52-634: The World Fantasy Awards are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction published in English during the previous calendar year. The awards have been described by book critics such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and one of the three most prestigious speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction ). The World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction
104-501: A ceremony created for the awards, and are given in four categories for different lengths of literary works. A fifth category for film and television episode scripts was given 1974–78 and 2000–09, and a sixth category for game writing was begun in 2018. In 2019 SFWA announced that two awards that were previously run under the same rules but not considered Nebula awards—the Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction and
156-419: A given work is considered to be fantasy is left up to the discretion of the nominators and judges. Across all categories, Ellen Datlow has both the most nominations and most wins of any nominee, with 10 wins out of 42 nominations, primarily for her anthologies. She is followed by Terri Windling with 9 out of 30 and Stephen Jones with 3 out of 28, both also mainly for editing anthologies. Jeffrey Ford has
208-618: A panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner. The panel of judges is typically made up of fantasy authors, as well as other fantasy professionals and is chosen each year by the World Fantasy Awards Administration, which has the power to break ties if the judges are deadlocked. The awards administration is a subgroup of the World Fantasy Convention Board, which selects sites for upcoming World Fantasy Conventions. Both
260-494: A small trophy; through the 2015 awards it was a bust of H. P. Lovecraft designed by cartoonist Gahan Wilson . The bust was retired following that year amid complaints about Lovecraft's history of racism; a new statuette designed by Vincent Villafranca depicting a tree in front of a full moon was released in 2017. The 2024 awards were presented at the 50th convention in Niagara Falls, New York on October 20, 2024, and
312-458: A statuette of a tree. During the 50 nomination years, 184 authors have had works nominated; 51 of them have won, including ties and co-authors. Only five authors have won more than once: Ramsey Campbell and James Blaylock with two wins out of four nominations each, Stephen King won two out of three, and Tanith Lee and Fred Chappell won both times they were nominated. Of authors who have won at least once, Jeffrey Ford and Kelly Link have
364-518: A tree in front of a full moon, was intended to evoke the use of trees and night imagery in mythology, fantasy, and horror works. World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by judges and attendees of the World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, with the two most-nominated selected, and
416-513: A trophy but no cash prize; the trophy is a transparent block with an embedded glitter spiral nebula and gemstones cut to resemble planets. The trophy itself was designed for the first awards by J. A. Lawrence, based on a sketch by Kate Wilhelm , and has remained the same ever since. Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of the SFWA. Works are nominated each year between November 15 and February 15 by published authors who are members of
468-566: A trophy in the form of a bust of an elongated caricature of Lovecraft designed by cartoonist Gahan Wilson , nicknamed the "Howard", which matched the theme of the first convention, "The Lovecraft Circle". As stated by Wilson in First World Fantasy Awards: An Anthology of the Fantastic , "The point of the awards was, is, and hopefully shall be to give a visible, potentially usable, sign of appreciation to writers working in
520-672: A variety of SFWA members. It was started in 1966 as a collection of short story winners and nominees for that year, and has continued every year since. The contents of each year's collection is at the discretion of its editor. The sales of these anthologies were intended to pay for presenting the awards themselves. The anthology The Best of the Nebulas (1989), edited by Ben Bova , collected winners of Nebula awards from 1966 through 1986 officially selected by SFWA members. The unofficial anthology Nebula Award Winning Novellas (1994), edited by Martin H. Greenberg , contained ten stories which had won
572-500: Is given each year for fantasy short stories published in English. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as short fiction if it is 10,000 words or less in length; awards are also given out for longer pieces in the Novel and Novella categories. The Short Fiction category has been awarded annually since 1975, though before 1982—when the category was instated—it was named "Best Short Fiction" and covered works of up to 40,000 words. It
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#1732870022711624-678: The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award (since 1975) for "lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy", the Author Emeritus (since 1995, not awarded since 2014) for contributions to the field, the Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. Award for service to SFWA, and the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award (since 2009) for significant impact on speculative fiction. All four are discretionary but a Grand Master, selected by
676-794: The Hugo Award , the Nebula Award is also considered one of the premier awards in science fiction, with Laura Miller of Salon terming it "science fiction's most prestigious award", and Justine Larbalestier , in The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction (2002), referring to it and the Hugo Award as "the best known and most prestigious of the science fiction awards". Brian Aldiss , in his book Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction , claimed that
728-567: The Ray Bradbury Award . In 2018, a new Game Writing category was added, for writing in video and tabletop games. Prior to 2009, the Nebula Awards employed a rolling eligibility system. Each work was eligible to qualify for the ballot for one year following its date of publication. As a consequence of rolling eligibility, there was the possibility for works to be nominated in the calendar year after their publication and then be awarded in
780-467: The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation —were to be considered official Nebula awards. The rules governing the Nebula Awards have changed several times during the awards' history, most recently in 2010. The SFWA Nebula Conference , at which the awards are announced and presented, is held each spring in the United States. Locations vary from year to year. The Nebula Awards are one of
832-486: The 2025 awards will be presented at the 51st convention in Brighton, United Kingdom on November 2, 2024. The World Fantasy Awards were established at the first World Fantasy Convention , an annual convention of professionals, collectors, and others interested in the field of fantasy , held that first year in horror writer H. P. Lovecraft 's home city of Providence, Rhode Island in 1975. Winners were presented with
884-477: The H. P. Lovecraft bust through the 2015 awards; at that ceremony the presenters announced that future ceremonies will no longer use the trophy. Although controversy had arisen in recent years over Lovecraft's history of racism, no explicit reason was given for the change. A new statuette, designed by Vincent Villafranca , was announced in April 2017 to be used for the 2016 awards on. The new award, which depicts
936-603: The Hugo, Nebula, and "the prestigious World Fantasy Award" as the "triple crown". Others have also noted the award's prestige in the field, such as Tachyon Publications and 2014 Best Anthology winner Gardner Dozois . Stephen Jones of the Best New Horror series has said that winning the anthology award for their first volume in 1991 helped "establish the series among readers and some publishers" in multiple countries. Winners such as Nnedi Okorafor —Best Novel in 2011—have described
988-679: The Nebula Award provided "more literary judgment" while the Hugo was a barometer of reader popularity, rather than artistic merit, though he did note that the winners of the two awards often overlapped. David Langford and Peter Nicholls stated in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2012) that the two awards were often given to the same works, and noted that some critics felt that the Nebula selection reflected "political as much as literary ability" as it did not seem to focus as much on literary talent over popularity as expected. Several people within
1040-540: The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, replacing the Best Script award in 2010, were previously annual literary awards on the Nebula ballot but not considered full award categories, but in 2020 both were added as official categories and their full names changed to be "Nebula Awards". Beside the Nebulas, several other awards and honors are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony. The others are
1092-597: The United Kingdom. In addition to the awards ceremony, the conventions include an art show, a dealer's room, autograph receptions, and numerous panels and discussions. The World Fantasy Awards are split into ten categories, including both awards for written works and for professionals in the field. Eligibility requirements are loosely defined: works must have been published in the prior calendar year, and professionals must still be living. All types of fantasy works are accepted, regardless of subgenre or style, though whether
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#17328700227111144-496: The World Fantasy Award winners: First World Fantasy Awards: An Anthology of the Fantastic in 1977, edited by Gahan Wilson and covering stories from the initial award year, and The World Fantasy Awards: Volume Two in 1980, edited by Stuart David Schiff and Fritz Leiber . At the 1991 awards, graphic novel The Sandman issue #19 "A Midsummer Night's Dream", scripted by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess , won
1196-410: The area of fantastic literature, an area too often distinguished by low financial remuneration and indifference". At the start of the awards in 1975, seven categories were presented: Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Collection, Best Artist, Special Award—Professional, Special Award—Non-professional, and Life Achievement. Only a few categories have changed since then, and no changes have been made to
1248-443: The award as "one of my greatest honors as a writer". Editor and bookseller Rick Klaw in 2007, however, noted that the consensus at the time "in the bookselling community" was that winning the novel category did not have any effect on sales and did not help keep the book in print, with 57 percent of prior winners out of print, compared to 23 percent of Hugo Award winners from the same time period. Two anthologies have been drawn from
1300-475: The award for Best Short Story. It was reported that the rules were subsequently changed to prevent another graphic novel from winning, though the awards administration stated that comics and graphic novels were not intended to be eligible for that category, and said that "Comics are eligible in the Special Award Professional category. We never made a change in the rules." A minor controversy about
1352-494: The award is given. For lists of winners and nominees for each Nebula category, see the list of categories below. The Nebula Awards are given annually by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for the best science fiction or fantasy fiction published during the previous year. To be eligible for consideration works must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in
1404-519: The best known and most prestigious science fiction and fantasy awards and together with the Hugo Awards have been called "the most important of the American science fiction awards". Winning works have been published in special collections, and winners and nominees are often noted as such on the books' covers. SFWA identifies the awards by the year of publication, that is, the year prior to the year in which
1456-501: The board and the judges panel are largely made up of professionals in the field of fantasy. The judges for the 2014 awards, for example, were authors Andy Duncan , Kij Johnson , Oliver Johnson, and Liz Williams , and editor John Klima . The nominees are announced in July, and final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention around the end of October. The Life Achievement and Convention Awards do not list nominees, and instead have
1508-503: The calendar year after that. Works were added to a preliminary list for the year if they had ten or more nominations, which were then voted on to create the final ballot. In 1970, the option was added for voters to select "no award" if they felt that no nominated work was worthy of winning; this happened in 1971 in the Short Story category and in 1977 in the Script category. Beginning in 1980
1560-536: The cover, even as a nominee, was a "powerful inducement" to science fiction fans to buy a novel, and Gahan Wilson , in First World Fantasy Awards (1977), claimed that noting that a book had won the Nebula Award on the cover "demonstrably" increased sales for that novel. The Nebula Winners series, renamed the Nebula Awards Showcase series in 1999, is published annually by SFWA and edited by
1612-453: The decision, and returned his two World Fantasy Awards and urged a boycott of the convention. Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. They were first given in 1966 at
World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction - Misplaced Pages Continue
1664-419: The eligibility year for nominations was set to the calendar year, rather than December–November as initially conceived, and the SFWA organizing panel was allowed to add an additional work. Authors were also allowed to use the mass-market paperback publication of their books as the beginning of their nomination period, rather than the initial hardback publication. As a consequence of the combination of this rule and
1716-451: The field of fantasy. The awards have been described by book critics such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and one of the three most prestigious speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction ). World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by attendees of the convention and a panel of judges, typically made up of fantasy authors. Winners receive
1768-456: The future of the award trophy. In November 2015, at the 2015 awards, they announced that the Lovecraft bust would no longer be used beginning the following year. Lenika Cruz, associate editor of The Atlantic , defended the decision, stating that "Lovecraft's removal is about more than just the writer himself; it's not an indictment of his entire oeuvre". S. T. Joshi, however, expressed anger at
1820-500: The highest number of wins after Datlow and Windling with 6 out of 14 nominations, and is tied for the highest number of fiction awards with Stephen King at four. The awards have been described by book critics such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and one of the three most prestigious speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction ). In 2010 multiple winner George R. R. Martin described winning
1872-399: The most nominations at five, followed by Dennis Etchison and Avram Davidson , who along with Campbell and Blaylock received four nominations. Charles de Lint has the most nominations without winning at five; he is followed by Michael Swanwick , who has had four nominations without winning. In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the work
1924-536: The number of nominations the works received. The first Nebulas were given in 1966, for works published in 1965. The idea for such an award, funded by the sales of anthologies collecting the winning works, was proposed by SFWA secretary-treasurer Lloyd Biggle, Jr. in 1965. The idea was based on the Edgar Awards , presented by the Mystery Writers of America , and the idea to have a ceremony at which to present them
1976-456: The officers and past presidents, has been named every year for more than a decade. The Solstice Award may be presented posthumously (where only living writers may be named Grand Master or Author Emeritus). The Nebula Awards have been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards . Along with
2028-463: The organization, with the six works that receive the most nominations forming the final ballot. Additional nominees are possible in the case of ties. Members then vote on the ballot throughout March, and the final results are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Authors are not permitted to nominate their own works, though they can decline nominations. Ties in the final vote are broken, if possible, by
2080-412: The overall winner. The panel of judges is typically made up of fantasy authors and is chosen each year by the World Fantasy Awards Administration, which has the power to break ties. The final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention at the end of October. Winners were presented with a statue in the form of a bust of H. P. Lovecraft through the 2015 awards; more recent winners receive
2132-549: The previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention , the awards are given each year at the eponymous annual convention as the central focus of the event. They were first given in 1975, at the first World Fantasy Convention, and have been awarded annually since. Over the years that the award has been given, the categories presented have changed; currently World Fantasy Awards are given in five written categories, one category for artists, and four special categories for individuals to honor their general work in
World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction - Misplaced Pages Continue
2184-531: The publishing industry have said that winning or being nominated for a Nebula Award has effects on the author's career and the sales of that work. Spider Robinson in 1992, as quoted in Science Fiction Culture (2000), said that publishers "pay careful attention" to who wins a Nebula Award. Literary agent Richard Curtis said in his 1996 Mastering the Business of Writing that having the term Nebula Award on
2236-404: The rolling eligibility, the 2007 awards, despite nominally being for works published in 2006, instead were all given to works initially published in 2005. Beginning with the 2010 awards, the rolling eligibility system and paperback publication exemption were replaced with the current rules. The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, inaugurated in 2006, and
2288-574: The rules. 1978 saw the addition of the Convention Award, a special award given for general contributions to the genre, and the only award not given every year since the beginning. The Short Fiction award was split into Short Story and Novella awards in 1982, and in 1988 the multi-author anthologies, previously eligible for the Collection award, were split into their own Best Anthology category. No changes have been made since. Winners were presented with
2340-428: The symbol of the awards, given his outspoken racism, though others, such as Indian-American Lovecraft scholar and World Fantasy Award winner S. T. Joshi , claimed that Lovecraft's attitudes were not considered extreme at the time. Winners Nnedi Okorafor and China Miéville noted in 2011 that they felt conflicted about being honored by a bust of a man who hated people of color. Several authors and editors argued for
2392-404: The trophy occurred in 1984, when Donald Wandrei refused his Life Achievement award as he felt the award bust was a demeaning caricature of Lovecraft, whom he had known personally. Wandrei's rejected trophy was later recycled and given to another award winner. A larger controversy surrounding the bust began in the 2010s, when several authors began to object to using the author H. P. Lovecraft as
2444-495: The trophy to be changed, including a petition by author Daniel José Older in 2014, an editorial by The New York Review of Science Fiction editor Kevin J. Maroney arguing that it should be changed "as a courtesy to generations of writers whom the WFA hopes to honor", and 2014 Best Novel winner Sofia Samatar 's acceptance speech. In September 2014, the administrators of the World Fantasy Award announced they were "in discussion" about
2496-514: The winner announced along with the other categories' nominees. The Life Achievement winner is decided by the judges panel, while the Convention award winner, not given every year, is selected by the convention organizers. The World Fantasy Convention itself is a multi-day event with several hundred attendees taking place in a different city each year, usually in the United States but sometimes in Canada or
2548-439: The world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The awards are not limited to American citizens or members of SFWA. Works translated into English are also eligible. There are no written rules as to which works qualify as science fiction or fantasy, and the decision of eligibility in that regard is left up to the nominators and voters, rather than to SFWA. The winner receives
2600-434: Was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist. * Winners World Fantasy Award The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during
2652-486: Was prompted by the Edgar and Hugo Awards . The initial ceremony consisted of four literary awards, for Novels , Novellas , Novelettes , and Short Stories , which have been presented every year since. A Script award was also presented from 1974 to 1978 under the names Best Dramatic Presentation and Best Dramatic Writing and again from 2000 through 2009 as Best Script, but after 2009 it was again removed and replaced by SFWA with
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#17328700227112704-411: Was then renamed "Best Short Story" until 2016, when it was renamed to the "Short Fiction" category. World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by attendees and judges at the annual World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on
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