Although the virtual convention FIYAHCON has been on hiatus since 2021, one of its draws has carried on unabated: the annual Ignyte Awards. The 2023 iteration of these awards, which celebrate diverse science fiction and fantasy, took place on Saturday 21 October.
The Ignytes have three novel categories, divided by age range. The category for adult novels was won by N. E. Davenport’s The Blood Trials, the story a magical heroine taking part in gladiatorial combat to solve her grandfather’s murder. Bloodmarked, the second instalment of Tracy Deonn’s neo-Arthurian Legendborn Cycle, took the young adult prize. Finally, Claribel A. Ortega’s Witchlings, a tale of trainee sorceresses, was named Best in Middle Grade.
The winner in the Best Novelette category was John Chu’s “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You.” The tale of a relationship between a gay stage performer and a superhero, this story uses its unusual focus to explore themes of anti-Asian bigotry: the high-flying hero, stereotypically dubbed “The Great Wall” by the media, finds himself graduating from cat-saving antics to confrontations with institutional racism.
The Best Novella category was won by Into the Riverlands, the third volume in Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle, a series that started with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The title of Best Short Story went to “The Lady of the Yellow Painted Library,” a comically creepy (and occasionally gross) tale by Tobi Ogundiran in which a man mislays a book from a supernatural library. The story can be found in the anthology Africa Arisen.
The award for Best Comics Team went to Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger for their work on Where Black Stars Rise. Inspired by the nineteenth-century cosmic horror of Robert W. Chambers, Shammas and Enger’s graphic novel takes place in the present day and focuses on the relationship between a trainee therapist and her first client — whose nightmarish visions may not be in her mind.
Aimee Campbell was named Best Artist. The Best Speculative Poetry category was won by “We Smoke Pollution,” Ai Jiang’s meditation upon industry, the environment and humanity. The winner of Best Fiction Podcast was Black Women Are Scary, a series that was launched in 2020 and is part of a larger endeavour from Dusky Projects with the stated aim of confronting gatekeeping in publishing and media production. Reclaim the Stars, a volume of SF/F stories by seventeen Latin authors, took the prize in the Best Anthology/Collected Works category.
The award for Best Creative Nonfiction went to “Horror in a Country that is Not Afraid of Death,” an instalment in Dante Luiz’s Nightmare column “The H Word.” This essay discusses the atrocities of Bolsonaro’s Brazil and how such real-life horrors are not always reflected in the country’s genre fiction, which seems more interested in emulating Hollywood horror.
The Community Award was won by Flights of Foundry, an annual convention for speculative creators across all media. Flights of Foundry’s fourth iteration took place this April. The winner of the Critics Award was nerds of a feather, flock together, a blog that should need little introduction to those who keep an eye on the SF/F awards scene: it is a regular contender for the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine, which it won in 2021.
Finally, the Ember Award, which honours unsung contributions to genre, went to Afronauts Podcast. Hosted by Jill Tew, Chelsea Gayden and Beatrice Winifred, this was launched in 2021 and bills itself as “The Place for all things Black Speculative Fiction.”
For more information on the Ignyte Awards, see their official page on the FIYAH magazine website.
