Special Award 2025 Celebrating Excellence in Genre

The Locus Awards just happened!

It was my serious pleasure to present a Special Award to The Ignyte Awards!

Below is the text of my presentation speech, which I'll keep posted for a little while. The full ceremony video is here and Suzan Palumbo & LD Lewis give their acceptances at the 1:05:36 mark! The Ignyte Awards site is HERE.

People may think it's strange to give an award for an award. For me, it's about recognizing the work and efforts of folks who contribute significantly to the genre community, as well as signal boosting so that more people might know that the Ignytes exist, and can join in the celebrations they create.

Arley's Presentation Speech for the Special Award 2025 Celebrating Excellence in Genre, going to the Ignyte Awards:

There are many things that you might not know if they don’t involve you personally.

For example, you’ve probably heard of Octavia E. Butler, who died in 2006. Her book Patternmaster was published in 1976 and novel Fledgling came out in 2005. She had novels coming out across the decades between. Beyond genre circles, she was given a MacArthur Genius Grant and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Pen American. Despite the recognition she receives now, despite putting out stunning title after stunning title when she was alive, she was never given a World Fantasy Award of any kind. More surprisingly, she was never given the award which is, arguably, the most prestigious award in genre: a Hugo Award for Best Novel. In fact, she was never even nominated.

Butler is not the only author of color whose work seems to have been overlooked by certain genre awards, she’s just among the most famous. Well, let’s face it: every year, someone will feel like their favorite author has been overlooked, because awards, by nature, go to a handful of people. There are far more writers who haven’t received an award than there are those who have.

That said, if you look more carefully, if you sift through the records of our genre awards, you will make interesting discoveries. For example, way back in 1953 the Hugo Award for Best Novel went to Alfred Bester. Literally seventy years later – we’re talking about SEVEN DECADES – the Hugo Award for Best Novel has gone to only one Black author: NK Jemisin; and went once to Cixin Liu and Ken Liu. Until recently, you could count on one hand the number of authors of color who were even nominated. Other major genre awards, historically, were only marginally more inclusive.

This isn’t to suggest that any particular individual wasn’t deserving of an award; but it is to say that when you span seventy years recognizing so few authors of color in the most prestigious category, something isn’t working the way it should. This isn’t the only eyebrow raising bit of information I’ve found, but don’t just take my word for it: go look at the histories of genre awards and see what you find.

The good news is, I’m not the only one who noticed that a lot of folks are missing from various systems of recognition in genre. I’m not the only one who said, wait a minute, there are excellent works out there, as well as amazing creators who are not getting the flowers they deserve. I’m not the only person who saw that this isn’t about any specific year or any specific title, it’s about what’s been happening over a long span of time, and what seems to continue to happen. But while I was complaining with friends and not doing much about it, someone else decided to actually do something positive, someone got up and put in a tremendous amount of work, and the Ignyte Awards were born.

Running since 2020 “The Ignytes seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.” Making things happen in genre spaces is often fraught, thankless, and even opens you up to vitriol and spite, and yet so many people work hard to make so many amazing things happen. The Ignyte Awards are truly special, and the individuals who make them happen are doing extraordinary work for genre and for creatives working in genre.

The Locus Special Award for 2025, Celebrating Excellence in Genre, goes to the Ignyte Awards!

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Resources:

The Science Fiction Awards Database
ISFDB - Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Nisi Shawl's Walk Through the History of Black Science Fiction