John W. Campbell Award

If you haven't heard of the John W. Campbell Award, it's an award given to a new writer in the genres of science fiction or fantasy.  Although it's not a Hugo Award, it's given out at the Hugo Award ceremony each year at Worldcon and the winner is determined by the members of Worldcon.

I had heard of this award, but not really investigated it until it was brought up for discussion in my online writer's group.  And I realized, heck, I had a publication in 2014 that made me eligible when I won second place in Contest # 22 at On the Premises Magazine for my story "Grandmother Winter."  I didn't put my name up for last year, even though I was eligible, so I put it up for this year as my second year of eligibility.

​Now, I don't expect to make it to the short list of five candidates for many reasons - the list of eligible writers includes 125 other writers, and I know for a fact many of them are really amazing at their craft.  I just added my name for the thrill of saying, yes, I'm a new writer in science fiction and fantasy and look at all these other fabulous writers who are writing at the same time I am!  :)  It's pretty fantastic to have my name by Natalia Theodoridou and Rati Mehrotra, for example, both of whom who have stories published that are just out of this world (and, yes, the pun is deliberate, haha).

So, I just wanted to let everyone know that this award is out there and that you can vote for it until March 31st if you're a member of Worldcon.  Good luck to all the writers on the list!  :)