Everyone’s heard of the Hugo Awards, right? They’re the Hugos. They’re the award with the beautiful retro rocket ship, and they come in all shapes and sizes (or flavors, if you like): Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette, Best Short Story, and so on. But beyond that, they come and go like any other award, and you expect them to continue so.

But an odd thing happened last year: it was decided (and by decided I mean by fandom, The World Science Fiction Society, not some nefarious overlord somewhere) that the “Best Semiprozine” award had lost its luster. And if that decision is ratified this year, then that’s that. So Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld Magazine (a 2009 Hugo Nominee for “Best Semiprozine”) has created and spear-headed savesemiprozine.org as an educational campaign for the preservation of the award:

This could be the last year the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine is offered. We respectfully disagree with the reasons presented by those pursuing this goal. Through this blog, we hope to make the case against voting out the semiprozine category.

First, here’s a list of publications eligible for the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine (possibly incomplete), should its untimely demise be greatly exaggerated:

http://savesemiprozine.org/semiprozine-directory/

I see thirty magazines on that list, and I’d hazard they’re all vying for that Semiprozine Hugo, even those that are–sadly–closing this year. That’s the luck of the semi-pro ‘zine: sometimes it’s hard to get your voice heard, even when you pick up the occasional award or an honorable mention in a year’s best anthology. If you go through the list, you’ll see that these magazines have been recognized over the years for various wonderful things. But that doesn’t make the allure of the Semiprozine Hugo any less, and neither does Locus’ amazing streak of wins.

Locus’ streak seems to be at the core of the argument–they’ve won the hearts of fans 22 out of the 25 times the Best Semiprozine has been awarded. That is a lot. That is impressive. But hey, we’re editors and publishers in a thankless job against impossible odds. That just makes the award shine brighter, right? And in the discussions of “Well, what do we really want?”, a number of other plausible suggestions have been put forth–from “disqualifying a magazine from eligibility the year after it wins” to “awarding Locus a Master Award and letting them sit comfortably on that laurel,” or even “restructuring the Semiprozine Award to nudge things into categorical groups that are more comparable”–but all of these (or some other idea) would be a lot easier to see through if the award still existed.

There’s a wealth of discussion on (from?) both “sides” throughout the savesemiprozine.org site, as well as the links below and comments thereon. If you’re going to be at Worldcon, it’s really worth your while to be informed. And if you’re not, well, you might as well know what’s going on in your world, even as you’re reading about other ones.

Further reading:

* Save the Semiprozine Hugo Award (via Tor.com)

* Save the Semiprozine Hugo (via mbranesf.blogspot.com)

* Bonus: “Starting Your Own Semiprozine” series, which at this moment has been fleshed out by excellent commentary from Shimmer Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Kaolin Fire is front man and chief instigator for Greatest Uncommon Denominator, a Best-Semiprozine Hugo-eligible magazine of literary + genre fiction, poetry, art, and more. He’d also like you to know that “Night Bird Soaring” by T. L. Morganfield, a finalist for the 2008 Sidewise Award, is available to read in full for a limited time. The Sidewise Awards will also be announced at Worldcon. Be there!