Concern re: 2015 Elgin Award nomination & voting procedures
As a first-time Elgin Award nominee this year, I decided in late June to email all currently nominated individuals in both the Chapbook and Full-Length Book categories in order to obtain PDF copies for purposes of reading all nominated works. I will fully admit that, although I've been a member of SFPA for roughly five years now, I've only ever previously voted in the Rhysling Award proceedings; having been nominated for the Elgins made me realize that I should be voting in all proceedings, wherever possible. In the process of beginning to read these works and looking through the 2015 nomination guidelines, the list of current 2015 nominees, and the list of 2014 winners, I noticed a significant discrepancy: two of the currently nominated works were not only published in 2013 instead of 2014, but they also already won 2nd and 3rd places respectively in last year's Full-Length Book category. Given that the nomination guidelines clearly state that previous Elgin winners cannot be nominated a second time, I found this unusual; furthermore, I also found it unusual, when reading said guidelines that they have been changed to permit nominations of works published in the past two years instead of just in the past year. As far as I and a number of other individuals with whom I've been conferring on this issue can tell, in no previous year have nominations been open to books published in the past two years.
Therefore, the concern is two-fold:
1) Two currently nominated works in the Full-Length Book category (Dark Roads and Unexplained Fevers) have already placed in the 2014 Elgin Awards; both were published in 2013. By the guidelines, as currently worded, this makes them ineligible.
2) This year's Elgin nomination guidelines have been inexplicably changed to permit nomination of 2013-published and 2014-published work instead of just 2014-published work. There is no past precedent for a change like this, and there is no explanation as to why.
Does my concern stem partly from being a first-time nominee for this award? Absolutely, and I'm also concerned for every other first-time nominee and every other 2014-published work in the runnings that deserves fair consideration. I emailed the SFPA Officers on this issue, but the response I received was not encouraging: the Vice President said, point-blank in their response to my email, "I will not enter into any public discussion on the issue." The President has, so far, not responded at all, and my initial expression of concern was sent almost three weeks ago. Given that the Elgin voting deadline is September 15th, this concern is not likely to be addressed in time. I'm a conflict-averse individual, but I and other concerned parties fear that drawing this to public attention is the only way to ensure that it's properly examined. I also wrote to the current Elgin Chair on this issue, and their response was: "I’m interpreting 'win' as 'win first place,' which I believe is what was intended. If this is confusing, then I should change the wording, but I think that, in spite of offering 1st-3rd, it’s like the Rhysling Award (and most other prizes that I know of), where only 1st-place winners are referred to as having 'won' the award." In the same email thread, they looped in the SFPA Officers and asked for their approval to change the nominations guidelines, but, so far, as you can see, no change has been made to the wording (and I have screen-caps taken this morning to show that they have not been altered; I have also preserved all email correspondence relating to this concern). In fact, the Officers did not respond to that thread, either; I merely responded saying that perhaps language clarification would be the best course. Still, most of us seem to agree that having placed in the Elgin runnings, period, constitutes a win; otherwise, why bother to declare second and third places?
I have not directly been party to any of the recent-past conflicts concerning SFPA procedures and leadership conduct, although I've certainly been made aware of them. It disheartens me to realize that these difficulties are ongoing, and I would like to add my voice to the ongoing effort to bring about whatever procedural changes are necessary to ensure fair consideration for SFPA members and non-member award nominees alike.
ETA: For anyone who might want clarification on the desire for reform surrounding previously-placing books being permitted to be nominated again: a colleague of mine points out that the what-place-is-considered-an-award-and-what-isn't is muddied further by the fact that first, second, and third in the Rhysling Awards are considered to be winners, and placing poems are also considered to be winners in the SFPA Poetry Contest. The Elgins are apparently the only set of SFPA awards that permit second-placing and third-placing books to be nominated a second time; that can be interpreted as inconsistent with overall SFPA awards policy. I get the impression that people would be more comfortable with the two-year-window nomination policy if formerly placing books were prohibited from a second chance at winning first. That would free up the chance for still others who have never won or placed to, well, win or place. In any case, thank you for hearing us out!