| Kitschies | |
| Awarded For: | Literary award |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
The Kitschies are British literary prizes presented annually for "the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic" published in the United Kingdom.
The Kitschies are administered by a non-profit association with the stated mission of "encouraging and elevating the tone of the discussion of genre literature in its many forms".[1] The founders, Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin, said that they sought to bring attention to works with a fantastic or speculative element that are progressive in terms of content and composition.[2]
The award is a juried prize that selects those books which "best elevate the tone of genre literature". Qualifying books must contain "an element of the fantastic or speculative" and have been published in the UK.[3] Winners receive a sum of prize money and a textile tentacle trophy.
The Kitschies are governed by an advisory board of members. They were initially established in 2009 by the website pornokitsch.com. The Kraken Rum was the sponsor between 2010 and 2013. For 2014 and 2015, Fallen London (a creation of UK game developer Failbetter Games) was the sponsor. The award did not run in 2016.[4] From 2017 the sponsor is Blackwell's Bookshop.[5]
, the Kitschies are awarded in five categories:
The judging panels changes annually[6] and the unpaid directors have changed due to workload or illness.[7] The number of submissions has increased from 70 in 2009[8] to a record of 234 in 2013.
For each year, the judges, directors, and the number of submissions for each year are as follows:
| Year | Literary | Art | Natively digital fiction | Award Directors | Submissions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | and Jared Shurin | N/A | N/A | and Anne C. Perry | 70[9] | |
| 2010 | and Jared Shurin | N/A | N/A | and Anne C. Perry | 50[10] | |
| 2011 | , Jared Shurin, Lauren Beukes, and Rebecca Levene | , Craig Kennedy, Catherine Hemelryk, and Darren Banks | N/A | 150[11] | ||
| 2012 | , Rebecca Levene, and Patrick Ness | , Gary Northfield, and Ed Warren | N/A | 211[12] | ||
| 2013 | , Catherine Webb, Will Hill, Anab Jain, and Annabelle Wright | , Sarah Anne Langton, Emma Vieceli, and Craig Kennedy | N/A | 234[13] | ||
| 2014 | , Adam Roberts, Kim Curran, Frances Hardinge, and Glen Mehn | , Dapo Adeola, Jim Kay, and Siân Prime | , James Wallis, Phil van Kemenade, and Clare Reddington | 198[14] | ||
| 2015[15] | , James Smythe, Nazia Khatun, Nikesh Shukla and Glen Mehn | , Regan Warner, Dapo Adeola, and Lauren O'Farrell | , Emily Short, and Rebecca Levene | 176[16] | ||
| 2016 | No award | |||||
| 2017[17] | , Leila Abu El Hawa, Joshua Idehen, Alasdair Stuart, and Ewa Scibor-Rylska | , Sharan Dhaliwal, Jet Purdie, and Stuart Taylor | N/A | and Leila Abu El Hawa | 142[18] | |
| 2018[19] | , Sharan Dhaliwal, Daniel Carpenter, Lucy Smee, and Matt Webb | , Lily Ash Sakula, and Maeve Rutten | N/A | and Leila Abu El Hawa | 178[20] | |
| 2019[21] | , Kirsty Logan, Tasha Suri, Michaela Grey, and Alasdair Stuart | , James Spackman, Kaiya Shang, and Sharan Matharu | N/A | and Anne Perry | 196[22] | |
| 2020[23] | , Clare Rees, Mahvesh Murad, Kaiya Shang, and Daphne Lao Tong | , Fleur Clarke, Claire Richardson, and Jeffrey Alan Love | N/A | and Anne Perry | 177[24] | |
All award information, unless otherwise referenced, is from the Kitschies Award's blog and tumblr, or from the sponsor Blackwell's website.
| 2009 | Won | [25] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Served Cold | Nominated | |||
| (posth.) and Seth Grahame-Smith | Pride and Prejudice and Zombies | |||
| 2010 | Zoo City | Won | [26] | |
| Children's Crusade | Nominated | |||
| Kraken | ||||
| Aurorarama | ||||
| 2011 | and Patrick Ness | Won | [27] | |
| Nominated | ||||
| Embassytown | ||||
| Osama | ||||
| 2012 | Angelmaker | Won | [28] | |
| Nominated | ||||
| Jack Glass | ||||
| 2013 | Won | [29] | ||
| Red Doc | Nominated | |||
| More Than This | ||||
| Bleeding Edge | ||||
| 2014 | Grasshopper Jungle | Won | [30] | |
| Lagoon | Nominated | |||
| 2015 | Won | [31] | ||
| Europe at Midnight | Nominated | 3" /> | ||
| 2016 | No awards held | [32] | ||
| 2017 | Won | [33] | ||
| , translated by L. Seegers | Fever | Nominated | 4" /> | |
| City of Circles | ||||
| We See Everything | ||||
| Black Wave | ||||
| 2018 | Circe | Won | [34] | |
| Record of a Spaceborn Few | Nominated | |||
| Rosewater | ||||
| Unholy Land | ||||
| 2019 | Won | [35] | ||
| and Max Gladstone | This Is How You Lose the Time War | Nominated | 3" /> | |
| Always North | ||||
| From the Wreck | ||||
| 2020 | Piranesi | Won | [36] | |
| Nominated | ||||
| 2021 | No awards held | |||
| 2022 | Won | |||
| Black Water Sister | Nominated | |||
| , trans. by Sean Lin Halbert | ||||
| Bear Head | ||||
| Year | Author | Nominated Work | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Not awarded | |||
| 2010 | King Maker | Won | ||
| 2011 | God's War | Won | ||
| Among Thieves | Nominated | |||
| Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children | ||||
| 2012 | Redemption in Indigo | Won | ||
| vN | Nominated | |||
| Panopticon | ||||
| Seraphina | ||||
| 2013 | Ancillary Justice | Won | ||
| Nominated | ||||
| Stray | ||||
| Nexus | ||||
| Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore | ||||
| 2014 | Viper Wine | Won | ||
| Nominated | ||||
| Memory of Water | ||||
| 2015 | Making Wolf | Won | ||
| Blackass | Nominated | 3" /> | ||
| 2016 | No awards held | |||
| 2017 | Hunger Makes the Wolf | Won | ||
| Age of Assassins | Nominated | 4" /> | ||
| How Saints Die | ||||
| Mandelbrot the Magnificent | ||||
| 2018 | Frankenstein in Baghdad | Won | ||
| Children Of Blood and Bone | Nominated | |||
| Semiosis | ||||
| Sweet Fruit, Sour Land | ||||
| 2019 | Jelly | Won | ||
| My Name Is Monster | Nominated | 3" /> | ||
| She Would Be King | ||||
| Wilder Girls | ||||
| 2020 | Won | |||
| Sharks in the Time of Saviours | Nominated | |||
| Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line | ||||
| Raybearer | ||||
| 2021 | No awards held | |||
| 2022 | Temporary | Won | ||
| Composite Creatures | Nominated | |||
| Several People Are Typing | ||||
| Winter's Orbit | ||||
| Iron Widow | ||||
| Year | Work | Author | Artist(s) | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Not awarded | ||||
| 2010 | Not awarded | ||||
| 2011 | (designer) | Won | |||
| Rivers of London | (illus.) and Patrick Knowles (deisgn) | Nominated | |||
| (design) and John Spencer (illus.) | |||||
| Equations of Life | (design) | ||||
| and Siobhan Dowd | (illus.) | ||||
| 2012 | (illus.) | Won | |||
| La Boca (design) | Nominated | ||||
| (illus.) | |||||
| Costume Not Included | (illus.) | ||||
| Flame Alphabet | (design) | ||||
| 2013 | (art) | Won | |||
| Dreams and Shadows | (design and illus.) | Nominated | |||
| Homeland and Pirate Cinema | Amazing15 (design) | ||||
| Stray | (art) | ||||
| Apocalypse Now Now | (art) | ||||
| 2014 | Tigerman | (cover) | Won | ||
| (design) | Nominated | ||||
| (cover) | |||||
| Through the Woods | and Sonja Chaghatzbanian (cover) | ||||
| and Yehring Tong (cover) | |||||
| 2015 | (art direction and design) | Won | |||
| (design) | Nominated | 3" /> | |||
| Monsters | (art design) and Patrick Leger (illus.) | ||||
| (design and illus.) | |||||
| Get in Trouble | |||||
| 2016 | No awards held | ||||
| 2017 | and the Simon & Schuster Art Department (cover) | Won | |||
| (illus.) | Nominated | 4" /> | |||
| Black Wave | (illus.) and Hannah Naughton (design) | ||||
| Black Sheep (illus. and jacket design) | |||||
| Our Memory like Dust | (design) | ||||
| 2018 | Killing Commendatore | (cover) | Won | ||
| (design) | Nominated | ||||
| (design) | |||||
| Square Eyes | and Luke Jones | and Luke Jones (design) | |||
| Slender Man | Anonymous | (design) | |||
| 2019 | (cover) | Won | |||
| Across The Void | (cover) | Nominated | 3" /> | ||
| (cover) | |||||
| Zed | Faber & Faber (cover) | ||||
| This Is How You Lose the Time War | and Max Gladstone | (cover) | |||
| 2020 | (cover) and Dexter Maurer (illus.) | Won | |||
| Little Eyes | (cover) | Nominated | |||
| Monstrous Heart | (cover) | ||||
| (cover) and Amy Judd (illus.) | |||||
| (cover) | |||||
| 2021 | No awards held | ||||
| 2022 | (art and design) | Won | [37] | ||
| Nightbitch | Nominated | ||||
| Velvet Was the Night | |||||
| Iron Widow | |||||
| Year | Author / Developer | Nominated Work | Form of Media | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Cardboard Computer written by Jake Elliott | Kentucky Route Zero Act III | video game | Won | |
| and others | @echovirus12 | Twitter fiction | Nominated | ||
| Inkle Studios written by Meg Jayanth and Jon Ingold, directed by Joseph Humfrey and Jon Ingold | 80 Days | video game | |||
| Simogo | Sailor’s Dream | video game | |||
| 2015 | Dontnod Entertainment | Life Is Strange | video game | Won | |
| Arcadia | interactive novel | Nominated | 3" /> | ||
| @FrogCroakley | Daniel Barker’s Birthday | Twitter fiction | |||
| BBC Writers Room | The Last Hours of Laura K | ||||
| / FromSoftware | Bloodborne | video game |
This award was called "Black Tentacle" until 2020, when it was renamed in memory of Kitschies co-founder Glen Mehn.[38] [7]
| Year | Winner | Citation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | No award | ||
| 2010 | Memory, novel by Donald Westlake. | "to recognize a novel that doesn't quite fit the award description but is so exceptional it merits the highest praise...noir, pure and simple, by a master of the genre … while we're sorry that Memory went unpublished while Westlake was alive, we're delighted that Hard Case brought the manuscript to light"[39] | |
| 2011 | SelfMadeHero, comics publisher | "for their 2011 body of work and their contribution to elevating geek culture"[40] | |
| 2012 | Lavie Tidhar, Charles Tan, and Sarah Newton | "for the World SF Blog, a website showcasing international speculative fiction"[41] | |
| 2013 | Malorie Blackman, British writer, Children's Laureate for 2013 | "for outstanding achievement in encouraging and elevating the conversation around genre literature"[42] [43] | |
| 2014 | Sarah McIntyre, author and illustrator | "for tireless work to promote the rights of artists and to encourage others to value their work"[44] | |
| 2015 | The genre community, personified by Patrick Ness | "for its response to the humanitarian refugee crisis"Ness began a fund that raised over £690,000 for Save the Children[45] [46] | |
| 2016 | No awards held | ||
| 2017 | No award | ||
| 2018 | |||
| 2019 | Nazia Khatun, Claire North, and Leila Abu El Hawa | "for services to the SF/F community."[47] | |
| 2020 | Simon Key of the Big Green Bookshop in Hastings | "demonstrated extraordinary generosity and selflessness to readers, introducing and running his "Buy a Stranger a Book" initiative every Wednesday to allow readers to access books at a time that even libraries were closed."[48] [49] | |
| 2021 | No awards held | ||
| 2022 | Comma Press | "for their remarkable 'book of' and +100 series of anthologies" | |