The annual Ignyte Awards, a prize handed out by FIYAHCON to celebrate diverse voices in fantasy and science fiction, saw their third iteration this Saturday.
P. Djèlí Clark has the distinction of being the only author this year to win in two categories, claiming Best Novel: Adult for A Master of Djinn and Best Short Story for “If the Martians have Magic.” Both tales are urban fantasies, albeit with drastically different settings: the former is located in a djinn-filled alternate-history Cairo while the latter takes place in a Martian colony where sundry beings from aliens to minotaurs are accepted aspects of existence. The other two novel categories, covering Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction, were won by Darcie Little Badger’s A Snake Falls to Earth and Eden Royce’s Root Magic respectively.
Shingai Njeri Kagunda’s time travel story And This Is How to Stay Alive won Best Novella, while Peng Shepherd’s tale of twenty-second-century ecology “The Future Library” was named Best Short Story. The prize for Best Anthology/Collected Work went to Neon Hemlock’s We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, and the Best Fiction Podcast category was won by Khōréō Magazine,
One thing that makes the Ignyte Awards stand out is how the categorisation system extends well beyond prose fiction. The title of Best in Speculative Poetry went to Abu Bakr Sadiq’s meditation on police brutality, “Post Massacre Psyche Evaluation.” The Best Creative Nonfiction award was earned by “We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist,” a Fantasy Magazine essay by Vida Cruz on the assumptions and prejudices that go into “Chosen One” narratives. Meanwhile, L. L. McKinney & Robyn Smith won the Best Comics Team award for their work on DC Comics’ Nubia: Real One.
Tor.com columnist Alex Brown won the Critics Award; Morgan Madeline was named Best Artist; the Ember Award (for unsung contributions to genre) went to Tananarive Due; and finally, the Community Award was earned by David Steffen of The Submission Grinder.
