Following on from the news that the LEGEND poll – for Best Fantasy Novel of 2011 – is now open for votes to be cast, the website for the David Gemmell Award has reported that the MORNINGSTAR poll – for Best Fantasy Debut Novel – is also open. The RAVENHEART poll will shortly be online too.

All three polls will be open until 31 March 2012.

The nominees for the This is Horror Awards include FantasyCon 2011 in the ‘Event of the Year’ category, and there are lots of other events, publications, films and TV series of particular interest to BFS members who lean toward the darker side too.

To vote for your choices, go to the This is Horror website HERE. Voting ends 30 December 2011.

China Mieville‘s novel Kraken is among the longlisted works for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. All the books on the longlist have been nominated by libraries from around the world.

According to the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award website: “The .. Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe, and is open to books written in any language.”

The full longlist can be viewed HERE

The 2011 World Fantasy Award winners have been announced, with awards for Elizabeth Hand and Joyce Carol Oates among others. Marc Gascoigne of  Angry Robot won the Special Award, Professional category.

For a full list of nominees and winners see the Tor website blog

“These Awards reward the translation of science fiction, fantasy and related fiction from other languages into English. They exist both to promote the fiction of non-English-speaking authors and to highlight the valuable work done by translators.”

Do you know of a work you would like the jury to consider? Information on how to make nominations of both short and long fiction can be made here

With the help of Handsworth Community Library, we’ve put together a short booklet of pages that can be printed out and used by librarians (and perhaps booksellers) to put together a display themed around the British Fantasy Awards.

If you have a librarian in your life, let them know the good news! 

Thanks to everyone who has submitted recommendations for the British Fantasy Awards 2009 so far.

The list of recommendations is due to be published during March, however that doesn’t mean you can’t add more recommendations!  More to follow on this in the March mailing and via the Awards page…

Watch this space!