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.

• A Hugo Award was first given to a woman in 1960 for fanzine Cry of the Nameless: Elinor Busby, jointly with F.M. Busy, Burnett Toskey, and Wally Weber, editors.
• A Hugo Award was first given to a woman for individual achievement in 1962: Cele Goldsmith, "Special Award", for editing Amazing and Fantastic.
• A Hugo Award was first given to a woman for writing in 1968: Anne McCaffrey for novella "Weyr Search"

• See Hugo Award Winners
• 2006 Hugo vacuum - the 95% dearth of women in the four major written SF categories

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
• 2007 nominate women writers - A list of women writers & works by women writers eligible for 2007 awards, including the Hugo.

Further reading

• See also Harlan Ellison Breast Grab Incident