Browse By

2009 Hugo and Campbell Award Winning POC

Last night at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) the Hugo Award ceremony took place. Usually I am not all that excited about the Hugos because there usually aren’t any works of fiction or drama or magazines or editors or people that interest me on the ballot. However, this year was different in many respects and a lot of wonderful and deserving authors and magazines were competing.

There were, to my knowledge, three people of color who won awards last evening. David Anthony Durham got the John Campbell Award for Best New Writer (which isn’t strictly a Hugo but is awarded at the ceremony), Ted Chiang won best short story for “Exhalation” (Eclipse Two), and Frank Wu won Best Fan Artist.

There were a number of talented women who won as well, including Ann Vandermeer (along with Stephen H Segal) for Weird Tales (yay best semiprozine!). Check out the full list here.

It’s times like this that my cool feelings toward the Hugos begin to thaw. It gives me hope that the outreach many have been wokring on (including Best Fan Writer Cheryl Morgan) to raise awareness and get more people involved in the Hugos is starting to pay off. I have some ideas on how it can be improved even further and shall put my evil plans to work soon. In the meantime, let’s celebrate these fine writers and artist, because they definitely deserve the accolades.

4 thoughts on “2009 Hugo and Campbell Award Winning POC”

  1. Jeremy says:

    Hi ABW,

    I admit it, I’m a white male. I don’t feel I need to apologize to any particular community, mainly because I, myself have never sought to oppress or take anything from anyone of a different race or creed than myself. I happily have friends in all races, religions tauted as the opposite of mine (I’m Christian, one of my best friends is Muslim), and as a police officer I ran our department outreach to the BGLAAD community. I do empathize with you on wanting to have more representation in entertainment. It is my sincere hope that one day, each of us can watch our favorite shows without noticing skin color, or differences in the people that are supposed to be the best of us representing humanity as a whole.

    That said, I wanted to let you know (if you didn’t already) that Star Trek DS9 has several episodes where Ben Sisko (my favorite of the Trek Captains) addresses the racism of the past, and one in particular that gives me chills to watch to this very day. The episode is called ‘Far Beyond the Stars’. It is *by far* one of the best Trek episodes ever filmed, and one that I think you will find poignant and thought provoking.

    http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Far_Beyond_the_Stars_(episode)

    I enjoy your blog, and I wish you the best. Here’s to the day when skin color is as innoculous as it is in the 24th century.

    -Jeremy

  2. Arachne Jericho says:

    It was a good year for the Hugos. I just fell apart when I saw that David Anthony Durham got the tiara. It was an amazing evening.

    I look forwards to the culmination of your evil plans.

  3. Pingback: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » 2009 Hugo and Campbell Award Winning POC
  4. Trackback: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » 2009 Hugo and Campbell Award Winning POC
  5. Aoede says:

    Mr. Chiang verily deserved his Hugo :)

Comments are closed.