I’ve never really cared for awards. Having spent a lot of time in the army, I certainly received my share of them. But I always associated them with standing in front of a group of people and having someone say good things about you, which I always found somewhat embarrassing. So I tried mostly to avoid them, or receive them at times when there were no groups of people around (which didn’t usually work…because as it turns out, my bosses in the army were pretty smart and knew I was trying to do this.)

Then I wrote a book. As it turns out, there are awards for those, too. And I’m not really excited to talk about those, either. In my perfect world, I’d write my books and exist in solitude while they somehow found all the readers who wanted to read them. Sadly, that world doesn’t exist, and so I self-promote, uncomfortable that it is.

If you’re still reading, you probably know that I wrote a book called PLANETSIDE that came out in 2018. (I mean…if you’re here and you don’t know that, please, by all means stop now and go read it. It’s pretty good and not particularly expensive as far as books go.) It came out in July of 2018, which makes it (and me) available for a few awards. (There are a lot of awards, actually, but some of them are done by committee vote, such as the Compton Crook Award and the Phillip K. Dick Award, so I’m not going to talk about them.)

First up are the Nebula Awards. The Nebulas are nominated and voted on by members of SFWA (of which I’m a member) and are all about other SFF professionals voting for their peers that they find deserving. Nominations start any day now and the award is presented in May. I am eligible for Best Novel. I am especially excited for this one because the conference is the same day as graduation, and it would give me a chance to go to LA for the weekend instead of sitting through a three hour ceremony in the local cathedral. Unless my boss is reading this, in which case, definitely don’t nominate me because I couldn’t possible miss graduation, the culmination of a wonderful school year.

Next are the Hugo Awards. The Hugos are presented at WorldCon each year, and anyone who has a membership can vote. Yes, even you can go buy a membership and nominate and vote in these awards. I’ve done that for the last few years, as I see it as an important part being a resident of the SFF community. WorldCon 2019 (where they award the 2018 Hugo) is in Dublin, Ireland in August. Once again I’m eligible in the Best Novel category.

(As a note, the same novel won both the Hugo and the Nebula last year…THE STONE SKY, by NK Jemisin. Jemisin has deservedly won three straight best novel Hugos for The Broken Earth trilogy. In good news for everyone else who hopes to win, she’s not eligible to this year as she didn’t have a novel published in 2018.)

(In another note, I voted for her as my number one pick all three years. If you haven’t read that trilogy, you really should. It’s that good.)

The last award I want to mention is the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. Debut writers have two years of eligibility for this award, and this is my first. It’s not a Hugo award, but it is presented at the Hugo ceremony. Last year’s winner was Rebecca Roanhorse.

And that’s it. That’s all I’m going to say. If you’re interested in seeing some critical takes on my books, there are a pile of reviews listed here.

Seriously. We’re done. Go home. Let’s never speak of this again (until next year.)