World Fantasy Award Nominees

The nominees for this year’s World Fantasy Awards have been announced. The full list is here, and there is much to rejoice about.

In the Novel category I am delighted to see a nod for Lavie Tidhar’s Osama, a book I was very impressed with.

The short fiction categories see two nominees from Clarkesworld, both of them also on the Hugo ballot: Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente and “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu. I’m also delighted to see nods for “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu and “Near Zennor” by Elizabeth Hand.

The excellent VanderMeers have two nominees in the Anthology category: The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities and The Weird.

Collection looks particularly strong this year. I’ve heard great things about the Hannett, Kiernan and McHugh, and The Tim Powers book from my pals at Tachyon is excellent.

More cheering for the Artist category. There are two women on the ballot, including Julie Dillon whom we have showcased at Clarkesworld. My good friend Mr. Picacio is also there, but the nomination I’m really pleased about is John Coulthart, whom you may remember I chose for the cover of Salon Futura #1.

The VanderMeers are there again in Special Award: Professional for The Steampunk Bible, which is great because it would have been very sad if the other two books had got on but SJ Chambers had missed out. Also huge congratulations to Brett and the team at ChiZine whose very fine books I happen to sell. And I’m pleased to see Eric Lane pick up a nod for his work publishing translations at Dedalus Books.

Finally we have Special Award: Non-Professional, which sees nods for Charles A. Tan and Cat Rambo, and also for a certain Clarkesworld magazine. And because this is for work done in 2011, that means yours truly gets another Howie pin. I think there’s a reasonable chance that we got there by dint of the popular vote, so thank you to everyone who voted for us. I’m sorry I can’t be at the ceremony, but I’m sure Neil will do us proud.