No, not for me. You know what I do, and most of it is here anyway.

Instead I would like to ask you to think a bit about semiprozines. I happen to work for one now. That job started this month, so I can’t claim any influence on the eligibility period, but Clarkesworld Magazine has been running monthly throughout 2008 and has published stories by a number of major writers including Robert Reed, Theodora Goss, Mary Robinette Kowal, Catherynne Valente, Jeff Ford, Jay Lake, Stephen Dedman and Tim Pratt. It has also included non-fiction by Jeff VanderMeer, Ekaterina Sedia and Tobias Buckell. And despite being online it has fabulous covers. You can see the whole back issue archive here.

Clarkesworld is one of a large number of magazines that count as semiprozines because they pay their contributors good rates and take advertising, but are run mainly by enthusiasts in their spare time. (Like me, Neil Clarke has a “real” job outside of the SF industry. Sean Wallace is full time in publishing, but at Prime Books, not with us.) Without them the short fiction market would be much the poorer. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, which has been a nominee in the past, falls into the same category. We are all part of that group of magazines that Ben Yalow claims are not worthy of a Hugo nomination, and Seth Breidbart says are not even worth reading.

I can’t predict whether the semiprozine category will go away this year. It is a very complex debate. But I do know that if the abolition of the category is ratified in Montreal then Clarkesworld, and many other magazines like it, will never have another chance. (Neil would, of course, be eligible for Best Editor (Short Form), but that means competing against the likes of Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois and Gordon Van Gelder.)

More to the point, if all of those small press fiction magazines start getting a bunch of nominations, perhaps SMOFdom assembled will actually acknowledge that they exist. So if you do have nominating rights, share a little love on semiprozines, please.