The 2020 World Fantasy Awards were announced during the virtual World Fantasy Convention, held October 29-November 1. The winners are:
Novel: Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender (Orbit)
Novella: Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (Tor.com)
Short Fiction: "Read After Burning" by Maria Dahvana Headley (A People's Future of the United States)
Anthology: New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl (Solaris)
Collection: Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
Artist: Kathleen Jennings
Special Award--Professional: Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, for The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (New York University Press)
Special Award--Non-Professional: Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Laura E. Goodin and Esko Suoranta, for Fafnir--Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research
Lifetime Achievement Awards: Rowena Morrill and Karen Joy Fowler
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Abandoned: America's Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection by Anne S. Kim (The New Press) has won the 2020 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice.
The organizers described Abandoned as "the story of young Americans 'disconnected from the mainstream of opportunity and disengaged from education and employment.' More than 10% of youth between the ages of 16 and 24 are neither in school nor working. 'For millions more, their hold on school and work is shaky at best,' Kim writes. Some emerge from foster care with no meaningful support system. Others grow up in communities besieged by poverty and mass incarceration, or are entangled with the justice system themselves.
"Kim profiles some of these young people and paints a stark picture of how we are failing them--and how this failure weakens us as a nation. She also explores solutions, reporting on how organizations around the country are connecting these young people to brighter futures."
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For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World by Michael W. Waters, illustrated by Keisha Morris (Flyaway Books) has won the first Goddard Riverside CBC Youth Book Prize for Social Justice, a companion prize to the Stephan Russo Prize, which is for nonfiction by adults.
Organizers called the winner of the new prize "the story of Jeremiah, a young man with a lot of questions about the violent deaths of Black people he's seeing in the news, and the actions people are taking in the street in response. His father doesn't have easy answers, but that doesn't mean he won't talk about it--or that he won't act. Inspired by real-life events, this beautiful picture book is an honest, intimate look at one family's response to racism and gun violence. The book includes a discussion and activity guide for parents and teachers to use with children written by the Muhammad Ali Center."