A Curious Statistical Anomaly

This is the 3rd year of the WSFA Small Press Award.

“The award is open to works of imaginative literature (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) published in English for the first time in the previous calendar year. Furthermore, the Small Press Award is limited to works under 17,501 words in length that were published by a small press. The nominees are narrowed down by a panel elected by the membership of WSFA, and these finalists are then judged by the entire membership of WSFA in order to select a winner. Throughout the process, the author and publisher of each story are kept anonymous, and the winning story and its author are announced at Capclave, the WSFA convention held in the D.C. area each October.”

This year, I’m the award administrator. The nomination period is over and the stories have now been stripped of author and publisher information and have been entered into our database. Passwords are being generated for the committee members who will read the stories and select the list of finalists. Once the finalists are chosen, members of WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association) will be given passwords and allowed to read the finalists and vote for the winner.

The winner will be announced at this year’s Capclave, the club’s annual convention. This year we have 59 valid nominations. We hope that with each year the number of nominations will increase as we manage to inform more of the small presses who are eligible about the contest.

Now, until the finalists are chosen my job is in wait and see mode. But, there are some great stories in this group of nominee and I’m anxious to see which of these 59 stories make the list of finalists.