Discussion Archive of Our Own Wins a Hugo

Not sure how many folks here have stories on Archive of Our Own, but the site has won the Hugo Award for Best Related Work at this year's Worldcon in Dublin..

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/11/18292419/archive-of-our-own-wins-hugo-award-best-related-work

 

Nice. Does that mean all members of AO3 are considered Hugo Award Winners? I don't care what the answer is, I'M A HUGO AWARD WINNER!!! WOOT!!

 

Me too!

But, as a warning, there's already been some backlash from some professional authors getting mad at random fanfic writers posting/tweeting about being Hugo Award Winners.

To be completely specific, we have stories posted on a Hugo Award Winning website, we're not the Hugo award winners ourselves.

I know that, and you know that, and it's a joke on our part saying "I'm a Hugo winner!", But there are some really PO'd authors out there getting mad at AO3 writers right now.

Just an FYI.

I'm still excited, it's a well-deserved award for the work AO3's group does giving us a place to share our stories, and in the award ceremony they asked all the fanfic writers in the audience to stand and accept the award on behalf of the website.

 

Yeah, me too.

Last night my husband found someone's ranting blog post about it, and it was kind of funny. We KNOW we're not Hugo winners, we're joking, but this author (who isn't even that big themselves, but had actually published something) had a work in the running that didn't win and they were all hurt about the jokes and were taking it way too seriously. You know, these "mere fanfic drabble writers thinking their trifles are as good as REAL AUTHORS' works"

Which, TBH, many ARE just as good, but certainly not all of the millions of stories on AO3.

 

Joking or not, congrats to everyone with material on that Hugo Award-winning website.

 

Yeah, like I am going to run around saying I am a Hugo Award winner when I won't even admit to anybody in real life that I write fanfiction.

I don't need to be teased any more than I already am. I made the mistake of telling people I went to Celebration and people are still humming the Imperial March when I walk by.

 

Real writers, as I heard a friend describe authors who are published (I don't like that term; even though we write fan fiction, we're real writers, too) shouldn't take things so seriously. Very proud to have my stories on a Hugo Award-winning site.

 

As more than one person has writ before me, this is the closest I'll ever come to winning a Hugo Award.

But, as a warning, there's already been some backlash from some professional authors getting mad at random fanfic writers posting/tweeting about being Hugo Award Winners.

This is Pandora's Complete Lack of Surprise.

Actually, I suspect the backlash has much to do with the fact that many professional writers still don't feel--regardless of how many professionally published and paid books and stories they have in their bibliography--that they are real writers. (Imposter Syndrome. It's a bitch.) So while trying to prove to others, and through those others themselves, that they are professional writers, no they really really are, it's not surprising they feel a need to smack those upstart fanfiction writing amateurs down all the harder.

 

Wow, look, it's my complete lack of surprise too (re: "real" writers having the vapors). Anyone who thinks that there's going to be an epidemic of fanfic writers genuinely passing themselves off as Hugo Award Winners is taking things just a bit Too Super Seriously. I think it's really fantastic that the AO3 website got an award. And it is kind of neat to interpret (misinterpret?) it as recognizing the whole of fanfic as something of value -- though of course mainly of the work that the website's creators and maintainers put into it. (After all, it seems like the best evidence of their achievement is that so many writers have found AO3 to be a great home for their works. There are a lot of empty would-be big archives out there.)

 

That's awesome