WSFA Small Press Award

~ Cheryl

The Washington Science Fiction Association has released the short list for this year’s Small Press Award. I like this award, partly because it is only for small presses, and partly because all of the judging is done blind. This year has produced a very interesting list.

Of the nine finalists, five are women and four are men. There are three stories from Clarkesworld, including Naomi Kritzer’s “Cat Pictures Please”, which I very much hope will also get a Hugo. Cats are clearly the in thing as two other stories come from Lawrence M. Schoen’s anthology, Cats in Space. One of the finalists is by Tanith Lee. It was published posthumously. I’m also pleased to see a story on the list by Stephanie Burgis who is a BristolCon regular. However, the story I want to win is “The Haunting of Apollo A7LB” by Hannu Rajaniemi, which I fell in love with when I heard Hannu read it at Finconn in 2014.

The full list off finalists is as follows:

  • “The Art of Deception,” by Stephanie Burgis in Insert Title Here, ed. by Tehani Wessely, published by Fablecroft Publishing, (April 2015);
  • “Burn Her,” by Tanith Lee in Dancing Through The Fire, ed. by Ian Randal Strock, published by Fantastic Books (September 2015);
  • “Cat Pictures Please,” by Naomi Kritzer, published in Clarkesworld Magazine, ed. by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, (January 2015);
  • “The Empress in Her Glory,” by Robert Reed, published in Clarkesworld Magazine, ed. by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, (April 2015);
  • “The Haunting of Apollo A7LB,” by Hannu Rajaniemi in Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction published by Tachyon Publications, (May 2015);
  • “Headspace,” by Beth Cato in Cats In Space, ed. by Lawrence M. Schoen, published by Paper Golem LLC, (December 2015);
  • “Leashing the Muse,” by Larry Hodges, published in Space and Time Magazine, ed. by Hildy Silverman, (May 2015);
  • “Leftovers,” by Leona Wisoker in Cats In Space, ed. by Lawrence M. Schoen, published by Paper Golem LLC, (December 2015);
  • “Today I Am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker, published in Clarkesworld Magazine, ed. by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, (August 2015).