Apparently I did not hallucinate a couple of weeks ago . . .

(I opted for the shot where I’m looking pensive rather than trying to smile, because I am atrociously bad at smiling for the camera. There’s a reason my author photo features me looking like I’m about to stab somebody; it was preferable to any of the alternatives.)

So, yes: my award came!!! I could have opted to take it with me, but the logistics of getting it packed up — especially the fragile glass part — and handed over to me before I left on Sunday were complicated enough that it was simpler to just have them ship it to me. The downside, of course, was that I had to wait a whole WEEK AND A HALF to put my shiny new rocket on display!

. . . hilariously, a rejection for a packet of poems hit my inbox while I was reassembling this.

It’s going to live in my office for at least a while, so that I see it every time I come in. Eventually I think I’ll move it downstairs to our front room, where visitors to the house will see it, but for now — nope, it’s mine, my preciousssssss.

There once was a writer who wrote,
and wound up with an odd anecdote —
how it happened, who knows,
but she won a Hugo,
for being, of all things, a good poet!

. . . and with that atrociously bad limerick (I decided not to bother trying harder; it accurately reflects the state of my brain right now) [edit: ffs, even in this state, I reflexively went back and revised it to make it scan better], I announce that last night I won the Special Hugo Award for Best Poem! My acceptance speech should have thanked Fluevogs for making heels I could actually walk onstage in without falling over out of shock. I still feel like a newbie in poetry; I only started writing it about four and a half years ago — January 2021 — and so to have my fourth published poem ever earn this major of an award is still making me reel. I would have woken up this morning thinking it was a delusion were it not for all the congratulatory messages I’m getting from various directions, which at least assure me that it’s a mass delusion, if so.

As I said in my speech, I hope I’m the first person to win this award, not the only one. It’s a special award right now because each Worldcon can choose to create a temporary category of its own, but I’m one of the sponsors of the Speculative Poetry Initiative, which has cleared the first hurdle in passing a proposal to make this a permanent category in the awards. So it already feels historic to get the special award, but it’ll be even better if I can describe myself as the start of a longer line!

If you have not read the winning poem, “A War of Words” — or if you would like to read it again — you may do so for free at Strange Horizons! My heartfelt thanks to Romie Stott, the editor who acquired it, for making this possible.