Theodore Sturgeon Award

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The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is given each year for the best science fiction short story of the year.

The award is in honor of Theodore Sturgeon, the great science fiction writer. It was established in 1987 by James Gunn, Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas where Sturgeon lectured and taught. The award was established in collaboration with the heirs of Sturgeon including his widow Jayne Sturgeon and their children. The award is presented every year in conjunction with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel at the University of Kansas.

The official site of the award describes it as "an appropriate memorial to one of the great short-story writers in a field distinguished by its short fiction."

[edit] Nomination and Judging Process

For its first eight years (1987-1994), the Sturgeon Award was selected by a committee of short-fiction experts headed by Orson Scott Card. Beginning in 1995, the Sturgeon Award became a juried award, with winners selected by a committee composed of James Gunn, Frederik Pohl, and Judith Merril. After the 1996 Award, Judith Merril resigned and was replaced by Kij Johnson, the 1994 Sturgeon winner; in 2005, George Zebrowski joined the jury. Since 1999, one of Sturgeon's children has also participated in this process, usually Noel Sturgeon.

The current jury consists of James Gunn, Kij Johnson, Frederik Pohl, George Zebrowski, and Noel Sturgeon, Theodore Sturgeon's daughter.

Nominations come from a wide variety of science-fiction reviewers and serious readers as well as from the editors who publish short fiction. Nominations are collected during the winter by the Center's Associate Director Christopher McKitterick, who produces a list of finalists based on nominators' rankings. The jury then reads all of the finalists and debates their merits during the spring. The winning author is usually contacted in May and invited to attend the Campbell Conference; the winner often attends the last day or two of the SF Writers Workshop, as well.

The Sturgeon Award is presented during the Campbell Conference Awards Banquet at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, as the focal point of a weekend of discussions about the writing, illustration, publishing, teaching, and criticism of science fiction. Award-winners are listed below by year of publication.