# Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Short Fiction

The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are given to works of science fiction, fantasy and horror that explore LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) topics in a positive way. They were founded in 1998, first presented by the Gaylactic Network in 1999, and in 2002 they were given their own organization, the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards Foundation.
Awards are given in categories for novels, short fiction and best other work, although in some years the award for short fiction has not been presented due to lack of sufficient nominees or no nominee of high enough quality. Other categories have also been added and removed in intervening years, and works produced before the inception of the awards are eligible to be inducted into the "Hall of Fame". The short fiction category is open to submissions of short written works released during the prior calendar year in North America that includes "significant positive GLBT content". The long list of nominees is reduced to a short list of finalists, and the results are generally announced and presented at Gaylaxicon, a convention dedicated to LGBT science fiction, although they have also been presented at Worldcon in the past. This article lists all the "Best short fiction" award nominees and winners, and short fiction hall of fame inductees.
Each award consists of an etched image on lucite on a stand, using a spiral galaxy in a triangle logo, which is based on the logo the Gaylactic Network. The award winner's name, work title, award year and award category are etched on a small plaque on the base or on the plexiglass itself. A small cash stipend is awarded to winners in the Best Short Fiction category. The cost of the awards is paid for through individual donations and fundraising events.
Steve Berman has the record for most nominations, having been a finalist four times without winning. No writer has won the short fiction award more than once. Per Locus, the most recent short fiction award was given in 2010.

## Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the year of the award ceremonies; the books were released in the preceding years. Entries with a lavender background have won the relevant award; those with a white background are the finalist nominees. Superscript letters after the result indicate simultaneous nominations in other categories.
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Published in | Publisher | Result |
| 1999 | No Award | — | — | — | NA |
| 2000 | Eleanor Arnason | "Dapple" | Asimov's SF 09/99 | Bantam; Dell | Won |
| 2000 | Esther Friesner | "Chanoyu" | Asimov's SF 03/99 | Bantam; Dell | Nom |
| 2000 | Storm Constantine | "The Thorn Boy" | Novella | Eidolon | Nom |
| 2001 | No Award | — | — | — | NA |
| 2001 | Greg Egan | "Oracle" | Asimov's SF 07/00 | Bantam; Dell | Nom |
| 2002 | Alexis Glynn Latner | "Kindred" | Bending the Landscape: Horror | Overlook | Won |
| 2002 | Steve Berman | "The Anthvoke" | Strange Horizons & Trysts | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2002 | Ian Phillips | "The Devil and Mrs. Faust" | See Dick Deconstruct | Attagirl Press | Nom |
| 2002 | M. Shayne Bell | "If On A Moonlit Night" | Realms of Fantasy 12/01 | Sovereign Media | Nom |
| 2002 | Carrie Richerson | "Love On A Stick" | Bending the Landscape: Horror | Overlook | Nom |
| 2002 | Mark Tiedemann | "Passing" | Bending the Landscape: Horror | Overlook | Nom |
| 2002 | Nisi Shawl | "Shiomah's Land" | Asimov's SF 03/01 | Bantam; Dell | Nom |
| 2002 | Catherine Asaro | "Soul of Light" | Sextopia | Circlet Press | Nom |
| 2002 | Ellen Klages | "Triangle" | Bending the Landscape: Horror | Overlook | Nom |
| 2003 | Sarah Monette | "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland" | Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #11 | Small Beer Press | Won |
| 2003 | Scott Treleaven | "Bugcrush" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp Press | Nom |
| 2003 | Robert Knippenberg | "For the Mortals Among Us" | Mind & Body | Circlet Press | Nom |
| 2003 | Michael Thomas Ford | "Night of the Werepuss" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom |
| 2003 | David Nickle | "Polyphemus' Cave" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom |
| 2003 | Stephen Dedman | "Till Human Voices Wake Us" | Queer Fear 2 | Arsenal Pulp | Nom |
| 2003 | MCA Hogarth | "Unspeakable" | Strange Horizons | Strangehorizons.com | Nom |
| 2004 | Barth Anderson | "Lark Till Dawn, Princess" | Mojo: Conjure Stories | Warner Aspect | Won |
| 2004 | Tim Pratt | "Down With the Lizards and the Bees" | Realms of Fantasy 08/03 | Sovereign Media | Nom |
| 2004 | Warren Rochelle | "The Golden Boy" | Silver Gryphon | Golden Gryphon | Nom |
| 2004 | Steve Berman | "Kiss" | X-Factor 10/03 | Magazine | Nom |
| 2004 | Tim Pratt | "Living With the Harpy" | Strange Horizons | Strangehorizons.com | Nom |
| 2004 | Beth Bernobich | "Poison" | Strange Horizons | Strangehorizons.com | Nom |
| 2004 | A M Dellamonica | "The Riverboy" | Land/Space | Tesseract | Nom |
| 2004 | Nisi Shawl | "The Tawny Bitch" | Mojo: Conjure Stories | Warner Aspect | Nom |
| 2004 | Nancy Jane Moore | "Walking Contradiction" | Imaginings: An Anthology of Long Short Fiction | Pocket Books | Nom |
| 2005 | Richard Hall | "Country People" | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Won |
| 2005 | Catherine Lundoff | "At the Roots of the World Tree" | Kenoma | E-zine | Nom |
| 2005 | Colleen Anderson | "Hold Back The Night" | Open Space | Red Deer | Nom |
| 2005 | Jaye Lawrence | "Kissing Frogs" | Fantasy & Science Fiction 05/04 | Spilogale Inc | Nom |
| 2005 | David McConnell | "The Mask" | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Nom |
| 2005 | Therese Szymanski | "The Morning After" | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Nom |
| 2005 | Charles Coleman Finlay | "Pervert" | Fantasy & Science Fiction 03/04 | Spilogale Inc | Nom |
| 2005 | Carol Rosenfeld | "Rabbit Rerun" | Shadows of the Night | Southern Tier | Nom |
| 2005 | Nicola Griffith | "Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese" | With her Body | Aqueduct | Nom |
| 2006 | No Award (nominees carried over to next year) | — | — | — | NA |
| 2007 | David Gerrold | "In the Quake Zone" | Down These Dark Spaceways | SFBC | Won (joint) |
| 2007 | Joy Parks | "Instinct" | The Future Is Queer | Arsenal Pulp | Won (joint) |
| 2007 | Christopher Barzak | "The Language of Moths" | Realms of Fantasy | Sovereign Media | Won (joint) |
| 2007 | Rachel Pollack | "The Beatrix Gates" | The Future Is Queer | Arsenal Pulp | Nom |
| 2007 | Catherynne M Valente | "Bones Like Black Sugar" | Fantasy magazine | Prime | Nom |
| 2007 | Jennifer Pelland | "The Captive Girl" | Helix SF 08/06 | Helix | Nom |
| 2007 | Steve Berman | "Caught by Skin" | Sex in the System | Thunder's Mouth | Nom |
| 2007 | Alexander Potter | "Facing Down Your Demons" | All Hell Breaking Loose | DAW | Nom |
| 2007 | L-J Baker | "Fairy Tale Ending" | Tales from the Asylum | From the Asylum | Nom |
| 2007 | L Timmel Duchamp | "Obscure Relations" | The Future Is Queer | Arsenal Pulp | Nom |
| 2007 | Camilla Bruce | "Plums" | Shifting Again | Torquere | Nom |
| 2007 | Alex Draven | "Sleeping Bears Lie" | Shifting Too | Torquere | Nom |
| 2007 | Kristina Wright | "The Specter of Sin" | Call of the Dark | Bella Books | Nom |
| 2007 | Richard Bowes | "There's A Hole In The City" | SciFiction | SciFi.Com | Nom |
| 2007 | Kimberly DeCina | "Voce" | Sleeping Beauty, Indeed | Torquere | Nom |
| 2007 | Julia Watts | "We Recruit" | Stake Through the Heart | Bella | Nom |
| 2008 | Joshua Lewis | "Ever So Much More Than Twenty" | So Fey | Lethe Press | Won |
| 2008 | K.S. Augustin | "Prime Suspect" | eBook | Total-E-Bound | Nom |
| 2008 | Steve Berman | "Bittersweet" | Journal of Mythic Arts | Endicott Studio | Nom |
| 2008 | Holly Black | "The Coat of Stars" | So Fey | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2008 | Cassandra Clare & Ruby deBrazier | "Charming, A Tale of True Love" | So Fey | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2008 | M. Decker | "Side Effects" | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom |
| 2008 | Leigh Ellwood | "The Healing" | eBook | Phaze | Nom |
| 2008 | Craig Gidney | "A Bird of Ice" | So Fey | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2008 | James Patrick Kelly | "Dividing the Sustain" | New Space Opera | Eos | Nom |
| 2008 | Kiernan Kelly | "Dancing on the Head of a Pin" | eBook | Torquere | Nom |
| 2008 | Valerie Z. Lewis | "The Steel Anniversary" | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom |
| 2008 | Catherine Lundoff | "Medusa's Touch" | Crave: Tales of Lust, Love, and Longing | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2008 | Julia Talbot | "The Reflection of Love" | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom |
| 2008 | JoSelle Vanderhooft | "Were" | Alleys & Doorways | Torquere | Nom |
| 2009 | No Award (nominees carried over to next year) | — | — | — | NA |
| 2010 | Hal Duncan | "The Behold of the Eye" | Lone Star Stories/Wilde Stories 2009' | Lethe Press | Won (joint) |
| 2010 | Melissa Scott | "The Rocky Side of the Sky" | Periphery | Lethe Press | Won (joint) |
| 2010 | Carolyn Ives Gilman | "Angels Alone" | Periphery | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Joel Lane | "Behind the Curtain" | Dark Horizons Issue 52/Wilde Stories 2009 | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Jameson Currier | "The Bloomsbury Nudes" | Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet | Dark Scribe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Kaite Walsh | "City of the Dead" | Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Alex Jeffers | "Firooz and His Brother" | Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May 2008/Wilde Stories | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Amber Dawn | "Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver" | Fist of the Spider Woman | Arsenal Pulp Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Michelle Scalise | "I Am the Shadow That Walks There" | Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet | Dark Scribe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Lee Thomas | "I'm Your Violence" | Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet | Dark Scribe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Aurelia T. Evans | "In Circles" | Fist of the Spider Woman | Arsenal Pulp Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Chaz Brenchley | "In the Night Street Baths" | Lace and Blade - Norilana Books/Wilde Stories 2009 | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Melissa Scott | "One Horse Town" | Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Kal Cobalt | "Parts" | Wired Hard 4 | Circlet Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Astrid Amara | "Remember" | Tangle | Blind Eye Books | Nom |
| 2010 | Zachary Jernigan | "The Succession of Knoorikios Khnum" | Wired Hard 4 | Circlet Press | Nom |
| 2010 | Lyn McConchie | "Waiting Tables and Time" | Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades | Lethe Press | Nom |
| 2011 - | No Award | — | — | — | NA |
$^A$ Short fiction was part of other works this year.

## Short fiction Hall of Fame inductees

In the following table, the years correspond to the year of the award ceremonies; the works were all first published before the founding of the awards in 1998. As of 2008, one short story has been inducted into the Hall of Fame:
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Published in | Publisher | Result | Ref. |
| 2000 | Theodore Sturgeon | "The World Well Lost" | Universe 06/1953 | Clark Publishing | Inducted | |