World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement
| World Fantasy Award—Life Achievement | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Outstanding service to the fantasy field |
| Presented by | World Fantasy Convention |
| First awarded | 1975 |
| Currently held by | David G. Hartwell, Andrzej Sapkowski |
| Official website | worldfantasy.org/awards/ |
The World Fantasy Awards are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction and fantasy art published in English during the preceding calendar year. The awards have been described by sources such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and as one of the three most renowned speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction). The World Fantasy Award—Life Achievement is given each year to individuals for their overall career in fields related to fantasy. These have included, for example, authors, editors, and publishers. The specific nomination reasons are not given, and nominees are not required to have retired, though they can only win once. The Life Achievement category has been awarded annually since 1975.
World Fantasy Award nominees are decided by attendees and judges at the annual World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner of each category. Unlike the other World Fantasy Award categories, the nominees for the Life Achievement award are not announced; instead, the winner is announced along with the nominees in the other categories. The panel of judges is typically made up of fantasy authors, and is chosen each year by the World Fantasy Awards Administration, which has the power to break ties. The final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention at the end of October. Through 2015, winners were presented with a statuette of H. P. Lovecraft, but at the 2015 ceremony it was announced that the statuette would not be given out in future years. No announcement was made about a replacement award.
During the 42 nomination years, 65 people have been given the Life Achievement Award. Multiple winners have been awarded nineteen times, typically two co-winners, though five were noted in 1984. Since 2000 it has become an unofficial tradition for two winners to be announced, often with one winner primarily an author and the other not. While most winners have been authors and editors, five winners have been primarily artists of fantasy art and book covers, and three winners are best known for founding or running publishing houses that produce fantasy works.
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