I didn't see the best new author category. Maybe that's because you assume it's a given. I'm just wondering if maybe we should change it to "best author", because we don't have so many new authors that it seems like every new author would be nominated by default. I don't know how many new authors are on AO3, so I might be mistaken.
Thoughts anyone?
This is something the KComm has been discussing extensively. This category is beloved and we want to continue honoring it, but you are absolutely right that we don’t have enough new authors annually for it to be a viable, competitive category like it once was. It seems we are averaging around 2-3 new authors per year, which is not even enough to fill the ballot spaces AND creates a situation where we have one winner and one “loser” which doesn’t feel encouraging or uplifting. We don’t want anyone to feel like a “loser” — being nominated should be an honor in and of itself.
To that end…we’d like to do away with the category as a competition and instead feature each new author during the ceremony.
I’m envisioning scattering the profiles throughout the ceremony (like the Oscars take turns featuring the Best Picture nominees). Each feature could highlight a New Author’s portfolio of work this year and introduce them to the fandom as a whole.
I’m intrigued by the idea of including a Best Author category and would love to hear more opinions about that. I know in (long) past years it’s happened that an author will have multiple stories in competition and will split the vote, such that they don’t win the categories that they might otherwise have won if they weren’t competing against themselves. This might be a way of circumventing that issue as well as a way to honor an author’s entire body of work over the course of the year as opposed to individual stories.
