Prestigious awards celebrate creativity | Community | thedailystar.com – Oneonta Daily Star
The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. It’s an interesting process since anyone who is a member of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is allowed to nominate up to five people or works from the previous year. In the 15 or so categories, finalists are announced and the final ballot is sent to members. The ballot is preferential which allows voters to rank all nominees. Winners will be announced at Worldcon.
But who is this Hugo guy and why did they name a major award after him? Hugo Gernsback was a famous magazine editor who brought science fiction to a wider audience. He founded Amazing Stories, the first major American Science Fiction magazine in 1926. He has also been recognized as the Father of Magazine SF, and has a crater on the moon named after him.
The full list of Hugo Award nominees in all categories can be found online. For best novel, the nominees are “Black Sun” by Rebecca Roanhorse, “The City We Became” by N.K. Jemisin, “Harrow the Ninth,” by Tamsyn Muir, “Network Effect” by Martha Wells, “Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke, “The Relentless Moon” by Mary Robinette Kowal. The nominees for Best Novella are “Come Tumbling Down” by Seanan McGuire, “The Empress of Salt and Fortune” by Nghi Vo, “Finna” by Nino Cipri, “Ring Shout” by P. Djeli Clard, “Riot Baby” by Tochi Onyebuchi, and “Upright Women Wanted” by Sarah Gailey.
The PEN America literary winners were awarded this month too. PEN America was formed in 1922 by esteemed authors such as Willa Cather, Eugene O’Neill, Robert Frost, Ellen Glasgow, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Benchley and Booth Tarkington. The name was conceived as an acronym for poets, essayists and novelists. They’ve since added playwrights and editors. Last year, Ayad Akhtar became president and you may remember his inspiring presentation at SUNY Oneonta’s Common Read program.
The PEN Awards strive to champion the intersection between literature and human rights. Their mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. The awards are juried by panels of esteemed, award winning writers, editors, booksellers and critics. Winners receive cash awards. The PEN/Jean Stein Book Award was won by Ross Gay for “Be Holding: A Poem” and he received $75,000. The PEN Open Book Award was given to Asako Serizawa for “Inheritors” and she received $10,000. The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for “Debut Short Story Collection” won $25,000 and was awarded to Michael X. Wang for “Further News of Defeat: Stories.” The PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel was given to Kawai Strong Washburn for “Sharks in the Time of Saviors” and won $10,000. The PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award with a $10,000 prize was won by Jonathon C. Slaght for “Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl.” The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction was awarded $10,000 and was won by Saidiya Hartman for “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals.” The PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography was awarded to Amy Stanley for “Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World” and the prize was $5,000.
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Tina Winstead is director of Huntington Memorial Library in Oneonta. Her column appears in the community section of The Daily Star every Tuesday. Her columns may also be found online at www.thedailystar.com/community/library_corner.