The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are given to works of science fiction, fantasy and horror that explore LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) topics in a positive way. They were founded in 1998, first presented by the Gaylactic Network in 1999, and in 2002 they were given their own organization, the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards Foundation.[1]
Awards are given in categories for novels, short fiction and best other work, although in some years the award for short fiction has not been presented due to lack of sufficient nominees or no nominee of high enough quality. Other categories have also been added and removed in intervening years, and works produced before the inception of the awards are eligible to be inducted into the "Hall of Fame". The short fiction category is open to submissions of short written works released during the prior calendar year in North America that includes "significant positive GLBT content". The long list of nominees is reduced to a short list of finalists, and the results are generally announced and presented at Gaylaxicon, a convention dedicated to LGBT science fiction, although they have also been presented at Worldcon in the past.[2] [3] This article lists all the "Best short fiction" award nominees and winners, and short fiction hall of fame inductees.[4]
Each award consists of an etched image on lucite on a stand, using a spiral galaxy in a triangle logo, which is based on the logo the Gaylactic Network. The award winner's name, work title, award year and award category are etched on a small plaque on the base or on the plexiglass itself. A small cash stipend is awarded to winners in the Best Short Fiction category. The cost of the awards is paid for through individual donations and fundraising events.[4]
Steve Berman has the record for most nominations, having been a finalist four times without winning. No writer has won the short fiction award more than once.[5] Per Locus, the most recent short fiction award was given in 2010.[6]
In the following table, the years correspond to the year of the award ceremonies; the books were released in the preceding years. Entries with a lavender background have won the relevant award; those with a white background are the finalist nominees. Superscript letters after the result indicate simultaneous nominations in other categories.
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Published in | Publisher | Result | Ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | — | — | — | NA | [7] | ||
| 2000 | "Dapple" | Asimov's SF 09/99 | Bantam | Won | |||
| 2000 | "Chanoyu" | Asimov's SF 03/99 | Bantam | Nom | |||
| 2000 | Novella | Eidolon | Nom | ||||
| 2001 | — | — | — | NA | [8] | ||
| 2001 | "Oracle" | Asimov's SF 07/00 | Bantam | Nom | |||
| 2002 | "Kindred" | Bending the Landscape Horror | Overlook | Won | [9] | ||
| 2002 | Strange Horizons & Trysts | Lethe Press | Nom | ||||
| 2002 | See Dick Deconstruct | Attagirl Press | Nom | ||||
| 2002 | "If On A Moonlit Night" | Realms of Fantasy 12/01 | Sovereign Media | Nom | |||
| 2002 | "Love On A Stick" | Bending the Landscape Horror | Overlook | Nom | |||
| 2002 | "Passing" | Bending the Landscape Horror | Overlook | Nom | |||
| 2002 | "Shiomah's Land" | Asimov's SF 03/01 | Bantam | Nom | |||
| 2002 | "Soul of Light" | Sextopia | Circlet Press | Nom | |||
| 2002 | "Triangle" | Bending the Landscape Horror | Overlook | Nom | |||
| 2003 | "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland" | Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #11 | Small Beer Press | Won | [10] | ||
| 2003 | "Bugcrush" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp Press | Nom | |||
| 2003 | "For the Mortals Among Us" | Mind & Body | Circlet Press | Nom | |||
| 2003 | "Night of the Werepuss" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom | |||
| 2003 | "Polyphemus' Cave" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom | |||
| 2003 | "Till Human Voices Wake Us" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom | |||
| 2003 | "Unspeakable" | Strange Horizons | Strangehorizons.com | Nom | |||
| 2004 | "Lark Till Dawn, Princess" | Mojo: Conjure Stories | Warner Aspect | Won | [11] | ||
| 2004 | "Down With the Lizards and the Bees" | Realms of Fantasy 08/03 | Sovereign Media | Nom | |||
| 2004 | Silver Gryphon | Golden Gryphon | Nom | ||||
| 2004 | "Kiss" | X-Factor 10/03 | Magazine | Nom | |||
| 2004 | "Living With the Harpy" | Strange Horizons | Strangehorizons.com | Nom | |||
| 2004 | "Poison" | Strange Horizons | Strangehorizons.com | Nom | |||
| 2004 | Land/Space | Tesseract | Nom | ||||
| 2004 | Mojo: Conjure Stories | Warner Aspect | Nom | ||||
| 2004 | "Walking Contradiction" | Imaginings: An Anthology of Long Short Fiction | Pocket Books | Nom | |||
| 2005 | "Country People" | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Won | [12] | ||
| 2005 | "At the Roots of the World Tree" | Kenoma | E-zine | Nom | |||
| 2005 | "Hold Back The Night" | Open Space | Red Deer | Nom | |||
| 2005 | "Kissing Frogs" | Fantasy & Science Fiction 05/04 | Spilogale Inc | Nom | |||
| 2005 | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Nom | ||||
| 2005 | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Nom | ||||
| 2005 | "Pervert" | Fantasy & Science Fiction 03/04 | Spilogale Inc | Nom | |||
| 2005 | "Rabbit Rerun" | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Nom | |||
| 2005 | "Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese" | With her Body | Aqueduct | Nom | |||
| 2006 | (nominees carried over to next year) | — | — | — | NA | [13] | |
| 2007 | "In the Quake Zone" | Down These Dark Spaceways | SFBC | Won (joint) | [14] | ||
| 2007 | "Instinct" | Arsenal Pulp | Won (joint) | ||||
| 2007 | Realms of Fantasy | Sovereign Media | Won (joint) | ||||
| 2007 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom | |||||
| 2007 | "Bones Like Black Sugar" | Fantasy magazine | Prime | Nom | |||
| 2007 | Helix SF 08/06 | Helix | Nom | ||||
| 2007 | "Caught by Skin" | Sex in the System | Thunder's Mouth | Nom | |||
| 2007 | "Facing Down Your Demons" | All Hell Breaking Loose | DAW | Nom | |||
| 2007 | "Fairy Tale Ending" | Tales from the Asylum | From the Asylum | Nom | |||
| 2007 | "Obscure Relations" | Arsenal Pulp | Nom | ||||
| 2007 | "Plums" | Shifting Again | Torquere | Nom | |||
| 2007 | "Sleeping Bears Lie" | Shifting Too | Torquere | Nom | |||
| 2007 | Call of the Dark | Bella Books | Nom | ||||
| 2007 | "There's A Hole In The City" | SciFiction | SciFi.Com | Nom | |||
| 2007 | "Voce" | Sleeping Beauty, Indeed | Torquere | Nom | |||
| 2007 | "We Recruit" | Stake Through the Heart | Bella | Nom | |||
| 2008 | "Ever So Much More Than Twenty" | So Fey | Lethe Press | Won | [15] | ||
| 2008 | "Prime Suspect" | eBook | Total-E-Bound | Nom | |||
| 2008 | "Bittersweet" | Journal of Mythic Arts | Endicott Studio | Nom | |||
| 2008 | So Fey | Nom | |||||
| 2008 | Cassandra Clare & Ruby deBrazier | "Charming, A Tale of True Love" | So Fey | Nom | |||
| 2008 | "Side Effects" | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom | |||
| 2008 | eBook | Phaze | Nom | ||||
| 2008 | So Fey | Lethe Press | Nom | ||||
| 2008 | "Dividing the Sustain" | New Space Opera | Eos | Nom | |||
| 2008 | "Dancing on the Head of a Pin" | eBook | Torquere | Nom | |||
| 2008 | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom | ||||
| 2008 | "Medusa's Touch" | Crave: Tales of Lust, Love, and Longing | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2008 | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom | ||||
| 2008 | "Were" | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom | |||
| 2009 | (nominees carried over to next year) | — | — | — | NA | ||
| 2010 | "The Behold of the Eye" | Lone Star Stories/Wilde Stories 2009 | Lethe Press | Won (joint) | |||
| 2010 | "The Rocky Side of the Sky" | Periphery | Lethe Press | Won (joint) | |||
| 2010 | "Angels Alone" | Periphery | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "Behind the Curtain" | Dark Horizons Issue 52/Wilde Stories 2009 | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "The Bloomsbury Nudes" | Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet | Dark Scribe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "City of the Dead" | Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "Firooz and His Brother" | Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May 2008/Wilde Stories | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver" | Fist of the Spider Woman | Arsenal Pulp Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "I Am the Shadow That Walks There" | Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet | Dark Scribe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "I'm Your Violence" | Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet | Dark Scribe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "In Circles" | Fist of the Spider Woman | Arsenal Pulp Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "In the Night Street Baths" | Lace and Blade - Norilana Books/Wilde Stories 2009 | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "One Horse Town" | Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "Parts" | Wired Hard 4 | Circlet Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "Remember" | Tangle | Blind Eye Books | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "The Succession of Knoorikios Khnum" | Wired Hard 4 | Circlet Press | Nom | |||
| 2010 | "Waiting Tables and Time" | Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades | Lethe Press | Nom | |||
| 2011 - | — | — | — | NA |
In the following table, the years correspond to the year of the award ceremonies; the works were all first published before the founding of the awards in 1998. As of 2008, one short story has been inducted into the Hall of Fame: