I get to nominate works for the World Fantasy Award this year because I attended last year. This is a somewhat different award process, because the two items receiving the most votes go on the final ballot, where the remaining nominees are selected by the judges. The judges then read everything and make their own picks. Nobody else gets a vote. The judges this year are Gemma Files, Nina K. Hoffman, Bénédicte Lombardo, Bruce McAllister, and Robert Shearman. Of these people, I have read works by . . . Nina Kiriki Hoffman. And that’s all. So I have no idea what kinds of work the rest of them do.
This raises a different, speculative, question: who would be on my ideal panel of judges? Wouldn’t that be interesting to think about? I know I would pick Marie Brennan. She writes such detailed, thoughtful analysis pieces; I think she would be a good judge. Who else? People who have written a good bit, whose work I admire, who seem to think critically about what they read and about the craft of writing. Kate Elliot? Sherwood Smith?
Anyway, I feel weird about nominating SF for the World FANTASY Award, even though some people do. So I’m nominating:
Novel:
THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by “Katherine Addison”
CUCKOO SONG by Frances Hardinge
Those are the only two fantasy novels that I had on my Hugo ballet, so they’re easy choices here.
“Hold Back the Waters” by Virginia Mohlere
“The Earth and Everything Under” by KM Ferebee
“Mad Maudlin” by Marie Brennan
Those are the three short stories I liked best, of the ones I nominated for the Hugo.
Now, there is also a place right here to nominate someone for a Lifetime Achievement Award. A particular author can only win this once, which makes sense, and a list of past winners is provided so you don’t double up on someone.
I see that CJ Cherryh has never won this. I checked, twice. Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE. I hope her name springs to mind for lots of people and not just for me, because I would LOVE to see her win this category.
Okay, I’m off to finalize my ballot and send it in.
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I bet Genevieve Valentine would be a good judge! She’s definitely good at criticism. And yes, Kate Elliott would be great.
I can name a bunch of mg/YA authors too (Anne Ursu and Laura Ruby spring to mind), but that doesn’t quite apply.
I like your ballot! :D
The interesting thing about the World Fantasy Awards is that the judges aren’t all writers. My former boss, a bookseller, was a judge one year.
I’m hearing a lot about Genevieve Valentine all of a sudden. I’m looking forward to trying her books, and I guess I should also poke around on the internet and find her website, given your comments here.
It is interesting that the WFA judges aren’t all writers. Hmm. I’m . . . not sure what I think about that. I believe I would be inclined to limit judges to writers if I were in charge. Inviting booksellers to judge is like declaring that any Widely Read Experienced Reader is eligible to judge, and that encompasses . . . everyone, basically. So then what justification do you have to limit the judging panel at all? At that point, it seems that you might as well open voting up to all attending members.
Anyway, having googled all the other judges, it does seem that they’re all writers this year, at least.