Crawford Award

The IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (short: Crawford Award) is a literary award given to a writer whose first fantasy book was published during the preceding calendar year. It's one of several awards presented by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) and is presented at the International Conference of the Fantast in the Arts each March in Orlando.

In order to be eligible, a title must be the author’s first fantasy book; it is permissible for an author active in different genres to be submitted, so long as it is their first fantasy book. In addition to novels and novellas, collections of poetry, short stories, and fiction aimed at younger readers are all eligible.

The Prize was conceived and established with the help of Andre Norton, who continued to sponsor it for many years. The award is named after the publisher and editor William L. Crawford (1911-1984). It was administered by noted Locus reviewer, Gary K. Wolfe from 1985 to 2023. The current administrator is critic Farah Mendlesohn.

Crawford honorees have gone on to win a dozen World Fantasy Awards (including a Life Achievement Award for Charles de Lint), five Shirley Jackson Awards, five Locus Awards, four Hugo Awards, four Nebula Awards, and 27 other awards of various kinds. Two Crawford-winning novels have been adapted as feature films, Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni’s Mistress of Spices in 2005 and Christopher Barzak’s One for Sorrow in 2014 (under the title Jamie Marks is Dead). While the majority of honorees have been residents of the United States, the international dimension of the award is reflected by winners from Canada, the U.K., Sweden, Barbados, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia.

Judges
2023-2024: Brian Attebery, Candas Jane Dorsey, Niall Harrison, Mimi Mondal, Cheryl Morgan, Graham Sleight.

Past judges have included: Amelia Beamer, Jedediah Berry, Liz Bourke, Karen Burnham, John Clute, Daryl Gregory, Ellen Klages, Kelly Link, Adrienne Martine, Kathleen Massie-Ferch, Farah Mendlesohn, Cheryl Morgan, Sofia Samatar, Jonathan Strahan, Liza Groen Trombi, Genevieve Valentine, Paul Witcover.