Hey FoLCs!

Time to get the ball rolling on the 2006 Kerth Awards. As you know, Erin Klingler, Kathy Brown and Pam Jernigan “retired” last year - they’re way too young to think of retirement, but there you go <g> - after seven years of doing a fantastic job for the Kerth Awards. We’re all extremely grateful to all the hard work they put into making this event so much fun, and I think they deserve another round of applause just as we’re getting into this year’s events. smile

The new committee will keep things pretty much as they were, so you won’t be confused by drastic changes.

The Kerth committee is composed of five people: Annette Ciotola, Elena, Tricia Walpole, Yvonne Connell and Kaethel, but we couldn’t do it without all the FoLCs who dedicate their time and energy to making this ceremony even more fun: the quiz team composed of Sara, Rachel, Chris Carr, Julie Stars and Wendy Richards. Kathy MacFarlane, our external auditor, continues to help us tally the votes. This year, Erin Klingler, Pam Jernigan and Kathy Brown are still around to help us with the transition and teach us the ropes when we need it. And most of all, we’ve got all the writers and readers, without whom the awards wouldn’t exist at all!

Here’s some information about the new staff and about this year’s ceremony. Please take a moment to read this. smile


Staff organisation

Kaethel is our Kerth Coordinator. Her job is pretty much the same as Erin’s in previous years. Decisions are taken collectively after being discussed among all K-Com members, but as coordinator she gets the last word if there's a disagreement. We usually tend to agree, though. *g*

Yvonne and Kaethel handle the PR side of things. Most official posts will be made by either of them.

Annette and Elena are our techie geniuses. They maintain the website and they’re our official security guards, i.e. they check for fraud in nominations and votes. They know everything there is to know about IP numbers and such. wink

Yvonne and Kaethel are in charge of the nominations. They receive each nomination form, count all the noms separately, compare the numbers to make sure there’s no error, then they tally them so the official ballot can be released within two weeks at most.

Tricia is our official vote-tallier, with Kathy MacFarlane acting as our committee-independent vote-counter. Both Tricia and Kathy get your forms and count them. Kaethel spot-checks a couple of categories to make sure there’s no error.


2006 schedule

Nominations will run from Saturday, February 18 to Sunday, March 5, midnight EST. The official ballot will be released two weeks at most after all the nominations are in.

Voting will run from Saturday, March 18 to Sunday, March 26, midnight EST. That will give us a week to tally the votes and prepare the list of winners.

The ceremony will take place on IRC on Saturday, April 1, 6 pm EST.


2006 categories

This year, the number of stories dropped from previous years, so we’ve had to reduce the number of categories as well. Don’t panic, old favourites are still there! But we compiled a few stories that were split by size in previous years. We’ve tried to keep as many as possible, but we’ve had to combine some categories which were split by size in previous years. Also, some categories are borderline when it comes to the number of likely contenders, so we reserve the right to remove these after the nominating period if it turns out that only two stories are nominated in such categories. We truly hope we won’t have to, though, and we’ll certainly explain why and what we did if we do! smile

So here’s the official list for 2006:

Best Super Short (1-10k): Very short stories.

Best Short Story (11-50k): Short stories of any subject or tone.

Best Waffy Story (1-50k): Short, mainly light stories intended to give the reader a Warm and Fuzzy Feeling. No A-plots.

Best Comedy: Generally short stories where the main purpose is to amuse.

Best Special Occasion Story: Generally short stories that deal with a special time of the calendar year, i.e. Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Valentine's Day; or with a special occasion in Lois and Clark's lives, such as a birthday or an anniversary.

Best Mid-Length Story (51-200k): Mid-length stories of any subject or tone.

Best Revelation Story: Stories which contain a revelation about Clark being Superman. The person finding out can be Lois or any other character.

Best Episode Adaptation: Stories which alter the events of, or start from some point in, a particular episode. Includes adaptations, continuations, and rewrites.

Best Tearjerker: Stories that elicit strong emotions from the reader and make you repeatedly reach for the box of Kleenex.

Best Drama: Stories which focus on a series of exciting or suspenseful events. Stories can be similar in tone and balance to the show's episodes, or tackle a more serious subject matter, and will generally, though not always, contain a significant A-plot. No size restrictions.

Best Relationship Story (over 50k): B-plot driven stories which focus mainly on Lois & Clark's relationship. No tone or timeline restrictions. Might include "getting together" scenarios, or focus on their developing relationship, either before or after marriage.

Best Alternate Universe / Elseworlds Story: Stories which feature parallel universes (including the Alt World that was introduced on the show), or stories in which the author has made major changes (such as time, place and/or nature of the characters) before where the series started in the Pilot. Cross-overs would also fit in this category. No size restrictions.

Best Original / Supporting Character: Rewards a special character from stories which strongly highlight a supporting character from the series or creates a new, interesting character that plays an important role in the story. No size restrictions. (Sorry, but versions - no matter how altered - of Clark or Lois do not qualify as Original or Supporting Characters)

Best New Author: Limited to authors who first published their Lois & Clark stories in the past year.

Best Overall Story: A story of any type that is outstanding overall. No size restrictions.


More information is available at the official Kerth Website , which will be updated with all the relevant information in the next few hours. There, you will find the FAQ, the list of eligible stories and new authors, the list of categories and so much more. smile And if there’s still a question we haven’t answered, feel free to email us at kcom@lcficmbs.com. We’ll be happy to help you!


The Kerth Committee smile
(Tricia, Yvonne, Elena, Annette and Kaethel)

- I'm your partner. I'm your friend.
- Is that what we are?
- Oh, you know what? I don't know what we are. We kiss and then we never talk about it. We nearly die frozen in each other's arms, but we never talk about it, so no, I got no clue what we are.

~ Rick Castle and Kate Beckett ~ Knockout ~