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I encourage all who are eligible to join me in making some or all of these nominations. (21/21)

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But that’s not all. Following precedent established in 2021, and recognizing hundreds of volunteers who went beyond minimum expectations to commit innumerable acts of grace, I am nominating Seattle Worldcon 2025 as a whole for Best Related Work. (20/n)

Welcome to Seattle Worldcon 2025! Building Yesterday's Future—For Everyone. August 13–17, 2025.

Seattle in 2025

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To sum up: I am nominating Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow for Best Fanzine, the Seattle Worldcon 2025 Souvenir Program Book for Best Related Work, Brandon O’Brien and Cora Buhlert for Best Fan Writer, and (choosing a favorite) “Landing: Seattle” by Brandon O’Brien for Best Poem. (19/n)

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Seattle Worldcon Poet Laureate Brandon O’Brien contributed three original poems to the souvenir book and performed two others during opening ceremonies and the presentation of the Special Hugo Award for Best Poem. They are all eligible for Best Poem. (18/n)

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I’d like to nominate our graphic design team for Best Fan Artist. They made our Worldcon look so distinctive and special. Unfortunately, most of their work was first published in 2024. This retake of our characters for the staff T-shirt was drawn in 2025 by @youngmark.com. (17/n)

An aircar with five diverse retro-science fiction characters, à la The Jetsons, who represented Seattle Worldcon 2025.

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The Seattle Worldcon Souvenir Book’s layout and presentation are as stunning as its contents, thanks to the tireless efforts of managing editor Ella Kliger and designer dQniel Kaufman. I am nominating it for Best Related Work. (16/n)

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It’s a good day when you wake up to a piece of writing from N.K. Jemisin no one has ever seen before in your mailbox. (15/n)

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The Seattle Worldcon 2025 Souvenir Program Book was a joy to produce. It includes 14 curated speculative poems (orig and reprint), reprints from guests of honor Nisi Shawl and Martha Wells, and other original fan writing and fan art, including N.K. Jemisin’s appreciation of Martha Wells. (14/n)

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@mariness.bsky.social has suggested that Con-Verse, as an essay series, is eligible for Best Related Work. I am choosing Best Fan Writer because it celebrates the selfless and fannish spirit in which Brandon wrote the column, and allows room to recognize his other fan writing in 2025. (13/n)

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All 14 fan writers who wrote for Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow in 2025 are eligible for Best Fan Writer. For example, Seattle Worldcon Poet Laureate @therisingtithes.bsky.social could be nominated for his 18 Con-Verse columns explicating speculative poetry. (11/n)

Here we plan to talk about the speculative poetry scene, chat with poets about their work, and even help those who may think they don’t “get” poetry break down new ways to read (and write!) speculativ...

Con-Verse

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The editor-in-chief of Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow during its eligibility year was BE Allatt, with EIC emeritus David Hogg. I was the executive editor. Many volunteers contributed to its editing and publishing. (10/n)

Seattle Worldcon’s official blog, Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow, is eligible for Best Fanzine. It published 78 columns in 2025 under the Fantastic Fiction, Around Seattle, Local Flavor, and Con-Verse banners, as well as the con’s monthly newsletter, Dispatches From Yesterday’s Tomorrow. (9/n)

Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: The official blog of Seattle Worldcon 2025.

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Which brings me to the team I led, Publications. I’m so proud of their work. And because Worldcon is designed to celebrate published and fannish work in particular, much of it is eligible for Hugo Awards. (8/n)

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Speaking this way may seem immodest, but the reward for innovation is often criticism. Social media amplifies negative voices while making it seem sensible for others to move on or remain silent. This leaves a bad taste, and I want to celebrate our successes. (7/n)

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The program was huge, varied, diverse, and very international (especially in the virtual panels), with a record number of workshops, hands-on and otherwise. Staff prioritized inclusivity and kindness. It was so much work. (6/n)

The exhibit hall was outstanding, with spending there reportedly exceeding all expectations of the dealers’ room vendors and artists. Its well-thought-out layout and organization provided a great canvas to showcase convention signage and graphic design. (5/n)

Also we pioneered the online WSFS Business Meeting to make Worldcon governance more accessible and democratic. If it looked easy, it wasn’t. Credit to @artzfreak.bsky.social and their team. (4/n)

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One of my favorite innovations was the no-questions-asked unchanging reduced rate membership, paid for by an enhanced rate from those who could afford more. This helped bring in thousands of newbies, the first of many actions taken to make the con welcoming and accessible for the uninitiated. (3/n)

Hosting the 83rd Worldcon in Seattle, welcoming over 7,200 in-person and 788 virtual attendees, was an honor. Seattle hadn’t hosted since 1961, and the team went for broke as if it might not happen again for another 64 years (it might not!). We did a lot to show our passion and our values. (2/n)

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With ‪@laworldcon.bsky.social‬ closing Hugo Award nominations next Saturday, 3/28, at noon Pacific, I am reflecting back on how proud I am to have been part of the staff of @seattlein2025. So much so that I will be recognizing the team’s achievements on my Hugo nomination ballot. (1/n)

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And, if not directly relevant, who can forget "Unknown Number" as a 2022 Hugo finalist for Best Short Story, self-published on Twitter.

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Since I mentioned the souvenir book, managing editor Ella Kliger describes on page 60 how she assembled an ad hoc jury to review IIRC over 100 poetry submissions while on deadline for other things. dQniel Kaufman created unique graphical treatments for each poem we published. Very proud of the team.

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And my greatest bias is to promote the selflessness and excellence of our Worldcon staff! For the glory of fandom. Fan writing for fandom's annual main event.

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I do think that the fact that Brandon's generosity contributing this writing in service to the community, as a fan writer and Worldcon volunteer, is inextricably part of why his contribution is so remarkable and valuable. He went above and beyond, like so many others who contributed to the Worldcon.

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IMO Con-Verse helped the special Hugo Award category of Best Poem be successful, and encouraged us to lean in and devote about 30 pages of the souvenir program book to Brandon's work and selected reprints from 11 other speculative poets (not a small lift for the book's managing editor!).

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I have bias too! As director of publications for Seattle Worldcon 2025, it was a pleasure to have Brandon on our writing staff and publish his work. Having him both as poet laureate and as a columnist educating the community about speculative poetry helped us in innumerable ways!

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But—shrug?—reasonable opinions may vary. I would just hate to see confusion splitting votes and potentially costing Brandon a finalist slot. (10/10)

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In light of all this I favor nominating work in the category where it seems most natural, and when in doubt, ask the writer for their preference. For me, in the Con-Verse situation, that’s Best Fan Writer, not Best Related Work. (9/n)

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But this would involve displacing another finalist, so we can expect most administrators to use this power conservatively, in no-reasonable-person-could-argue-otherwise situations, such as resolving word count discrepancies between short stories and novelettes. (8/n)

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WSFS Const. 3.8.2 arguably gives the Administrator authority to pool votes and place Brandon on the ballot in this situation (“The Worldcon Committee shall determine the eligibility of nominees and assignment to the proper category of works nominated in more than one category”). (7/n)

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And as a nominator, I’m happy to take an “all of the above” approach and let the Hugo Administrator sort out thorny eligibility questions. But this could be sticky should Brandon have sufficient votes to be a finalist in one category, but find those votes split across two or more categories. (6/n)

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I can be persuaded that Con-Verse alone is a distinct corpus of work from Con-Verse plus the five poems he contributed as Worldcon poet laureate, plus any other eligible fan writing he produced which I am not aware of (do skeets count?). (5/n)

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Ultimately I think Mari wins this argument, but be careful you don’t win the argument and lose the war. (4/n)

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Mari cites the poems he blessed the Worldcon with, but as Brandon himself points out these are individually (but not collectively) eligible for Best Poem. So isn’t all of this work eligible in different categories? Well… kind of, not really? (3/n)

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Brandon's Con-Verse columns are quintessential fan writing (YT&T is not even a semiprozine and he received no compensation), and to my knowledge constitute the entire corpus of his fan writing in 2025. (2/n)

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