BSFA Award Nominations - Unsilent Library + Cover

[major_clanger]

The BSFA Awards for 2011 are now open for nomination and I would like to make two suggestions, one of which I am a little modest about, and one of which peteyoung is likely to be very modest about - but tough, I want you to nominate him anyway.

EDIT: The individual essays within The Unsilent Library, edited by swisstone, grahamsleight and me, is are eligible in the Best Non-Fiction category. If you've not read it the book yet, you can buy it via Amazon. (And if you have, and liked it, perhaps you might contribute a review to that Amazon page?)



peteyoung's splendid cover is also eligible for nomination in the Best Artwork category. When I saw Pete's draft I was flabbergasted: it was exactly what I'd had in mind, only about a hundred times better. I thought at once that if there was any justice it should get a BSFA Best Artwork Award nomination, so please help make that so.

EDIT: It turns out that the book as a whole is not eligible for a BSFA Award, but individual essays within it are.

Comments

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Isn't it the individual essays that are eligible, not the book as a whole?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The award description says:

The Best Non-Fiction award is open to any written work about science fiction and/or fantasy which appeared in its current form in 2011. Whole collections comprised entirely of unrevised work that has been published elsewhere previous to 2011 are ineligible.

Now, The Unsilent Library is a collection of original work that had not been published elsewhere, so my interpretation is that it is eligible. If collections weren't eligible per se, then the award definition would simply say so, and the 'comprised of...' element would be otiose.

Of course, there is nothing to stop individual essays being nominated, should they be thought particularly outstanding. But as I understand it the book as a whole can be nominated too.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I think in previous years the principle has been that the nominated work should be authored by a single person; the collections rubrik applies to things like collections of reviews. And I can't find any previous examples of edited collections being nominated, but several examples -- eg in 2004 -- of individual pieces from edited collections being nominated.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I'll ask Donna to clarify.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Donna has now clarified that whilst the definition technically encompasses collections with multiple authorship, policy is that they're not eligible; rather, individual works within them should be nominated.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

In 2006, no award was actually given due to the low number of votes received in that category on the final ballot. But there was a list of nominees, which included two edited volumes, Paul Kincaid's Clarke Award anthology, and Farah Mendlesohn's Clute Festschrift. So there is precedent.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

That was the rule, but it hasn't been for a while, because that isn't really practical, because people want to nominate whole books - Farah's win was really for the whole Cambridge Companion, but that was the only way it could be got on the ballot at the time.

The rules, as they stand now, allow the nomination of either individual essays or the whole volume.

(I'm pretty sure you were on the BSFA committee when all this got changed, you know ...)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I don't think I was, because I think I would have argued quite strongly against it. But the minutes may prove me wrong. :-)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The Award Administrator tells me that whole volumes are only eligible if they are by the same author(s); works of composite authorship don't count.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

(a) That's daft; (b) that's not what the rules say.

[zotz]

Ah. Yes, that is a very good cover. I hadn't really looked at it before.