The Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards
The departure of The Cimmerian in early 2009 left a gaping hole in Howard fandom; not only were we used to receiving a bi-monthly publication devoted to Robert E. Howard, we were also surprised two or three times a year with a Cimmerian Library chapbook, yearly slip-cases, and the annual Cimmerian Awards, which honored the best in Howardian scholarship for the previous year. While no other publication has stepped up to match editor Leo Grin’s brainchild, the Robert E. Howard Foundation has decided to pick up the awards concept began in 2005 and continue where they left off.
The Cimmerian Awards:
Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards:
VOTING RULES
Voting is open to all members of the Robert E. Howard Foundation, including Board members, with votes distributed on the following weighted scale:
Supporting Members – 10 votes
Friends of REH – 20 votes
Legacy Circle – 30 votes
The resulting total is the number of votes you have to allocate to each award category. Note that you apply your total votes to each category. For example, if you have 30 total votes, you get to apply 30 votes to the book categories, 30 to the magazine category, 30 to the first place essay, 30 to the second place essay, etc.
Voters can distribute their group of votes any way they wish for each award. You can choose to place all of your votes with a single nominee, or you can spread them among several nominees in that category.
As for categories, The Foundation Awards are sticking with the written word and scholarly subjects. No awards for art, comics, etc. will be given, worthy as they may be of praise. The few exceptions to this are when such works contain true elements of Howardian scholarship; in that case you will find them in the Special Achievement category.
Some categories have years where no viable nominee or winner presents itself. In such cases, no award for that category is given for that year.
Although every effort has been made to find and list all possible nominees for an award, feel free to write-in anything that isn’t on this list, as long as it was first publicly published (i.e. outside of REHupa) during the previous calendar year.
In categories where there is only one nominee, the nominee still needs your vote. Such people require at least a 60% vote of approval to get the award, a benchmark designed to prevent any truly horrible books from winning an award by default, simply because there was nothing else in that category for that year. So for one-nominee categories who you support, assign your votes to them as APPROVE, or withhold your votes with a DISAPPROVE if you do not feel they are deserving of any award. Any returned ballots with nothing written in such categories will be counted as APPROVE.
Voting opens as soon as a list of nominees are posted and announced and closes at the end of March. The winners are then announced at a ceremony during the annual Robert E. Howard Days festival in Texas (held each year on the second weekend in June).
Individual votes are kept in the strictest confidence; only gross aggregate percentages are ever revealed to anyone.
We highly appreciate comments on why you made each vote, which may be used in a future issue of the REHF Newsletter.
Send your ballots to REHFAwards@gmail.com Be sure to include your name with your ballot if you want your votes to count. Voting ends March 31, 2010.
