An update regarding the Aurora Awards, received from the CSFFA

Winter is almost over (we hope) and with it the first stage of 2024’s Aurora Awards process. Please see below for specific updates.

In this newsletter:

1. Aurora Award Updates for February 2024
2. An Aurora Awards History Tidbit

Aurora Awards Updates for February 2024Eligibility Lists Close Soon

Depending on when you read this, the lists for this year’s works eligible to be nominated for the 2024 Aurora Awards closes soon.  The lists will be closed at 11:59 pm EST on Saturday, February 24^th.

Over the following week our eligibility team of volunteers will review all works that are still pending.  If you see something that was missed, please email us.  If it is not too late, we will try to add it.

Nominations Open in March

Nominations will open on Saturday, March 2^nd.  CSFFA members have until Saturday, April 6^th at 11:59 pm EST to enter your choices.  One special feature of the nomination process is that you can return as many times as you wish to add or modify your choices.  After our deadline our webmaster will lock all nominations that members have entered.

For those new to the awards, you may enter up to five choices in each category.  Each entry in a category must be unique.  If you submit the same work more than once ALL of them will be voided.  If you accidentally duplicate one you can always use the “blank” record that it at the top of each dropdown list.  Please be careful and review your choices before you submit them. Nominate what you know and enjoyed.

Special request when you nominate or ask others to nominate

Please do NOT ask friends or family to get a membership to just nominate or vote (later) for your works if they are not SF/Fantasy fans.  Members are encouraged to nominate in multiple categories.  The awards are for fans of the genre.  This is not a popularity contest to see who has the largest family.

We want people to get memberships who read Science Fiction, Fantasy, and/or Horror to help us determine the best works that were done last year.

CSFFA Hall of Fame Inductees, 2023

CSFFA has inducted three people into the Hall of Fame, in 2023. Congratulations to John Robert Colombo, Michelle Sagara, and Clifford Samuels for their induction. Thank you to the 2023 Hall of Fame Jury for their work. Here are very brief bios of the inductees (please visit their web sites for more info about them).

John Robert Colombo has been called “the Master Gatherer” for his compilations of Canadiana. He is a member of the Order of Canada and Order of Ontario, and has written, compiled, and translated more books than any other serious Canadian author. More than 200 titles of his books have been published since 1960. http://colombo.ca/

Michelle Sagara has written over 40 fantasy novels and has been nominated twice for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (the award underwent a recent name change). She also has a long running book review column, Musing on Books, for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, with over 50 columns. https://michellesagara.com/

Clifford Samuels is the Aurora Awards Administrator and has been a pillar of support for Calgary fandom for almost four decades, his contribution reaching beyond the city, beyond the province, indeed, beyond the country.

See more at the Hall of Fame page: https://www.csffa.ca/the-csffa-hall-of-fame/

Aurora Awards & CSFFA Updates
for April 2023

In this newsletter:

1. Aurora Awards 2023 Nominations Deadline Imminent
2. CSFFA Board of Directors Vacancy

Aurora Awards 2023

Nominations close on April 22, 2023, at 11:59pm EDT.

Yes, there is still time to get your nominations in for this year’s Aurora Awards. As we always say, nominate what you know and enjoyed. This is your chance to put your selections forward.

You are allowed to nominate up to five works in each of the ten categories. Choose from the list of approved works by Canadian’s in 2022. You don’t have to nominate in all the categories. Here a link to this year’s approved works.

A couple of notes about the nomination process

1. You can change your nominations up until we close nominations on Saturday, April 22nd.
2. Selections on our nomination form are done by using its drop-down lists of approved works.
3. When you put in your nominations you MUST click the SAVE or UPDATE button for each category.
4. When you click the SAVE/UPDATE button, your screen changes to show a message that your selections have been saved instead of your selections. No, your selections have not been lost. If you refresh your screen or leave and come back to this screen your selections will be displayed.
5. If you select something that you don’t want to nominate, just go to the top of the drop-down list and select the first item which is a blank line.
6. Don’t wait until the last day since you can always add or remove items at any time until the deadline.

Payment Note:

If you pay your annual CSFFA dues and the system still will not let you in, DO NOT pay a second time. Wait a little bit and try logging in again. Do not wait days. If after an hour you are still having trouble, then please send us an email through our contact form. Include your PayPal receipt information and we will update your account. If you pay with a PayPal account that has a different email address than your CSFFA account PayPal might not get us the right information to update your account automatically.

Springtime is almost here, and with it the awards process kicks into high gear! The nomination period for this year’s Aurora Awards have opened. This newsletter also features a call for a CSFFA secretary to join the Board. And if you are considering applying to professional development grant, don’t hesitate as there are only a few weeks left. More information below.

In this newsletter:

1. Aurora Awards News: 2023 Nominations Are Open
2. CSFFA Board of Directors Vacancy
3. CSFFA 2023 Professional Development Grant Deadline: March 31st

Aurora Awards 2023: Nominations Are Open

You can now nominate for the 2023 Aurora Awards for works done in 2022. There are ten (10) categories.  You may nominate up to five (5) different works in each category. You do not have nominate in all categories or select five works in a category. Nominate what you know and what you enjoyed. Do NOT nominate the same work more than once. Duplicate entries of the same work will be voided.

Nominations will be open until 11:59pm EDT on April 22nd. At that time your choices will be locked. You must have a paid CSFFA membership to participate (annual membership is $10). Log into your account and click the Nomination icon on the member’s home page.

Note: The top five works by five different nominees will be chosen to be on the final ballot in each category. If a nominee has two works with the same number of nominations in the top five, they will be asked to select one to be on the ballot.

About the nomination form plus a few tricks:

1. The nomination form consists of ten sections (one for each award category)
2. Each section has five lines of drop-down lists of the approved eligible works in the category you are on. You may only nominate works from the drop-down lists.
3. You can enter your selections in any order and if you wish to remove one, select the blank line at the top of each drop-down list.
4. You do not have to nominate in all the categories, and you don’t have to select five works in a category.
5. Do not nominate the same work more than once. Duplicate selections of the same work will be voided.
6. To move through the drop-down lists, you can either use your mouse to scroll down or you can key in the first letter of a work and the list will move to the first work starting with that letter.
7. You can go to the eligibility lists from the members-only page at any time to view what has been approved and use the URL link to look at online information about it.
8. After you have selected works in a category you must click the Save button or your choices will be lost if you leave the nomination form.
9. Each category has its own save button.If you close the form before you Save or Update your changes they will be lost, and you will have to start again.
10. If you refresh your screen or come back to it later your selections will be visible.You may change your choices at any time. Categories that you have already saved works will display Update rather than Save.
11. You may continue to change your choices until we have closed nominations.
12. Nominate what you know and enjoyed. This is your chance to have a say what is on the final ballot. Make it your own choices.

CSFFA Board of Directors Vacancy

Your CSFFA board needs a secretary!

The secretary is a full member of the board, equally participating in discussions and decisions. Meetings are monthly (except December), the last Tuesday of each month (8 p.m. E.S.T.: attendees are in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia.)

Meetings happen via Zoom. Meetings typically last 60 minutes.

Duty of the secretary is to write the minutes of board meetings. In the event that the secretary can not attend a meeting, the meeting is recorded.

Interested? Email president@prixaurorawards.ca

CSFFA Professional Developmental Grant

Grant deadline one is fast approaching! Get your application in by March 31, 2023, 11:59pm MT. In case you missed any of the details you will find them below.

This grant is to enable CSFFA members to pursue education and professional development that helps them expand their skill set. Starting in 2023 we will be awarding a total of $2,500.00 over the year to new writers, writers new to the genre or writers changing focus, for example short story to novel.

This Grant will be awarded to successful a successful applicant or applicants to cover up to 75% of the cost of developmental avenues such as:

• Courses
• Retreats
• Writing software
• A book coach or editorial fees for their first book

There will be two submission windows in 2023. The first is January 1^st to March 31^st, with funds awarded by May 15^th and June 1^st to August 31^st with funds awarded by Oct 15^th.

Funds will be distributed at the discretion of the Board and based upon applications submitted per submission windows until the full amount of the grant is paid out. Any unawarded funds will be distributed at the discretion of the Board or rolled over into the next grant year.

Successful applicants will be contacted by CSFFA and an announcement will be made on our website, newsletter, and/or during the Aurora Awards.

All decisions by the CSFFA Board are final.

Application Submission Guidelines

1. Applicants must be members of CSFFA in good standing.
2. Current Board Members or family members of the selection committee are not eligible for this grant.
3. Former Board members must have vacated their position for a minimum of one year prior to application.
4. Must be a new writer or new to the genre of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative fiction, or any subgenres of these main genres.
5. Must be unpublished or have publications that are less than 50 copies in speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, or any sub genres of these main genres.
6. Provide contact Information
7. A 1,000-word proposal is to be submitted detailing the following:
8. What the endeavour is, along with a description and weblink
9. A timeline for the endeavour (must be less than one year)
10. Expected results from the endeavour
11. A short bio
12. If awarded, the applicant is asked to submit upon completion a 500-word description on the results and experience of the endeavour. The applicant must also be in agreement that their name and or photo will be used on the website, newsletter or both.

Applications must be submitted by 11:59:59 MT on the last day of each submission period. Any late submissions will be automatically transferred to the next submission period for consideration.

Submission of applications are to be made to PublicityCSFFA@gmail.com

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February 2023 CSFFA Newsletter

We at CSFFA hope you have lots of great speculative fiction keeping you company during these winter months. Our February newsletter provides some updates on where we’re at in the annual Aurora Awards cycle, and a nice bit of news on one of the recent Best Novel winners.

In this newsletter:

• Aurora Awards Eligibility Lists Close Soon
• Mexican Gothic featured in CBC’s 2023 Canada Reads contest

Aurora Awards Eligibility Lists Close Soon

This year’s eligibility lists of works that are eligible in the ten Aurora Award categories will close on February 25^th at 11:59 EST (or 8:59 PST in BC). CSFFA members will only be able to nominate works that have been approved on these lists.

We are looking for CSFFA members to help us add works that were first published/done by Canadians in 2022. Works in our eligibility lists will be validated by a team of CSFFA volunteers. If there are issues with any of the approved items, please let us know right away.

Note:  We are no longer giving out an award for movies or TV shows. Works that were in the Best Fan Organizational category are now in the Best Fan Related Work category. Due to a lack of eligible works in past years it was decided to make these changes. Also, we have redefined the Best Artist category so that it is the Best Cover Art/Interior Illustration category. Rather than nominate an artist, members now nominate each work that an artist has had published in the past year.

Nominations for this year’s awards will begin on Saturday, March 4^th.

Membership registration note: Please do not wait until the last few days before a deadline to either signup or renew your CSFFA membership. Once you’ve paid your account should automatically be updated.  If not, do NOT pay a second time. Email us via our contact page to check that your payment did go through.  If you send us your receipt

Mexican Gothic featured in
CBC’s 2023 Canada Reads contest

Congratulations to Silvia Moreno-Garcia and her 2021 Aurora winning novel Mexican Gothic on being named a finalist in this years CBC’s Canada Reads! What an amazing spotlight on Mexican Gothic, we couldn’t be more proud on seeing this wonderful and moving novel brought back into the hearts and hands of Canadians. It is nice to see the work of Silvia Moreno-Garcia showcased and bringing a spotlight to the amazing speculative fiction written right here.

“It’s great to see horror on the CBC Canada Reads list. It’s often considered a minor genre. I’m glad Mexican Gothic is getting renewed attention and I’m eternally grateful to my champion, TikTok creator Tasnim Geedi, who will be representing the book during the competition.”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This year’s CBC Canada Reads, which runs March 27 – 30, 2023 with the theme of novels that will shift your perspective, will have five books represented by five Canadian personalities over four days of passionate debate and discussion with one book being named the one book all Canadians should read. But readers are the true winners with the five books on the short list or the books on the long list, which includes Speculative writer Guy Gavriel Kay, as great recommendations when choosing your next read.

We wish Mexican Gothic and Silvia the best during Canada Reads and in the future. You can join the fun by tuning into Canada Reads this March.