Toronto, Ontario (November 7, 2014) The Sunburst Award Committee announced today that they have moved into the digital age. Starting with the 2015 awards, they will accept e-book versions of submissions as well as print ones.
“It will help publishers to submit, especially smaller ones. Postage costs have increased dramatically over the last several years and print books have a cost of their own.” says Peter Halasz, one of the founders of the awards. “We also expect to reduce our own costs since we mail as many as 120 - 130 books annually to each of five jurors.”
“As the publishing landscape continues to change, we expect the number of print books submitted to drop significantly over the next few years," says Rebecca Simkin, the organization’s current chairperson. “Since most of our jurors and administrators overwhelmingly prefer print books they will indeed be missed, but with the generous support of Kobo Writing Life, we are able to supply the jury with new Kobo Arc tablets for their Sunburst deliberations.”
The Sunburst Awards have set up a page on their website where publishers will be able to go to upload their e-book files and where the jurors can download them to their e-readers. They are now open to submissions of books published in 2014 for consideration for the 2015 award.
About the Sunburst Awards: The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award which recognizes exceptional writing in three categories: adult, young adult and short story. The awards are presented each fall to the best Canadian speculative fiction novel, book-length collection, or short story published any time during the previous calendar year.
Named after the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb (1926–2009), one of the first celebrated writers of contemporary Canadian science fiction, the award is a cash prize of $1,000 for each of the Adult and Young Adult categories, and of $500 for the short story category. All three awards are presented with the distinctive Sunburst medallion. The awards are presented in the fall of each year.
For additional information about the Sunburst Award, the nominees and jurors, as well as previous awards, eligibility and the selection process, please visit the website at www.sunburstaward.org.
Contact:
Rebecca Simkin, Chair
The Sunburst Award Society
2 Farm Greenway
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M3A 3M2
