Hugo Award

The Hugo Award, aka The Science Fiction Achievement Award, is an award given by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) based on a popular vote of the membership of the WSFS and delivered at WorldCon. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback.

It was first awarded in 1953, although retrospective awards for 1951 and 1946 were awarded. As with most SF and literary awards, relatively few women have been nominated or won awards. (See Hugo Award Winners.)

Historical milestones:

• 1953: First Hugo Award.
• 1960: First Hugo Award given to a woman in any category. Recognized Elinor Busby, jointly with F.M. Busy, Burnett Toskey, and Wally Weber, editors, for fanzine Cry of the Nameless:
• 1962: First Hugo Award given to a woman for individual achievemen. Recognized Cele Goldsmith, "Special Award", for editing Amazing and Fantastic.
• 1963: First Hugo Award nomination of a woman in the Best Novel category Marion Zimmer Bradley, for Sword of Aldones.
• 1968: First Hugo Award given to a woman for her writing. Recognized Anne McCaffrey for novella "Weyr Search".
• 1970: First Hugo Award to a woman in the Best Novel category Ursula Le Guin, for Left Hand of Darkness.
• 2007: 1 of 20 nominations in the four major writing categories recognized a woman writer. (See 2006 Hugo vacuum).
• 2009: Of the 21 authors listed in the fiction categories, four are women (only 19%).

Participation

• It's a WorldCon membership project, so if you pay the Worldcon membership dues ($40-$50), you can participate.
• How to participate in the Hugo nomination process
• Women eligible for 2008 SF Awards - A list of women writers & works by women writers eligible for awards to be made in 2008 (usually for 2007 works), including the Hugo.

Further reading

• See also Harlan Ellison Breast Grab Incident

References

Hugo Award Official Page: http://www.thehugoawards.org/ Worldcon historical databases: http://www.nesfa.org/data/LL/