Hugo nominations are now open! And now, some pandering, part one.

The nomination period for the 2011 Hugo Awards is open. Folks who either were members (attending or supporting) of Aussiecon last year, or who are members (attending or supporting, and there's still plenty of time to sign up for either!) of Renovation this year, can nominate up to five persons or works in each category. You have until Saturday, March 26th to do so.

I'm going to run three posts on this. The first will deal with stories and writers published in Bull Spec in 2010. The second will deal with other local authors and artists and their eligible books and stories, etc. The last will deal with the wider world of authors and artists who did amazing work in 2010.

So, first, the list of eligible works of fiction published in Bull Spec in 2010, all in the Best Short Story category, all of which can be found in the pay-what-you-like (even free!) PDF versions or, of course, in print:

Issue #1, March-April-May 2010:

• C.S. Fuqua, "Rise Up"
• Peter Wood, "Almost a Good Day to Go Outside"
• Note: Natania Barron, "Doctor Adderson's Lens" is not eligible, as it was previously published in Gatehouse Gazette #8, 2009

Issue #2, June-July-August 2010:

• Melissa Mead, "Hirasol"
• Uri Grey, "The Sad Story of the Naga"
• Gwendolyn Clare, "The Other Lila"
• Paul Celmer, "Echoes of the Bouncing Ball"
• Note: Kaolin Fire, "By the Dragon's Tail" is eligible, though it was first published on his blog as part of the Post a Story for Haiti project at Crossed Genres.

Issue #3, September-October-November 2010:

• Lavie Tidhar, "The Story of Listener and Yu-En"
• David Steffen, "Turning Back the Clock"
• Denali Hyatt, "Cityscape"
• Katherine Sparrow, "Like Parchment in the Fire"
• Melinda Thielbar, "You're Almost Here"
• Natania Barron, "Sand" is eligible, though it was first published on WUNC's The State of Things
• Paul Celmer, "A Crowded Place" is eligible, though it was first published on WUNC's The State of Things

Issue #4, December-January-February 2010-11:

• Andrew Magowan, "Freedom Acres"
• Nick Mamatas, "O, Harvard Square!"
• David Tallerman, "The Burning Room"
• Don Norum, "A Mathematician's Apology"
• Erin Hoffman, "City of Shadow and Glass"
• Note: James Maxey, "Tornado of Sparks" is not eligible, as it was previously published in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, 2007

Secondly, while Best Fan Writer does not exclude fiction writers, historically the award goes to writers for their non-fiction in (particularly) fanzines and semiprozines of that year. Here is a partial list of such writers eligible via Bull Spec in 2010:

• Blue Tyson, who contributed a review (and should be considered for his significant efforts at FreeSF and NotFreeSF)
• Charles Tan, who contributed a review (and should be considered for his significant efforts at both Bibliophile Stalker and The World SF Blog)
• Richard Dansky, who contributed several reviews, and also reviews often at The Green Man Review
• Paul Kincaid, who contributed several reviews, and also reviews quite often in a number of semiprozines, such as Interzone, The NYRSF, etc.
• Jason Erik Lundberg, who contributed a review, and also reviews often in a number of semiprozines, such as Strange Horizons, SF Site, etc.
• Note: Technically I guess I'm eligible for the interviews, etc., but, well, that would be silly. (See also Best Editor, Short Form as that would be by leaps and bounds even sillier. Wait until part 3 of this series, where I'll talk about the real editors of 2010, like John Joseph Adams, Cat Rambo, Ann VanderMeer, Jonathan Strahan, Andy Cox, etc. But not Neil Gaiman, 'cuz as far as I can tell, he ain't eligible for that one, yet. Though I could be wrong. More on that, later.)

A partial list of those whose artwork appeared in Bull Spec in 2010 and who are eligible for Best Fan Artist:

• Mike Gallagher, who contributed two illustrations (for "Rise Up" and "Like Parchment in the Fire")
• Jason Strutz, who contributed three illustrations (for "O, Harvard Square!", "Freedom Acres", and "The Story of Listener and Yu-En")
• Joey Jordan, who contributed two illustrations (for "By the Dragon's Tail" and "Turning Back the Clock")

Bull Spec published one graphic story in 2010, making Mike Gallagher's "Closed System" eligible for Best Graphic Story.

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer is voted for along with the Hugo awards and is for writers whose first professionally-published work of science fiction or fantasy was published in the previous two years, in this case 2009 and 2010. Of the writers published in Bull Spec in 2010, the following are, to the best of my knowledge, eligible. Where noted it was their publication in Bull Spec which was their qualifying work, which also makes 2011 the first year of eligibility:

• Peter Wood (BS-qualified)
• Uri Grey (BS-qualified)
• Gwendolyn Clare (second year of eligibility)
• Paul Celmer (BS-qualified)
• David Steffen (BS-qualified)
• Denali Hyatt (BS-qualified)
• Deborah Walker

I'm not yet sure about the eligibility status for Natania Barron, Kaolin Fire, or Andrew Magowan. Only Andrew would be BS-qualified, as the stories from both Natania and Kaolin were previously published and, unfortunately, were not paid the requisite nominal amount. (And Bull Spec is nowhere near 10,000 print copies!) Though I'm not sufficiently proficient in legalese to be able to know for sure.

Lastly: while it would again be silly (see "silly" above) for Bull Spec to be considered for Best Semiprozine, I know I'd be flattered if anybody brought it into the conversation, and I'm darned proud of the stories I've been fortunate enough to have published this year.