CSFFA Hall of Fame – Nominees

For more information about the Hall of Fame, please visit the Hall of Fame home page.

Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong “I’ve been telling stories since before I could write. My earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, mine would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to my teachers’ dismay. All efforts to make me produce “normal” stories failed. Today, I continue to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in my basement writing dungeon.” – Kelley Armstrong – A Canadian writer, primarily of fantasy novels since 2001, she has published thirty-one fantasy novels to date, thirteen in her Women of the Otherworld series, five in her Cainsville series, two in her Rockton series, three in her Darkest Powers series, three in her Darkness Rising trilogy and three in the Age of Legends series, and three stand-alone teen thrillers. She has also published three middle-grade fantasy novels in the Blackwell Pages trilogy, with co-author Melissa Marr. As well, she is the author of three crime novels, the Nadia Stafford trilogy. She has also written several serial novellas and short stories for the Otherworld series, some of which are available free from her website. She likes programming. Kelley currently lives in Ontario. <http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com> Kelley Armstrong was born on 14 December 1968, the oldest of four siblings in a “typical middle-class family” in Sudbury, Ontario. After graduating with a degree in psychology from The University of Western Ontario, Armstrong then switched to studying computer programming at Fanshawe College so she would have time to write. Her first novel Bitten was sold in 1999, and it was released in 2001. Following her first success she has written a total of 13 novels and a number of novellas in the world of the Women of the Otherworld series, and her first crime novel, Exit Strategy, was released July 2007. Armstrong has been a full-time writer and parent since 2002. Her novel No Humans Involved was a New York Times bestseller in the hardback fiction category on 20 May 2007. Also, her YA novel The Awakening was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller in the Children’s Chapter books category on 17 May 2009. Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series is part of a recently popular contemporary fantasy subgenre of the fantasy genre that superimposes supernatural characters upon a backdrop of contemporary North American life, with strong romantic elements. Within that subgenre, she is notable for including many types of supernatural characters, including witches, sorcerers, werewolves, necromancers, ghosts, shamans, demons and vampires, rather than limiting herself primarily to a single type of supernatural creature. Most of her works have a mystery genre plot, with leading characters investigating some novel situation or unsolved question. In the Otherworld novels, most supernatural powers are either hereditary, or arise from the act of an existing supernatural of the same type. The Otherworld, while it has overarching conflicts and plotlines that span multiple novels is not an epic battle between good and evil. The novels are largely episodic with the continuing plotlines primarily involving the developing lives of the main characters. Her contemporary fantasy writings share genre similarities with writers Charlaine Harris, Laurell K Hamilton, Kim Harrison and Charles de Lint.

Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder “I’m a member of the Association of Professional Futurists  with my own consultancy, and am also currently Chair of the Canadian node of the Millennium Project, a private/public foresight consultancy active in 50 nations. As well, I am an award-winning author with ten published novels translated into as many languages. I write, give talks, and conduct workshops on numerous topics related to the future, including:

  • Future of government
  • Bitcoin and digital currencies
  • The workplace in 2030
  • The Internet of Things
  • Augmented cognition”

Like A.E. van Vogt, Karl comes from rural. He is a multi-Aurora award winner along with numerous other nominations and awards. Karl is one of the few hard-SF authors in Canada bringing new and inventive ideas dealing with technology and humanity. His stories are huge in scale and in popularity with Canadian and international readers. A full bio can be found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Schroeder http://www.kschroeder.com/

Lynda Williams

Lynda Williams I am pleased to nominate Lynda Williams for the CSFFA Hall of Fame. I think you will agree that her longstanding contributions to science fiction, as a writer and an innovator in reader engagement, qualify her for this award. She is a tireless promoter of good writing, involves and mentors new writers and artists, hosts workshops, attends cons and other venues and contributes generously and passionately to the field – as well as maintaining her regular job as a full-time e-learning expert at Simon Fraser University, and a part-time job teaching at the BC Institute of Technology. We don’t know how she does it, but we are happy she has the energy and enthusiasm to make all this work!

Hubert Rogers

Hubert Rogers (1898-1982) was a Canadian illustrator/painter perhaps best known today for cover paintings for Astounding Science Fiction, generally considered the cream of the pulp Sci-Fi crop, thanks to its (1937-1971) editor John W. Campbell.

Regarding Rogers, this source mentions:

“In 1925 he moved to New York City to study with Dean Cornwell at the Art Students League.”

“In 1931 the financial hardship of the Great Depression lead him to abandon city life. He drove an Indian motorcycle to Taos, New Mexico, where he worked within a community of artists that were as passionate about modern landscape painting as the Canadian ‘Group of Seven.’”

But he returned to New York in 1936 after he got an increasing number of assignments. Rogers moved back to Canada in 1942 where he did illustrations to help the war effort. He moved to Vermont in 1947.

Rogers was a competent illustrator who has to drop into working for “pulp” (cheap, low-quality paper) magazines to help get through the Great Depression. This is a slightly different career path than that for some slightly younger illustrators who had to start their career in pulps and then tried to claw their way to more respectable and better paying clients.

Hubert Rogers was born in Prince Edward Island, Canada. He was educated at Acadia University, Nova Scotia, attended the Toronto Technical School, the New Toronto Central Technical School, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

He began his professional career in New York in 1925. His first SF cover art was for the February 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and he became the premier illustrator for Astounding from 1939-1942 (painting 58 covers and numerous interior illustrations for 60 issues of the magazine between 1939-1956). In Mike Ashley’s The Complete Index to Astounding/Analog, Rogers is cited as ASF’s third most prolific cover artist (after Freas and Schoenherr) during the magazine’s first fifty years.

His cover painting for the story “Fury” by Lawrence O’Donnell (Henry Kuttner and wife C. L. Moore) in the May 1947 issue of Astounding is considered by many to be his finest work. Rogers also contributed art to Unknown (the fantasy “companion” magazine to Astounding), Super Science Stories, and other pulp magazines. He continued to appear in Astounding, off and on, until 1956, illustrating many of the classic SF stories by Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Robert Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Wilmar H. Shiras, E. E. “Doc” Smith, A. E. van Vogt, Jack Williamson, and others.

He also did the dust jackets for Heinlein’s early books from Shasta Publishers: The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950), The Green Hills of Earth (1951), and Revolt in 2100 (1953). He left the SF/fantasy field in the 1950s to become a portrait painter in Canada. As late as 1999 his art was being used for the covers of classic SF works, including a reprint edition of A. E. van Vogt’s The War Against the Rull. Many of his original covers for Astounding are in a private museum collection in Canada. The UMass Amherst Library hosted an exhibit of his art from December 3, 2006, through January 31, 2007, in the Special Collections and Archives of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. There was also a special exhibit of his work at Boskone 44 in 2007.

More – <http://www.scifiguy.ca/2008/07/hubert-rogers-1898-1982.html>
<https://artcontrarian.blogspot.com/2016/03/hubert-rogers-sci-fi-pulps-and-much-more.html>

Karl Johanson

Karl Johanson, born in Victoria BC in 1962, has been a part of fandom since 1979, beginning with joining a Star Trek group in Victoria, BC, then SFAV (Science Fiction Association of Victoria), and not long after UVic Science Fiction Association. Karl contributed and edited club zines, and encouraged others to do likewise. He was an instigator and a joiner in all types of fan activities. Karl helped organize and run events/conventions in Victoria.

He promoted the Aurora Awards from their start, and encouraged nomination and voting participation. Karl has been a presenter at Aurora ceremonies, and he convinced Al Harlow, lead singer for Prism, to present the music award in 2014. He’s posted videos of some of the Aurora ceremonies.

Karl was one of the major players in the creation of “The Dawn of the Living Socks” movie, which debuted at Imagine Con in 1982. He encouraged and convinced numerous fans, friends, co-workers and family members to participate in the project.

Karl was instrumental in the 1989 “Worldcon at Myles Bos’ House” bid, with John Herbert, Bernie Klassen, Paula Johanson, Dan Cawsey, and, of course, Myles Bos. Buttons were created, numerous flyers, and even hats. The bid became such a popular joke bid that total strangers were copying and distributing the flyers at conventions in Canada, the USA, the UK, and Australia. The bid basically went viral before going viral was a thing.

In 1992, Karl Johanson and John Herbert started and co-edited the fanzine “Under the Ozone Hole”. They won four Aurora Awards in the category Fan Achievement (publication), in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996.

In 2003 Karl and Stephanie Johanson started “Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine”. The publication was nominated eight times for the Aurora Award in the category English Other, and won in 2007 and 2009. Karl is co-owner, editor, science writer, reviewer, layout manager, and artist for, Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine. http://www.neo-opsis.ca/Covers

Karl is a writer of science fiction:

  • “PIONeers” published in Sci Phi Journal # 1.
  • “The Airlock Scene” published in Here be Monsters: 7, and in Polar Borealis 1.
  • “Frats & Cheers” published in On Spec magazine Fall 2012.
  • “When Every Song Reminds You of a Dead Universe” published in Perihelion Spring 2013.
  • “Piece of History” published in On Spec.
  • “We Never Went to Mars” published in issue 3 of Polar Borealis. 2017.
  • “Had a Life, Didn’t Like it, Went Back to Watching Star Trek” published in issue 5 of Polar Borealis 2017.
  • “The Glow Around My House” published in issue 6 of Polar Borealis 2018.
  • “Hate Doesn’t Always Come Easy” published in issue 11 of Polar Borealis 2019.

Karl is a poet:

  • “Burning Rosemary” Polar Borealis #6.
  • “The Sound of a Rasp on Stone” Neo-opsis #26.

Karl is a Filker, originally singing in the back of 2 ½ ton army trucks, then later in fandom. A couple examples can be seen on YouTube.

Karl is an artist, having done covers and interior illustrations for publications such as Neo-opsis, Polar Borealis, and Under the Ozone Hole.

Karl is a YouTuber with 397 videos as of July 2019. Many of his YouTube videos are science fiction related, including some of the Really Short Science Fiction series:

https://www.youtube.com/user/KarlJohanson42

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9A35A4D477525C3E (SF videos)

Karl has been a computer game designer and Quality Assurance Lead, working on numerous educational, fantasy, and science fiction related titles, for: Disney Interactive 1996-2003, Writer / Designer / QA (More than 50 million units sold.); Sanctuary Woods Multimedia 1994 – 1996, Writer / Designer / QA; and Hidden Path Entertainment 2007, Writer. Notable titles include The Riddle of Master Lu, Orion Burger, Hades’ Challenge, and Treasure Planet: The Battle at Procyon.

Karl has been a panellist on a wide variety of topics for many conventions and other events from 1980 to the present, including but not limited to: Arca 45672 podcast Launch 2019 (Victoria, BC); Banffcon 1993 (Banff, AB); Conversion 13, 20, 21, 22, 23 (Calgary, AB); GottaCon 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 (Victoria, BC); Imagine1980 (Victoria, BC); Keycon 2010, 2016 (Winnipeg, MN); Main Street Literary Tour 2009. (Vancouver BC) 2009; Noncon 15. (Vancouver, BC); Norwescon 15, 16, 27 (Seattle, WA); Tsukino-Con 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018. (Victoria, BC); V-Con 14, 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. (Vancouver, BC); Westercon 1992 in Vancouver, 2005 in Calgary; When Words Collide 2012 (Calgary, AB); World Fantasy Con 2008 (Calgary, AB); Worldcon 1994 in Winnipeg, 2003 in Toronto, and 2009 in Montreal.

Karl has been a contributor to the fanzines: BCSFAzine, Canadadapa, Fosfax, Neology, Novoid, Phoenix, From the Ashes, The Central Ganglion, The Maple Leaf Rag, Trekadda (former editor), Raspberry Drinkzine (former editor), Worldcon 89 at Myles Bos’ House bid flier and update flyers, Under the Ozone Hole, and others.

Comments about Karl

  • “Karl Johanson is a natural at public speaking, holding a room captive without needing to lock the doors. Karl’s extensive experience and confidence in his areas of expertise combine to provide an enjoyable guest at any function.”-Virginia O’Dine (Publisher, Bundoran Press Publishing House.)
  •  “Karl is a profoundly sensible person, and has the sort of insight that often allows him to change people’s lives with a single remark. He’s easy-going, upbeat, and thoughtful public speaker, and an entertaining raconteur. He loves science and science fiction and has a wide-ranging knowledge that makes him the Swiss-Army Knife of panelists. And he is, of course, one hell of an editor.”-Professor Robert Runté
  • “Karl is extremely well spoken. You can tell he always comes to a panel well prepared.”-Sandra Wickham (Writer)
  • “I must say that you were great in your panels (at VCON 2004 IN Vancouver), both motivational and insightful. You merge solid science with a wonderful crazy wit that wakes up the audience and buoys up other panellists. “-Nina Munteanu (Writer / Vcon programming director)
  • “Everybody totally loved having you there. You were friendly, approachable, funny and helpful.”-Amanda Brandt (KeyCon 33 convention committee member)
  • “Johanson’s sense of humour, evident in both of his columns (issue 1 of Neo-opsis). If I had to put a label to that sense of humour, I’d call it mainstream geek: two parts Jerry Lewis, one part Richard Feynman, a pinch of Firesign Theater and a twist of aggressive oddity.”-Jeremy Lyon (Reviewer)
  •  “Who knew Karl could sing?”-Julie Czerneda (Writer and fellow Guest of Honour at KeyCon 33)

Gordon R. Dickson

Gordon R. Dickson at Minicon 8, 1974

Dickson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1937. He served in the United States Army, from 1943 to 1946, and received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota, in 1948. From 1948 through 1950 he attended the University of Minnesota for graduate work.

His first published speculative fiction was the short story “Trespass!”, written jointly with Poul Anderson, in the Spring 1950 issue of Fantastic Stories Quarterly (ed. Sam Merwin), the inaugural number of Fantastic Story Magazine as it came to be titled. Next year three of his solo efforts were published by John W. Campbell in Astounding Science Fiction and one appeared in Planet Stories. Anderson and Dickson also inaugurated the Hoka series with “The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch” (Other Worlds Science Stories, May 1951).
Dickson’s series of novels include the Childe Cycle and the Dragon Knight. He won three Hugo awards and one Nebula award.

For a great part of his life, he suffered from the effects of asthma. He died of complications from severe asthma.

John Clute has characterized Dickson as a “gregarious, engaging, genial, successful man of letters”, who had not been an introvert. Clute considers Dickson a science fiction romantic. Nevertheless, Clute stresses in connection to Dickson that science fiction welcomes “images of heightened solitude, romantically vague, limitless landscapes, and an anguished submission to afflatus”, due to its origin in Gothic fiction.
Clute points out that Dickson, like Poul Anderson, with whom he collaborated in the Hoka series, “[tends] to infuse an austere Nordic pathos into wooded, rural midwestern American settings”. His works often have mercenaries as their protagonists and deal with aliens that are “less deracinated and more lovable than humans”. They “are inclined to take on a heightened, sagalike complexion” particularly through the insertion of lyric poetry that is sometimes rather inferior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_R._Dickson
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Gordon_R._Dickson

Robert Priest

The CSFFA Hall of Fame has not inducted a poet yet. Above and beyond that, Robert Priest is deserving of the honour. He is Canada’s premiere speculative poet, with over four decades of excellent poetry to show for it. He has received many awards, and accolades, and has produced a wealth of creative arts, from poetry, fiction, sound recordings, plays, storybooks.

From Robert Priests’s BIO:

A literary poet in the tradition of Neruda and Mayakovsky, a composer of lush love poems, a singer-songwriter, a widely quoted aphorist, a children’s poet and novelist, Robert Priest is a mainstay of the literary/spoken word/music circuit both in Canada and abroad.

His words have been quoted in the Farmer’s Almanac, debated in the Ontario Legislature, sung on Sesame Street, posted in Toronto’s transit system, broadcast on MuchMusic, released on numerous CDs, quoted by politicians, and widely published in textbooks and anthologies.

About some of the awards Robert Priest has received (from his bio):

Gold Moonbeam Award for children’s poetry 2017
Our Choice Award for children’s novel 2016
Silver Moonbeam Award for children’s poetry 2013
Rosa Rose awarded Book of Honour in The Lion and Unicorn Award for Poetry in the Americas 2013
Poet of Honour Award Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2011
Chalmer’s Award, Theatre for Young Audiences, 1998
Our Choice Award for picture book Children’s Book Centre 1994
Socan Airplay Award, 1994
Our Choice Award, for children’s novel Children’s Book Centre, 1993
The Milton Acorn Memorial People’s Poetry Award, 1989

His work includes:

11 poetry collections including Blue Pyramids: Selected Poems, ECW Press 2002.
8 books of poetry for children
5 novels and storybooks for children and young adults, including The Paper Sword
4 plays, including Knights of the Endless Day
9 sound recordings
4 song recordings for children
7 video performances and web platforms
6 TV and Videos for children

FESTIVALS WHERE ROBERT PRIEST HAS PERFORMED (from his bio)

Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, The Canadian Festival of the Spoken Word in Toronto and Festival Voix d’Amerique in Montreal. He has also delivered the word at the Overload Festival in Melbourne Australia, the Kacat Kabaret in Budapest, the Free the Word Festival in Stockholm Sweden, the International Authors Festival in Toronto, the Cambridge Festival, The Vancouver Writer’s Festival, The Winnipeg Writer’s Festival, The Acorn Festival, the Mariposa Folk Festival, the Hillside Festival, The Eaglewood Folk Festival, The Ottawa Literary Festival, Eden Mills Festival, the Leacock Festival, the Berkley Slam, the Couchiching Think Tank and Toronto’s North by North East, Mariposa 2012.

WHAT UGLY IS

    i put on a man mask
    and went among the people of earth
    in search of what
    ugly
    means

    many years the word had troubled
    me, as i listened
    over and over
    to some of the approximately
    four billion
    mouth sounds
    which these
    animals
    make

    beauty i had come to understand
    in stars
    in eyes
    the silver lapping of the oceans there
    but ugly
    what did it mean?

    unrecognized
    never speaking
    but always listening
    i walked their streets
    and cities
    i went into their starvations
    their working places
    deep in mines
    i climbed a mountain
    and looked into the writings

    and holy codes
    of their artists
    but it wasn’t until
    i shared quarters with an actual family
    and watched in shock
    the upbringing of their young
    that i realized
    ugly
    is what happens to something
    you don’t love
    enough

WEB SITE: https://robertpriest.org/

Diane L. Walton

Diane Walton is one of the founding members of On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Fiction. Since its beginnings in 1989 she’s been a driving force for the magazine. Without her, On spec could not continue to be the great magazine [that] it is. She has consistently adhered to the mandate that we discover and showcase quality works by predominantly Canadian writers and artists. She has been an editorial mentor to help us work together to foster the growth of emerging writers in science fiction, fantasy, and other aspects of speculative fiction. She has been a driving force in making sure each editor can offer support and direction through constructive criticism, education, mentoring, and manuscript development. As managing editor, she is responsible for the physical development of each magazine four times a year, reading each story and determining which issue it should go in, dealing with artists, copyeditors, layout artists, proofing issues, and then their print and distribution. She has mailed out single issues to subscribers around the world. She wrangles us all: editors, slush readers, copyeditors, artists, authors, subscriptions, layout artist, and distribution. She is so humble about the brilliant work she has been doing for many years. I believe she represents all the things good about Canadian science fiction.

(bio provided by Barb Galler-Smith, and approved by Diane L. Walton)

James Alan Gardner

James Alan Gardner is simply the finest short-story writer in the history of Canadian science fiction. The first Canadian winner of the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest (in 1989), he has also twice won short-fiction Aurora Awards: in 1991 for “Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large” from On Spec and in 1998 for “Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream” from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; “Three Hearings” was also nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Jim won the annual readers’ poll in Asimov’s Science Fiction for the Best Novelette of the Year for “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story,” which then went on to win the juried Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best SF Short Work of the Year. 

Besides the venues mentioned above, Jim’s fiction has also appeared in Amazing Stories, Nature, The New Quarterly, TOR.COM, and various Tesseracts and Year’s Best anthologies, and many of his best stories are in his collection Gravity Wells. Jim co-edited Compostela: Tesseracts Twenty with Spider Robinson. 

Jim’s novels are also of great significance. He was an early explorer of gender issues in SF, notably in his Commitment Hour (1998), which deals with gender fluidity. His acclaimed seven-volume “League of Peoples” series beginning with Expendable was published by Avon, and his current “The Dark vs. Spark” series, beginning with All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault, is published by Tor. 

His most recent award is the (Japanese) 2022 Seiun Award in the “Best Translated Short Story” category for “The One With the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses”.

Jim’s website is at https://jamesalangardner.wordpress.com.

[Nominated by Robert J. Sawyer (HOF 2014) and bio approved by James Alan Gardner, March 29, 2024]

Clint Budd

Clint has been involved in fandom for over 30 years.  He was heavily involved with the Vancouver convention scene working on numerous VCONs and other fannish actives.

In the mid-2000’s Clint felt that the Aurora Awards were not getting the attention they deserved and with a group of like-minded friends from across Canada he created the awards society we have today.  Clint arranged to have the society registered as a non-profit with the federal government as well as having a formal set of by-laws created.

Clint has been on the board of directors in a number of roles since the mid-2000’s.  He inspired the CSFFA board to create the Hall of Fame award.  It incorporated all of the lifetime award winners and each year the society has inducted two to three new Canadians.  Clint managed the Hall of Fame jury for its first nine years and arranged to have a special trophy created to display all of the inductees.

[Nominated by Clifford Samuels (HOF 2023) and bio approved by Clint Budd, March 28, 2024]

James Davis Nicoll

Photo credit: Jasmine Mangalaseril

An avid science fiction reader since the 1960s, Nicoll became a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club and its associated Bookspan imprints in 2001. Between 2001 and 2014, Nicoll read and reported on thousands of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery books for Bookspan. Nicoll also reviewed for Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times. In 2014, Nicoll began reviewing on his own site, James Nicoll Reviews. As of April 1, 2024, Nicoll has reviewed 2594 works by a diverse assortment of creators. In 2017, Nicoll began writing essays for Reactor (formerly Tor Dot Com). To date, Reactor has published almost five hundred articles by Nicoll, on a wide variety of topics.

James Davis Nicoll became involved in fandom in 1980, when at his first meeting he was elected to the first of six terms as the treasurer for WatSFiC, the University of Waterloo’s Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Gaming Club. Nicoll joined online science fiction fandom via Usenet in 1988. To this day he is a frequent contributor to Usenet’s rec.arts.sf.written, highlights being his Millennial Reviews of SF novels set in the year 2000, and “the Nicoll pledge”, an effort to encourage conversation by posting five new on-topic threads (“Nicoll threads”) per day. In 1990, he tossed off a Usenet quip about the purity of the English language, a quip still widely quoted today (if not always attributed to him). Nicoll later expanded to other online venues such as LiveJournal, DreamWidth, Trust Café, Facebook, Mastodon, and Bluesky.

In 2016, Nicoll began his Young People Read Old Science Fiction project, a project whose purpose is to elicit reviews of science fiction and fantasy classics from young people. Although the focus is on written prose, a sub-project examined old radio shows; another recruited old people to read recent science fiction.

Nicoll is a reader for the Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction (since 2016).

Nicoll was a finalist for the Best Fan Writer Hugo in 2010, 2011, 2019, 2020, and 2024. In 2011, Nicoll served as a judge for the 2012 Otherwise Award (then known as the Tiptree). Nicoll was Fan Guest of Honor at both ConFusion 2013 and Arisia 2014. In 2020, Nicoll was nominated for the Down Under Fan Fund. Nicoll’s Young People Read Old SFF was a finalist for the Best Fan Writing and Publication Aurora Award in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com

Young People Read Old Science Fiction:
https://youngpeoplereadoldsff.com/

Nicoll’s list of social media:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/social-media-checklist

Nicoll’s Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

Nicoll’s TV Tropes entry:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/JamesNicoll

[Nominated by Danny Sichel. Nomination accepted: April 2, 2024]

Michael James Walsh

Michael James Walsh was born on January 6, 1945 in Toronto, Ontario to Michael Walsh (Woloschuk) and Clare Ann Walsh (Bratkowski). He died at home in Vancouver, British Columbia on January 3, 2024, of pulmonary fibrosis. He is survived by his wife Susan (Jaycox), and their daughter Pauline (BJ Allan).

Michael was a film critic and print journalist (U of T Varsity, Toronto Telegram, The Province) from 1965 until his retirement from The Province in 2010. During that time, he spent 23 years as film critic for The Province, as well as entertainment feature writer, and later, editor in the finance department . He championed Canadian-made film and filmmakers, and defended freedom of expression in print, on tv, and in court as an expert witness. He was recognized as an authority on film in B.C., with contributions to Chuck Davis’s The Vancouver Book and The Encyclopedia of B.C.

Michael’s first paying job as a journalist came from Peter Gzowski, then-entertainment editor of the Toronto Star, to report on Com-ex at the University of Toronto. He used the money to take his girlfriend to a fancy restaurant, and later said (often) that “it was the best investment I ever made, because I’ve been eating well ever since.” (They got married two years later; he liked her cooking.)

Michael and Susan moved to Vancouver in 1969, where he got a “can you start tomorrow?” offer from managing editor Merv Moore at The Province, who was short a copy editor/entertainment reporter. When he landed his target job of film critic a few years later, Michael hit the ground running with reviews of The Godfather and A Clockwork Orange.

In 1972, he reported on Vancouver’s first science fiction convention (VCON) for The Province, and attended many later fan conventions — as reporter, panelist, and toastmaster.

In an overlapping fandom, The Society for Creative Anachronism, he was one of the founding members of the Barony of Lions Gate (Vancouver) as Michel le voyageur, head of the household of Beaver Lodge.

He delighted in movie soundtracks, and had an extensive collection of vinyl and CDs. If he really liked anything, he had an extensive collection — books, records, DVDs, comics, neckties. His idea of a good time was heading to Seattle on father-daughter “fishing trips” for used books, records, and comics. He looked forward to used neckties (thrift store finds) as gifts on his birthday and Father’s Day.

He was a fan of Buffy, Warehouse 13, and any female-led science fiction filmed in the GVRD. He also had a strange fondness for really bad SF movies filmed in Vancouver, and for obscure short-run comics such as E.C.’s Only a Strong America Can Prevent ATOMIC WAR!

A brief foray into politics saw him run for Parliament in 2000. (It was in support of David Orchard’s attempt to drag the Progressive Conservative party back to John Diefenbaker’s vision of a strong, independent Canada.) He finished fourth out of ten candidates, running against Libby Davies in Vancouver East.

After his retirement from The Province in 2010, Michael and Susan took a special interest in local live theatre, and looked forward to new seasons at Bard on the Beach, The Fringe Festival, Jericho, The Cultch, and The Firehall Theatre. He started a website, Reeling Back: everything old is news again — an archive of his published reviews, with new forwards and afterwords. <https://reelingback.com> He also shared hosting duties for several years on The Arts Rational, on Co-op Radio.

He liked craft beers, Greek pizza, cabbage rolls, sushi, duck, lemon meringue pie and chocolate-covered marshmallows.

He was rarely seen in public without a situationally appropriate tie.

[Nominated by Clint Budd. Nomination accepted by Susan Walsh: April 9, 2024]

Charles R. Saunders

Photo credit: John Bell. Charles R. Saunders. Ottawa, 1984

Charles Robert Saunders (1946 – 2020) was a Black author and journalist and the founder of the “sword and soul” literary genre with his Imaro novels. During his long career, he wrote novels, non-fiction, screenplays, and radio plays.

Born in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, US, in 1946, he earned a psychology degree from Lincoln University. In 1969, when the US draft summoned him to fight in Vietnam, he instead moved to Ontario, Canada.

The experience of exile led him to create Imaro, his hero of an alternative Africa called Nyumbani, and he published three Imaro novels with DAW Books in the 1980s. In 1985, Hal-Con invited Charles as a starring writer in their sci-fi and fantasy convention in Halifax. Charles quickly felt at home with the African Nova Scotian community and relocated to Halifax that same year.

When Charles’s publisher cut off the Imaro series after three of the planned five books, he turned his talents to writing nonfiction about his new home. Starting in 1989, he began working for Halifax Daily News, first as an editor, then as a columnist focusing on Black issues. Throughout the 1990s, he produced journalism and books about Black Canadians, educating white readers as he gave a new voice to his adopted community.

He continued to work on his fiction in private, completing the Imaro series and breaking new ground with other books. He wrote two novels in the Dossouye saga of a woman warrior fighting for acceptance in her own alternate Africa, as well as Damballa, his first book in the style of a 1930s pulp novel to star a Black cast. His Abengoni series explored a world where white and Black civilizations meet as equals and become partners.

When Halifax Daily News closed suddenly in 2008, Charles retreated into private life. With a small team of friends and colleagues in the US, he republished the Imaro series up to book four, both Dossouye novels, and many other works.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in May, 2020, Charles died alone in his Dartmouth apartment. He was buried in an unmarked grave at an unknown location. When friends learned of this, they searched for him across Nova Scotia and found his remains at the Dartmouth Memorial Gardens. Thousands of dollars were raised to install a bronze grave marker for Charles and a stone monument engraved with the image of Imaro.

His impact as a writer continues to grow after his death, as new generations discovers his work and find it to be life-changing.

[Nominated by Clifford Samuels. Nomination accepted by Jon Tattrie: April 11, 2024]