Thoughts on the Clive Staples Award
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30. 2009 and is filed under Posts by Rebecca Luella Miller,Award.
I rarely cross post, but this is a subject I want to be sure fans of speculative fiction discuss, so I'm posting here (with some necessary changes) as well as on my personal blog.
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The idea to create an award for Christian speculative fiction came about two years ago when the Christy Awards omitted the speculative category. After considerable discussion here and at A Christian Worldview of Fiction, we settled on the Clive Staples Award as the name for this reader-initiated recognition of top Christian speculative fiction.
For the last two years we collected nominations, using the same guidelines as the Christy Awards. However, in both years, the actual awarding of a winner bogged down because we have no sponsor, no agreement with publishers to provide judges with books, and no judges.
The most serious problem was this latter issue. While I say "no judges," that's not completely accurate. We had a handful of people who volunteered to help judge, but no one who volunteered to head up the judging—requesting books, sending them out to judges, tabulating judge sheets and/or spearheading discussions to arrive at a consensus regarding finalists.
Beyond that, we agreed the award, if it was to carry any significance, would need finalist judges of some standing. I preferred someone outside the publishing business to avoid the appearance of partiality but well informed about speculative fiction. Unfortunately, the people I contacted for that role declined to take part.
So where does that leave the award? Is it over before it actually began?
I'm thinking, this may be the kind of thing that needs to build momentum, to gain in popularity, and thus garner more support as a result. So my current thought is, why not start with a reader award? Not only do readers nominate but readers vote for the three books they want to see in the finals. Then maybe those volunteer judges, if they are still willing to participate, can pick a winner. Or readers can vote again between the three finalists.
We'd need to conduct this contest over several months to get the word out and to give readers time to check out the nominations they haven't yet read.
We'd have to set some ground rules in an effort to curtail popularity voting (I haven't read his book, but I sure like so-and-so, so I'll happily vote for his novel). I can't think of a way to eliminate that sort of thing completely, but if the award becomes linked with "readers" right from the start, it might alleviate campaigning among non-readers.
Some time ago I set up a site for the award as a kind of home base, but with no activity, there's been no real reason to send people there. If you'd like to take a look at it, go to the Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction.
I'm thinking it would be easiest if I started a series of polls to get your feedback, but it's probably better to keep the polls in one place. I'll start by putting them up at A Christian Worldview of Fiction.
I'll also need your help passing the word on to anyone else you know who has interest in this genre and particularly in creating this award. Let me know what questions you have, and we can find out what others are thinking about any number of subjects related to making this award work. If there's still interest in doing so. Which actually is the first question (see the poll at the end of the post).
I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
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Tuesday, June 30. 2009
Jill Williamson wrote:
With all the marketing stuff I've learned over the past few months, my first thought would be to create a place to announce the award. Part of the prestige, I think, comes with the big announcement presented in front of a lot of people with a nice plaque or whatever. If you could create a place where that happens, it would build recognition year after year. So you might partner with one writer's conference in particular that supports the genre best and where you could announce the award each year. Maybe ACFW, since there are a lot of sci fi & fantasy supporters there. Maybe Mount Hermon? I don't know. If there was a committe formed, you could present the proposal to the organization with a request to partner. You would also want to create a professional press kit for the award and send it to all publishers who publish spec fiction. I'm sure publishers would send copies of their books to judges. Judges would also be easy to find through various email groups. You might create a questionaire that questions how many spec fiction books the applicant has read lately or asks specific questions about characters or authors that might help discern whether they actually read the genre.
*shrugs*
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Tuesday, June 30. 2009
Rebecca LuElla Miller wrote:
Well, Jill, it sounds to me like you're volunteering!
The real problem was me trying to set up an award, run a blog tour, start Latest In Spec, oh, and write!
To do all that you say and more is my dream. But I think we need partners. Sponsors. People willing to put time into this. And so far, that's lagged.
But if we start small, gain reader interest, create some internet buzz, I suspect we'll pick up support. In our dreams, we'd like this award to have a fantasy division separate from sci fi, separate from supernatural suspense.
We'd like to have adults separate from YA or middle grade. I'd like to see POD's included—but these are the kinds of things I want to poll others about. Because first we need to find out if this award is something people want to get behind.
Becky
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Monday, July 06. 2009
Jim Black wrote:
Becky,
I have been absent from the web due to extra hours I have been working. Things have settled down and I am now back on a regular schedule.
I would like to help with the Clive Staples Award. Let me know what areas you need help with.
Do you need another person to post on this site? I have done numerous guest posts in the past and would be willing to post on a weekly basis(if needed).
Thank you,
Jim
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Monday, July 06. 2009
Jill Williamson wrote:
I'm happy to help out. A good first step would be to form a committee of people who care about the award. Once you have a committee, then they could email each other about specific ideas. I'm happy to be on such a committee. Do you want authors, agents, readers, editors, a mix? I have a lot of contacts that I could ask to join. Would being on the committee mean that their books, or their company's books, would be ineligible? I wouldn't want to eliminate potential entries as I recruit members.
Thoughts?
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Monday, July 06. 2009
Rebecca LuElla Miller wrote:
Jim and Jill, I will add you both to the list of people volunteering. If we go with the reader poll option this year, I think we will be doing a minimum amount of work.
Yes, one of the problems I felt we needed to get around was involving people whose books or ones they edited would be up for the award.
Again, reader polls would eliminate that problem.
BUT, we haven't received a lot of votes on this topic, and I don't really want to promote an award that is decided by 20 readers or so. We either need to do a better job getting the word out or scrap the award.
I know I haven't taken the time to visit all the SFF hang-outs and talk this up. But that's the thing. If this is only my vision for the genre, or only the vision of a handful of people, then maybe it isn't right or the right time.
Becky
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Thursday, July 09. 2009
Taylor J. Beisler wrote:
Interesting post! Thanks a bunch for the info.
God bless,
Taylor J. Beisler
www.taylorbeisler.com
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ArintSaratir-WarriorsLight.html
www.impossiblewriter.wordpress.com
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Wednesday, March 31. 2010
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