rule 3.4.3, which can help platform independent gems. And, to perhaps build awareness and interest in films from regions not regularly represented on the nominating ballot.

Conversely, it’s worth noting that Worldcon has always been more of a literary convention than a media convention. Consequently, the Hugos are voted on by people with a deeper knowledge of literature than of the independent film festival circuit. In that light, it might also be time for us to consider whether or not the Best Dramatic Presentation categories should continue at all, though that’s a conversation for another time.

Awards that recognize works based on a democratic vote depend on an informed electorate. But independent cinema is accessible to a smaller audience than mainstream blockbusters, and it is consequently difficult for nominators to be aware of the field. An award for independent science fiction cinema is warranted, but it is likely that a juried award would be better suited to do justice to this art form.

The WSFS Business Meeting in Glasgow should reject these proposed categories. Not every type of work needs to have a category at the Hugo Awards.

The Numbers Game

Over the past decade, there has been a regularly recurring argument about the maximum number of individual contributors that can be listed for each group finalist on the Hugo ballot. This is more common with fan categories like fanzine, fancast, and semiprozine — in recent years some of the contributors lists for an individual publication have extended to several dozen names.

In 1959, editors of Cry of the Nameless
— F. M. Busby, Elinor Busby,
Burnett Toskey and Wally Weber —
became the first team of more than three
credited for a single Hugo finalist. 
(Cry of the Nameless April 1958 cover
via Fanac.org)

On one side of the argument are those who express logistical concerns about the size of the ballot. On the other side are those who want to ensure that everyone who contributed to the success of a work or publication are given nomination-level credit for their work.

The reason this argument is recurring is because the current WSFS constitution does not offer clear answers about the number of names that can be officially listed. Adding to the confusion, this question has been adjudicated differently from year to year. In 2013, up to nine people were listed per Hugo group finalist … but two years later the number was capped at five. In 2022, there was no upper limit on the number of names credited per group finalist … but this year it was capped at seven.

Since each Worldcon appoints a different Hugo Award Administrator and the decision is within their purview, it has been decided differently each year. There is also no public-facing document that explains the rationale for a limit of exactly seven this year, which makes the number seem arbitrary to observers.

The inconsistent nature of these decisions is concerning, as it calls into question the fairness of the awards process.

We would suggest inserting clarifying language into the WSFS constitution (possibly as Section 3.2.13). This clause could either provide guidance as to a maximum number of contributors per group finalist, could offer clarity about what level of involvement warrants an individual being listed as a contributor, or could state that there is no limit.

Hugo Award administration is a difficult and complex role, and we have a lot of respect for the dedicated volunteers who have taken it on over the years. We would suggest that having clarity in the WSFS constitution on this point would make this aspect of their work easier.

There is a long tradition of recognizing several individuals for a Hugo-shortlisted work; as far back as 1959, the fanzine Cry of the Nameless listed four editors on the ballot. All six members of Monty Python were credited for The Holy Grail in 1976. In 2009, the Hugo ballot credited nine individual contributors for the movie Iron Man.

The conflict over the number of credited contributors seems to have arisen in about 2013, with larger and more complicated fan publications trying to ensure that everyone involved got to call themselves a Hugo Finalist. Given that those participating in these projects are often rewarded with little other than recognition, excluding individual contributors from the “limelight” is often felt keenly.

Questions have been raised over the capacity
of the pre-ceremony Hugo Awards reception.
(Photo by Cora Buhlert via File 770)

Those advocating for a more expansive approach to contributors’ lists make a colourable argument that it is often marginalized voices who get omitted from lists of contributors when limits are imposed. Having a maximum number of names per publication will possibly have a detrimental effect on creators who are non-male, who are non-American, and who are racialized.

Those advocating for a more restrictive set of rules point out that the pre-Hugo reception already has capacity issues and logistical constraints. They also suggest that if everyone gets called a “Hugo finalist,” then the status becomes devalued. In addition, the distribution of perks to Hugo finalists, such as the rocketship pins, etc., increase costs on Worldcons.

Both of these positions have merit, and neither should be dismissed out of hand. But the debate should take place in the appropriate forum. The WSFS membership on whose behalf these awards are presented deserve a say in this matter, and the way to do this is to allow both sides to make their case at a business meeting.

The Hugo Awards aren’t the only organization that has had to confront similar issues. As major Hollywood productions became more financially complex in the 1990s, the Oscars had to wrestle with how many producers could be credited for a single Best Picture. After a record-breaking five-producer movie won Best Picture winner in 1999, the Academy imposed a two-producer limit.

What should be noted, however, is that this limit was voted on by the Academy’s Board of Governors, was communicated clearly and well in advance, and was not changed arbitrarily.

Rather than having this argument play out every year over social media and through strongly-worded letters of complaint, there should be an opportunity to discuss and debate a solution at the next Worldcon.

Recognition at the Hugos should follow consistent rules that have buy-in from the community at large.

解药：浓度百分之二十五 (The 25 per cent solution - Mandarin Translation)

 过去几年间，雨果奖某些奖项险些因未满章程规定的最低投票数而遭取消。

世界科幻大会已非上世纪六七十年代可比。
(图片来自 fanac.org）

令人感叹的是，这些濒危奖项的受欢迎程度并没有出现明显的滑坡。它们只不过是赶不上其他更具大众化影响力的奖项热度的快速增长。因此，说它们的境遇是最佳长篇小说、最佳戏剧表现等大牌奖项受捧带来的惩罚，似乎不为过。

雨果奖的的评选和颁发是由《世界科幻协会章程》约束的。这份章程的3.12.2款对某奖项空缺的的条件之一做出了规定如下。

3.12.2: 当特定类别的有效选票总数（不包括首先为“空白奖”投的选票）总数少于总数的百分之二十五（25％）时，既属“空白奖”。

2021年最终入围名单的总投票数为2362张。因此，如果某个奖项在终选时获得的总投票数少于591张，该奖项将公布为“空白奖”。最佳粉丝演播奖得到了632张选票，勉强超过了25%的下限。最佳粉丝杂志 (643), 最佳长篇作品编辑 (667), 以及最佳粉丝作者奖 (680) 都面临跌落“空白”深渊的境地。为了感受这些数字的含义，请考虑如下事实：在“25%条款”问世的1963年，任何一个奖项总投票数都没有超过591. 世界科幻大会在成长，它需要在会员群体愈发广大的条件下寻求有效衡量奖项代表性的途径。

我们还观察到一个值得注意的现象。如果仅仅多出来159名参加了最佳长篇小说评选、但同时未能为最佳粉丝杂志投票的会员，那么 Nerds of a Feather 就无法摘获名至实归的雨果奖了。这就体现了当前投票规则的一个漏洞：略微小众一点的奖项可能成为高规格大奖功名之下的牺牲品。

最佳长篇作品编辑奖的不二人选黛安娜·M·傅，
险些因3.12.2条款与奖项失之交臂。
（图片来自 Rokne & Wakaruk)

泛读一下该条款出现当年的一些同人杂志，我们可以看到如此的现状应该不是当时提出这项条款的本意。那时候，大家的牢骚是有的人可能靠着不到10张票获得雨果奖。如果某个奖项有多达500人参与投票，看起来不应该成为这种担心的对象。

章程3.12.2款的历史已经有些年头了，而且其发展历程也很有意思。因为1963年参加雨果奖投票的人数异常得少，随后1964年的章程里出现了这一条款的原始版本。当时的规定里并没有特定的下限，而是授权雨果奖管理会以“明显缺乏投票者的关注”为由取消某个奖项。

我们要明白，这条规则加入章程的年代，参与提名过程者不满200人，最终评选的投票人数不及300. 为20世纪60、70年代特定情况制定的投票规则，在2020年代的现实条件下未必仍适用。

因为文献不足之故，我们未能找到该规定的现行具体条文是什么时候制定的，不过范围就在1978、1979年间。就我们所知，这条规则的明确形式出自本·雅罗 (Ben Yalow) 之手。他提出将门槛定在25%，以增进评选过程的透明度，并确保奖项不会因为任何一届委员会随机的主观意念就遭剔除。

“雨果奖管理委员会有很大的自由量裁权，但他们宁可不动用。因为一旦出手，只能给科幻大会招来批评。”雅罗这样解释道。“所以，将规则制定得更具体，避免粗略的方针指引，可以让委员会从舆论的笔尖下脱身出来。”

在1970年代末，这是一项重要而积极的改进，25%的下限在当时是合理的。不过40年间时过境迁，这一限制也该改改了。

传奇人物本·雅罗是《世界科幻协会章程》
的重要贡献者，他起草了当前版本的3.12.2条款。
（图片来自 Rokne & Wakaruk)

整个1970年代，每年雨果奖终选投票人数平均约800人。这段时期，“空白奖”的下限可以估计为200票左右。如果某个奖项只能引来200票，那么认为它缺乏必要的关注度是可以理解的。

这条规则的另一时代背景是当年各个奖项投票数的分布比现在要均匀很多。1980年是雨果奖完整的投票记录有据可查的第一年。那一年，收到投票数最少的奖项是最佳粉丝作者奖。同样是那一年，在1788名投票者中有884人参与了最佳粉丝作者评选，因此该奖项的参与率有49%.

四十年过去了，参与最佳粉丝作者投票的人数没有显著变化，但参与的比例下降了，因为参加其他虚构作品类别的投票人数大幅增长。这就是说，导致类似奖项面临濒危的境地的原因，并不是关注的人数下滑，而是其他奖项的活跃程度增长。

说白了，最佳长篇作品编辑奖该不该评出，按道理不应该由最佳戏剧表现奖的参与人数来决定。

我们的建议是，与其使用百分数来判定某奖项缺乏关注，世界科幻协会应采用固定票数作为限定标准。当然，就和“25%条款”一样，这一票数下限的设置也会有一定的任意性。但我们认为，这个数字可以调节到能体现显著的粉丝群体持续性关注的水平上。显然，这个限度应高于10人。但同时，我们的观点是，假如在可以想见的将来，某届有3000人参加雨果奖投票的大会上按现有规则需要750票才能保住一个奖项，那么我们的固定票数限额不应该高到如此地步。这一具体数字应定期评估；每5年一次是比较可能的方案。

另一种解决方法是改变参与率低于25%的奖项的处理方式，要求世界科幻协会的雨果奖委员会对其进行重审而非自动取消，以防参与该奖项提名和评选过程的会员之劳动付诸东流。

雨果奖的部分奖项广为大众所知，这是值得欣喜的事情。不过，雨果奖的评选过程亟需与时俱进，既与大众的拥护相适应，同时又不至牺牲更小众的奖项。

当然，这些建议如果采纳，会给世界科幻协会雨果奖评委带来更多工作任务。然而，这样的工作有益于世界科幻大会使命的实现，并将帮助我们保证其程序真正建立在参与的基础上，体现出代表性和民主精神。

复言之：同人类奖项不应成为文学作品类奖项成功背后的牺牲品。

（注：原标题 The 25 per cent solution, 取自福尔摩斯系列作品之 The seven-per-cent solution. 英文中 solution 一词有“溶液”和“解”的双关涵义。）

本杂志编撰团队感谢雨果奖提名，并借此机会挑选了2022年度若干得意之作翻译成中文，以飨参加本年度世界科幻大会的中国友人。译者：Zoë C. Ma [https://zoe-translat.es/]

The Cultural Practice of Worldcon

The World Science Fiction Society became an 
organization in 1946 to govern how Worldcon
locations were selected, and how cons were run.
But there's still little documentation of what a 
Worldcon actually is.
(Image via Catherine J. Trujillo)

For more than eight decades, thousands of authors, artists, and fans from across the globe descend on a city each year to discuss science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, gaming, costuming, and other subjects of fandom interest.

Worldcon is many things to many people. Depending on who you ask, it’s “largely magical,” or “a huge, complicated beast” or “hostile and emotionally abusive.” It’s clear that the event has developed cultural practices and expectations. Some might need to change and some are worth continuing. We wanted to start a discussion about how that might happen as key volunteers retire or move on and new venues are selected.

On a strictly technical level, a Worldcon is an event organized by a committee that was approved by a site selection vote held at a previous Worldcon, in accordance with rules that are voted on and approved by the World Science Fiction Society business meeting.

Worldcon could potentially be held at any location on Earth. If site selection voters approved a bid, the event could be held anywhere from Snake Island to Oymyakon.

The document that governs Worldcons — the WSFS Constitution — provides a list of duties that Worldcon committees must fulfill for their event to be a “Worldcon.” But this list is surprisingly short.

Worldcons are by definition volunteer run, and based on the word “convention,” we can infer that it’s “an organized meeting of enthusiasts for a television program, movie, or literary genre,” though the WSFS constitution does not go into even that level of detail.

There's nothing in the rules saying that panel discussions
about science fiction and fantasy is a necessary part
of Worldcon. But the event wouldn't be the same without.
(Photo of panel at Worldcon 2018 by Olav Rokne)

There’s nothing in the document suggesting that a Worldcon needs to have guests of honour, or an indoor venue. Social events are not part of the requirement, nor are dealers’ halls. There is no requirement to hold a masquerade, or even to have panels or programming.

As the 2018 Worldcon’s website notes, “the Worldcon Program is its oldest tradition” — though this is a far different statement than the programming being definitionally a required part of the event.

All that being said, if a Worldcon committee ever organized an event that had no panels, no guests of honour, and no masquerade, we suspect that the broad consensus would be that the event was “not a Worldcon.”

Section 2.6 of the WSFS Constitution deals with “Incapacity of Committees,” for instances in which a committee might fail to put together a Worldcon. But given that a formal definition of a Worldcon is absent, this section could probably never be enacted.

The rules imply the existence of four official staff roles in a Worldcon, though the actual structure of the organization varies from year to year. There’s a Chief Executive Officer or Officers (often using the term “Convention Chair” as per 4.6.1(3)), a Hugo Administrator (implied by Section 3.11, though not essential, and there’s little specificity about duties), a Site Selection Administrator (implied by Section 4.4.1, though there’s little specificity about duties), and there are Committee members (implied by Section 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc.).

The rules specify how the governing committees are chosen by the membership of previous Worldcons, but does not indicate what the membership of that committee might be. At the recent 2022 Worldcon in Chicago, there was one Committee Chair, 14 Division Heads, and about 200 further members of the committee.

This system provides some sense of continuity, but little actual guidance about what makes this event a Worldcon, other than the WSFS stamp of approval … and tradition.

We should not let our definition of Worldcon be simply a recreation of an idealized and mythologized past. Allowing ourselves to be governed entirely by tradition risks a “Make Worldcon Great Again” mentality, or a fetishization of a less-diverse, less-accepting, more closed-minded past.

The reason to continue those traditions should
never be “just because that’s the way it’s always
been done.” Just ask the Dutch about their 
tradition of Zwarte Piet.
(Image via State Department) 

There are however, many cultural practices at Worldcons that are good, and which work for the membership. 

As Hugo-finalist podcaster Marshall Ryan Maresca has noted, the convention has a “rich and deep history, and with that history, a significant amount of resentment and trauma.” This is an important reminder that we must be cognisant of exclusions and marginalizations perpetrated by past conventions, and work towards equity.

Part of the reason that these traditions have been upheld with some degree of consistency is that there are many individual convention organizers who volunteer on numerous Worldcons, and who hold institutional memory — these folks are sometimes called “SMOFs”. As the event has become more international over the years (a positive development in our opinion, though we’d admit that Worldcon is still mostly an Anglosphere event), there is less institutional memory. Therefore there is a need for the progressive community-building conventions (Definition 5) of this convention (Definition 2) to be committed to paper.

So what activities do we think are integral to a Worldcon? What should be maintained, not because of tradition, but because they work for people?

As a starting point for discussions, we brainstormed some of the Worldcon events that seem to us to be serving the membership well:

• 

  What the letters "S.M.O.F." stand for 
  is a closely guarded secret that is known
  to only a few science fiction fans.
  (Image of a group of Smoves via Calisphere)

  Programming, especially programming that includes panel discussions, solo talks, conversations with authors, and workshops. This programming should platform people of a wide variety of different backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, and ages.
• A masquerade that involves opportunities for people of every age, skill level, and background to participate. The costuming community is a vital and vibrant part of every Worldcon.
• Worldcon Guests of Honour. This is a way for the Worldcon to proclaim its values in terms of who the organizers think should be recognized and whose work should be celebrated.
• A dealers’ hall. Although Worldcon is less commercial than many other science fiction conventions, there’s always been an interest among fandom to delve into the material history of the genre. The retailers who participate in Worldcon dealers (and other fan-run conventions) halls tend to be more niche, more nerdy, and less mainstream than those at commercially-run conventions, and this is a strength of the convention.
• An art show that provides an opportunity both for fan artists to showcase their works, and to compete in an art competition, as well as for fans to appreciate the works on display.
• Autographing areas, and a schedule of authors and creators who want to autograph their works.
• A Code Of Conduct that protects the rights of attendees to be free of discrimination and harassment. The Code of Conduct adopted in Chicago in 2022 should be a model to be emulated going forward. The recently announced Code of Conduct for the Chengdu Worldcon in 2023 looks robust, and grapples with the complexities of a multilingual event with a greater possibility of miscommunication.

But … given that these are just “traditions” of the Worldcon, someone else may have a completely different list of what they believe to be integral to an event being a “Worldcon.” We’d encourage you to comment about which Worldcon events – or practices – you like to see continued or enhanced.

As an annual event with no permanent organizing team, no long-term governing council, and no written-in-stone rules about convention content, Worldcon has the potential to move with the times and improve.

The flexibility to do so should be preserved as much as possible, but we would suggest that there would be a benefit to having some debate on what the minimum expectations of a Worldcon are.

Rather than tying the hands of future conrunners with an amendment to the WSFS Constitution, we would suggest doing so as a Resolution of Continuing Effect. Although non-binding, such a resolution would provide clarity, and could help prevent potential WSFS 2.6 pitfalls down the line.

The debate about what a Worldcon is, and what a Worldcon should be, is a debate worth having.

The Gordian Knot of Fan Vs. Pro

Wilson Tucker was a superb author whose prose almost earned him the very first Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1953. His Long Loud Silence — one of the most unflinching and depressing looks at the future of war — came in second to Alfred Bester’s Demolished Man.

Should Tucker have recused
himself from consideration
when he was shortlisted
for the Hugo for best Fan Writer
in 1970? We would suggest not.
(Image via File 770)

But his accomplishments as a professional writer were often overshadowed by his contributions to fandom. He coined the term “Space Opera,” and helped develop the fanzine culture that continues to enrich the genre. He was Fan Guest of Honour at two Worldcons: 1948 in Toronto and 1967 in New York.

In a very real way, Tucker is the case example of a dilemma that has bedeviled those arguing about Hugo Awards rules: the question of fan versus pro, and, specifically, what works should qualify for fan Hugos. Given his output as an author, Wilson Tucker was a pro. Given his contributions to fandom, Wilson Tucker was a fan. But should these roles be viewed as complementary or binary for the purpose of community recognition? And should there be clear guidelines about who counts as a “fan”?

These questions have reared their head in the wake of Worldcon 2022 at which three out of the four fan Hugos were presented to industry professionals. We want to stress that, in our opinion, all of these finalists and Hugo winners are worthy of recognition — in particular we were glad to see Lee Moyer win a long-overdue first Hugo Award. Questions of what a “fan” work is shouldn’t distract from the quality of these projects.

But it is still worth talking about why questions about “Fan Vs. Pro” arise, and hopefully forestall any hasty and ill-considered changes to the WSFS constitution.

This debate has a long history. While it’s clear that “Fan” and “Pro” are not antonyms, there’s reason to suggest that “fan” might be interpreted as being synonymous with “amateur” or “non-professional.”

The category now called “Fanzine” is the second-longest running Hugo category, having been awarded on no fewer than 75 occasions (only Novel has been recognized more often). But for the first quarter century the award existed, it was called the Hugo for best Amateur Magazine, and the distinction was explicit that this was a non-professional award.

From the very beginning, there were questions about what counted as amateur (or “fan” work), and what counted as professional. The first recorded constitution of the World Science Fiction Society from 1963 sets out the fanzine category as a “generally available non-professional magazine devoted to science fiction, fantasy or related subject.” That constitution’s primary author George Scithers noted in a 1964 edition of Yandro that non-professional was not defined, but added “I think the terms are well-enough understood to be clear.”

All the existing fan categories were hived off from Amateur Publication / Fanzine. First with fan writer and fan artist recognizing those who contributed to fanzines, then with fancast as a new medium of fanzine. They all derive from the same tradition of amateur publications.

Just three years after the Scithers constitution was introduced, Jack Gaughan showed just how unclear the existing language could be, winning both the fan artist and professional artist Hugo Awards in a single evening. There was an outcry over this — why have two separate categories if the same body of work could win both? A clause was quickly added to the constitution to prevent this from happening again, but the language did not seek to clarify what was Fan and what was Pro, rather stating that “Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”

In the unlikely event that this blog ever generated more
than $500 a month in revenue via crowdfunding, we would
recuse ourselves from the fan categories. To be clear,
we do not plan to profit from our fan writing, and instead
of ever having a Patreon we would encourage you
to support Trans Lifeline, Planned Parenthood,
the EFF, Wikipedia, or the ACLU.
(Image licensed via Shutterstock.)

Over the years, this question has resurfaced fairly regularly. Questions were raised over John Scalzi winning best fan writer in the same year that his novel The Last Colony was on the ballot. Two years later there was some slight grumbling about Fred Pohl — at that time one of only 25 authors to have won three professional prose Hugos — winning for best fan writer.

So in this context, a well-intentioned but problematic proposal (“An Aristotelian Solution to Fan vs Pro”) brought forward to this year’s business meeting provided an attempt to parse out this question. The Hugo Awards Study Committee suggested that language be added to the constitution laying out strict guidelines about the commercial purposes or uses of artistic works and fan writing. Though this proposal was soundly defeated at the 2022 WSFS business meeting, the subsequent Hugo Awards ceremony featured three of the four “fan” categories going to creators who are full-time professionals within the field. In some cases, the fanworks in question were also commercially successful.

The Hugo Study Committee suggested commercial activity as a means to determine what constitutes professional works, and thus which creators are non-professional. For example, it would be difficult to call an online publication “amateur” if it has a Patreon page that collects upwards of $1,000 per month. But there are more problematic scenarios. What about fan artists who sell a handful of print-on-demand T-Shirts based on their works? They might make enough from these sales to buy a Starbucks coffee every other week… should that prevent them from being recognized in a fan Hugo category?

Attempts to set a bright-line test to determine category correctness are doomed. Should there be a rule to parse out which creators can call themselves “Fans,” it would inevitably fail. No creator who works for both payment and fandom does so in isolation of the other.

To further complicate this question, authorship is a profession which operates in a reputation economy in which an individual author’s future earnings are contingent on the public awareness and appreciation of that person’s works. As such, any publishing activity or communication to the public by an author whose living depends on sales can be seen as promotional activity, and therefore could be interpreted as “professional,” even if they never earn a dime directly from that output. When examining the question under this lens, the work may be fannish, or it may be professional, and the only difference is motivation. Let us say very clearly here that it should never be the job of anyone in fandom to police or attempt to interpret the motivation of creators. 

Alexei Panshin recused himself from the fan
categories after winning best fan writer. Lady
Business recused themselves after winning best
fanzine. It's a courageous decision to make.
(Photo by Jay Klein via Calisphere)

There is no easy solution to this dilemma, no set of rules that will ever be able to parse out what should be considered as fannish activity from that which is not. When it comes to what should count as fan works, we should avoid the temptation to take the same approach that United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart took on obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”

As America has seen with the selective enforcement of obscenity tests, any determination based on a gut feeling will be overly influenced by the unconscious prejudices of those in power. For example if the Hugo Admins or a motivated block of voters took it upon themselves to selectively determine what was appropriate to be a “fan” work in any given year, it’s likely that such decisions would disprivilege the already marginalized — not through ill intent, but due to subconscious factors.

So where does this leave us?

Perhaps the best solution is not to change the rules at all, but rather to foster existing cultural norms that encourage us all to ask ourselves whether or not we are appropriate for the categories we are shortlisted in.

These categories have sometimes recognized pros for their fannish endeavours, but have continued to mostly recognize non-professional amateurs who have contributed to fandom. As long as nobody Langfords a category, the fan Hugos will be just fine.

The 25 per cent solution

Over the past few years, several Hugo Award categories have come perilously close to falling off the edge of the ballot.

Worldcon has changed since
the 1960s and 1970s.
(Image via Fanac.org)

What’s striking is that these categories aren’t significantly declining in popularity, but rather, they’re just failing to keep pace with the growth of interest in categories with greater mass appeal. This makes them dangerously close to being punished for the popularity of the big-ticket Hugos such as Best Novel and Best Dramatic Presentation.

Section 3.12.2 of the WSFS Constitution – the document that governs Hugo Awards administration – described one of the circumstances under which an awards category should fail to be presented.

3.12.2: “No Award” shall be given whenever the total number of valid ballots cast for a specific category (excluding those cast for “No Award” in first place) is less than twenty-five per cent (25%) of the total number of final Award ballots received.

Since 2,362 final Award ballots were cast in 2021, if any category received fewer than 591 votes in the

Diana M. Pho was nearly denied her
well-deserved first Hugo for Best
Editor Long Form due to Section 3.12.2.
We are glad that she got it.
(Photo by Rokne & Wakaruk)

final count, then a result of “No Award” would have been declared. Fancast received 632 votes, barely scraping past that 25 per cent threshold. Fanzine (643 votes), Editor – Long Form (667 votes), and Fan Writer (680 votes) were all poised near the abyss. For context, consider that 591 is more votes than any category received in 1963 when this rule was first proposed. Worldcon is growing and needs a way to address category relevance that makes sense for a larger membership.

It’s interesting to note that if just 159 more people had cast ballots for Best Novel without voting for Best Fanzine, then Nerds of a Feather would not have taken home the Hugo Award they so richly deserve. This points out a flaw in the current rules: the slightly more niche categories might end up being punished for the success of the higher-profile award categories.

From a read of fanzines contemporaneous to the creation of this rule, it doesn’t appear that this was what was intended by the rule. At the time, people kvetched about the possibility of categories in which the Hugo winner received 10 or fewer votes. It does not appear that they were worried about categories in which more than 500 people were voting.

Section 3.12.2 has a long and interesting history, with the original version of the rule appearing in the 1964 Constitution, having been added in the wake of concerns over the remarkably small number of voters participating in the 1963 Hugo Awards process. At this time, there was no specific threshold, but rather the rules provided Hugo Administrators the ability to nix a category based on “a marked lack of interest in the category on the part of voters.”

It should be noted that this was added at a time when fewer than 200 people participated in the nominating process, and fewer than 300 people voted on the final ballot. Rules crafted for the circumstances of the 1960s and 1970s do not necessarily work in the context of the 2020s.

Because of missing documents, we cannot pin down exactly when the rule in its current form was codified, but it was either in 1978 or 1979. As far as we can tell, this clarification was based on the work of Ben Yalow. By adding a specific threshold of 25 per cent to the rule, his proposal helped bring clarity to the process, and ensured that categories weren’t dismissed on the whim of any given committee.

“Hugo Administrators have a lot of discretion, but really hate to use it since all it does is get the convention criticized,” Yalow explains. “So giving specific rules, rather than broad general guidelines, keeps administrators out of the line of fire.”

The legendary Ben Yalow, whose
contributions to the WSFS constitution
are innumerable, helped craft
Section 3.12.2 in its current form.
(Photo by Rokne & Wakaruk)

In the late 1970s, this was an important and positive change; and the 25 per cent threshold made sense at that time, but things have changed in 40 years, and this threshold needs to be revised.

Over the course of the 1970s, the Hugos had an average of 800 people voting on the final Hugo ballot; at the time the “no Award presentation” threshold could be assumed to be 200 votes or so. And if a category were to only garner 200 votes, one could understand that this might be a sign that there was a lack of interest.

This rule also comes from a time in which there was far more parity between the number of votes in various categories. In 1980 (the first year that we have full voting statistics on the Hugos for), the category which received the fewest votes was Best Fan Writer. In that year, 884 out of 1,788 Hugo voters voted for Fan Writer, giving that category a participation rate of 49 per cent.

Four decades later, the number of people voting in the Fan Writer category has not substantially changed, but the numbers voting in the prose fiction categories has drastically increased. Thus, the percentage of voters engaged with this category has decreased. This means that these Hugo Award categories are being endangered not due to declining interest in those categories when counted by number of voters, but rather by the enthusiasm and growth of other categories.

Fundamentally, the decision about whether or not the Best Editor - Long Form award is worth running should not be contingent on how many people voted in the Best Dramatic Presentation category.

We would suggest that instead of a percentage threshold to indicate a lack of interest in a category, the WSFS should consider a fixed numerical threshold. Of course, just like the 25 per cent threshold, this would be an arbitrary number, but we feel that it should be set at a level that reflects a continued interest by a significant number of fans; clearly that threshold is higher than 10 people, but we’d argue that it’s also fewer than the 750 people that it might take to pass 25 per cent of a 3,000-voter Hugos that is not inconceivable in the near future. This number should be reviewed, likely every five years or so.

An alternate approach would be to change the result of a sub-25-per-cent participation in a category to a mandatory review of the category by the Hugo Awards Committee of the WSFS, rather than invalidating the work of those who did nominate and participate in the process.

Some Hugo Awards categories have become more well-known in the broader public, which is a fact that should be celebrated. But the Hugo Awards process needs to evolve to adjust to this broader acclaim without penalizing more niche award categories.

While these suggestions create more work for the WSFS Hugo Awards Study Committee, it would be an effort spent serving the mission of Worldcon and help ensure a representative, democratic process based on participation.

To repeat: The fan categories should not be doomed by the success of the prose categories.

So Glad We Asked: an appreciation of Chris M. Barkley

Activist fan Chris M. Barkley
at the 2015 Hugo Awards
(Photo by Olav Rokne)

For more than 45 years, Chris M. Barkley has been quietly contributing to science fiction fandom in the best ways possible: Volunteering on the front lines of Worldcons, adding thoughtfully to the dialogue, and making spaces safer and more welcoming for fans.

Probably best known for his entertaining and personable columns that appear on File 770, Barclay has also written for Locus, Amazing Stories, the SFWA Blog, fanzines such as Argentus and Journey Planet, and numerous convention publications. It’s for this last category of fan writing that we feel Barkley has earned serious consideration for a Hugo Award, and in particular why we would urge you to include his name on your nominating ballots.

One key reason why 2021 has been such an impressive year for Barkley is his long-form work “Fantasy & Science Fiction Media Relations – Press Room Guide” published in August 2021. It’s a resource that should be distributed as widely as possible, to as many convention runners as possible. This thorough and detailed guide to the ups and downs, opportunities and pitfalls of media relations will help future conventions and convention-goers succeed. It’s a resource to use during both preparation and when facing a crisis.

As someone who has headed up the media office at five Worldcons (and staffed 14 others), Barkley has a depth of experience to draw on. It should be noted that this guide is roughly the length of a short novelette, and probably on its own has a word count equivalent to some fan writer finalists’ entire annual output.

Bolstering the case for nominating Barkley are this year’s crop of his “So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask” columns. Having sometimes described himself as an “activist fan,” it should be no surprise that Barkley can often be found agitating for tweaks to the rules that he suggests would make conventions more equitable and inclusive. Case in point, “So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask” number 57, which lays out five proposals on how to ensure the survival of fandom.

Barkley has volunteered in 
the press office of 19 Worldcons,
most recently taking on the role
of head of the press office in 2016
when a previous volunteer was
suddenly unable to do so.
(Image via Fanac.org)

Over the years, Barkley has affected real change through his work. He’s often commended for helping to split Best Dramatic Presentation into short form and long form, and for leading the charge to split Best Editor into short form and long form (though with typical modesty, he always offers credit to others). He worked tirelessly to create a Hugo for best Young Adult novel and was an important voice in helping create a Best Graphic Story Award, and co-sponsored the creation of Best Fancast. It could be argued that few people have ever had as much of an impact on the Hugo Award categories.

In retrospect, Barkley has shown a remarkable amount of foresight. He warned in 2004 (a full decade before it happened) that there was the possibility that a slate of politically motivated malcontents might attempt to disrupt the Hugos. This was followed by his urging in 2013 that “The only way traditions like the Worldcon and Hugos will have any future is if the people who are interested and feel frozen out of the process continue to provide civil and constructive criticism and stay involved in fandom … What we need is MORE dissent, MORE thinking outside the box and MORE diversity in fandom, not less.”

The first time the editors of this blog encountered Chris M. Barkley, we were volunteering as photographers for the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony. For years after, we assumed that he had received a Hugo Award nomination for his blogging, and this seemed like a reasonable assumption to make: his work is consistently good, he writes about fannish activities, and he’s well known in the community.

It was to our great surprise when we learned that he has never been on the Hugo Award ballot as a fan writer. It’s time to rectify that oversight, and 2022 should be his year.