Nominees for Fiyah’s inaugural Ignyte Awards announced.

The nominees for the inaugural Ignyte Awards, brought to you by Fiyah Magazine, were announced on Monday, August 17, 2020.

Fiyah is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features stories by and about Black people of the African Diaspora based in the USA founded in 2016. The magazine recently announced that they would be hosting FIYAHCON for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) with the Ignyte Awards as its centrepiece. The new awards are aimed at celebrating 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.

The shortlist for the award has been announced by the Ignyte Awards Committee which is 15 BIPOC voters on the FIYAHCON staff, of varying genders, sexualities, cultures, disabilities, and locations throughout the world. The winners will be decided by public voting; you can take part by voting here for your favourite nominee until September 11, 2020.

The nominees in the different categories are;

Best Novel – Adult
for novel-length (40k+ words) works intended for the adult audience

• The Dragon Republic – R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager)
• Gods of Jade and Shadow – Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
• Jade War – Fonda Lee (Orbit)
• Storm of Locusts – Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga Press)
• Kingdom of Copper – S. A. Chakraborty (Harper Voyager)

Best Novel – Young Adult (YA)
for novel-length (40k+ words) works intended for the young adult audience

• Pet – Akwaeke Emezi (Make Me a World/PRH Children’s Books)
• Everlasting Rose – Dhonielle Clayton (Freeform)
• Slay – Brittney Morris (Simon Pulse)
• War Girls – Tochi Onyebuchi (Razorbill)
• We Hunt the Flame – Hafsah Faizal (FSG BYR)

Best in Middle Grade (MG)
for works intended for the middle grade audience

• Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky – Kwame Mbalia (Disney Hyperion)
• Just South of Home – Karen Strong (S&S BYR)*
• The Mystwick School of Musicraft – Jessica Khoury (Audible/HMH BYR)* **
• Other Words for Home – Jasmine Warga (HarperCollins)
• Sal and Gabi Break the Universe – Carlos Hernandez (Disney Hyperion)

Best Novella
for speculative works ranging from 17,500-39,999 words

• The Deep – Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes (Gallery/Saga Press)
• The Survival of Molly Southbourne – Tade Thompson (Tor/Forge (Tor.com))
• The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday – Saad Z. Hossain (Tor/Forge (Tor.com))
• This is How You Lose the Time War – Max Gladstone & Amal El-Mohtar (Gallery/Saga Press)
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 – P. Djèlí Clark (Tor/Forge (Tor.com))

Best Novelette
for speculative works ranging from 7,500-17,499 words

• Emergency Skin – N K Jemisin for the Amazon Forward Collection
• While Dragons Claim the Sky – Jen Brown for FIYAH Literary Magazine
• Circus Girl, The Hunter, and Mirror Boy – JY Neon Yang for Tor.com
• The Archronology of Love – Caroline M. Yoachim for Lightspeed
• Omphalos – Ted Chiang for Exhalation: Stories

Best Short Story
for speculative works ranging from 2,000-7,499 words

• Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island – Nibedita Sen for Nightmare Magazine
• Dune Song – Suyi Davies Okungbowa for Apex Magazine
• And Now His Lordship is Laughing – Shiv Ramdas for Strange Horizons
• Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan – Christopher Caldwell for Uncanny Magazine
• A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy – Rebecca Roanhorse for Mythic Dream

Best in Speculative Poetry

• Heaven is Expensive – Ruben Reyes, Jr. for Strange Horizons
• Elegy for the Self as Villeneuve’s Beast – Brandon O’Brien for Uncanny Magazine
• A Conversation Between the Embalmed Heads of Lampião and Maria Bonita on Public Display at the Baiano State Forensic Institute, Circa Mid-20th Century – Woody Dismukes for Strange Horizons
• Those Who Tell the Stories – Davian Aw for Strange Horizons
• goddess in forced repose – Tamara Jerée for Uncanny Magazine

Critics Award for reviews and analysis of the field of speculative literature

• Jesse – Bowties & Books
• Charles Payseur – Quick Sip Reviews
• Maria Haskins
• Alex Brown – Tor.com Liz Bourke

Best Fiction Podcast
for excellence in audio performance and production for speculative fiction

• PodCastle – Editors Jen R. Albert, Cherae Clark, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Host + Assistant Editor Setsu Uzume, & Audio Producer Peter Adrian Behravesh
• Nightlight Podcast – Tonia Thompson
• LeVar Burton Reads – LeVar Burton
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies – Editor Scott H. Andrews
• Obsidian Podcast – Co-Creators, Producers, and Writers Adetola Abdulkadir & Safiyah Cheatam

Best Artist
for contributions in visual speculative storytelling

• Geneva Bowers
• Nilah Magruder
• Grace P. Fong
• John Picacio
• Paul Lewin

Best Anthology/Collected Works

• The Mythic Dream – Editors Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe
• Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Fiction in Translation – Editor, Translator Ken Liu
• New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color – Editor Nisi Shawl
• This Place: 150 Years Retold – Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sonny Assu, Brandon Mitchell, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, David A. Robertson, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, Jen Storm, Richard Van Camp, Katherena Vermette, Chelsea Vowel | illustrated by Tara Audibert, Kyle Charles, GMB Chomichuk, Natasha Donovan, Scott B. Henderson, Ryan Howe, Andrew Lodwick, Jen Storm | colour by Scott A. Ford, Donovan Yaciuk A People’s Future of the United States – Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams

Best in Creative Nonfiction
for works related to the field of speculative fiction

• AfroSurrealism: The African Diaspora’s Surrealist Fiction – Rochelle Spencer (Routledge)
• The Dark Fantastic – Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (NYU Press)
• Black Horror Rising – Tananarive Due (Uncanny Magazine)
• Our Opinions are Correct – Charlie Jane Anders & Analee Newitz
• Tongue-Tied: A Catalog of Losses – Layla Al-Bedawi (Fireside Fiction)

The Ember Award
for unsung contributions to genre

• Tananarive Due
• LeVar Burton
• Keidra Chaney
• Nisi Shawl
• Malon Edwards

The Community Award
for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre

• Beth Phelan
• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Diana M. Pho
• Writing The Other – Nisi Shawl + K Tempest Bradford
• Strange Horizons – Gautam Bhatia, Vajra Chandrasekera, Joyce Chng, Kate Cowan, Tahlia Day, William Ellwood, Rebecca Evans, Ciro Faienza, Lila Garrott, Dan Hartland, Amanda Jean, Lulu Kadhim, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Catherine Krahe, Anaea Lay, Dante Luiz, Heather McDougal, AJ Odasso, Vanessa Rose Phin, Clark Seanor, Romie Stott, Aishwarya Subramanian, Fred G. Yost, and the SH copyediting team and first readers.