Author Laurie A. Green » The SFR Galaxy Awards Say Goodbye

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that the SFR Galaxy Awards have been a big part of my life for the last seven years. Founder Heather Massey teamed up with me to kick off the awards, which had an unusual concept.

If you’re interested in learning more about their creation, check out these links:

Over the course of the award years, many Science Fiction Romance books were recognized as outstanding, which helped readers to find books they wanted to read. But one of the fun aspects of the awards was that the authors never entered their books–up to five books were chosen independently by each judge based on that year’s SFR releases. That meant the authors often had no clue they’d won a SFR Galaxy Award until they were actually notified!

To further set this contest apart, there were no entry fees, no forms to submit, no pages to format and upload. The graphics and site banners were donated by outstanding graphic artists Kanaxa and Danielle Fine. The awards operated with no funding whatsoever, and they happened because of the commitment of the administrators and judges who volunteered their time to make them happen.

The eligible pool of books was any SFR book published in the award year (though judges were given the option to chose one book from an earlier year, and also one SFR in other media such as film, TV, game, etc.). The judges made up their own categories for the books they selected, which often led to some entertaining award titles. The books could be traditionally-published, indie, free or a special offering. As long as the book had a cover and qualified as a SFR story, it could win.

I served for several years as a judge before stepping down to make way for some new faces. For the last two award cycles, I managed the administrators duties so Heather had time for other priorities that came up in her life. I think it was a labor of love for all involved.

Sadly, Heather Massey made a decision to end the awards based on some anonymous input and her personal assessment of that feedback, so the 2018 calendar year was the last year for the SFR Galaxy Awards.

This was the goodbye post Heather posted on September 5, 2019 on the SFR Galaxy Awards site:

In spite of the work and time involved, I feel the SFR Galaxy Awards were a great thing for the genre and for helping to connect readers with books. The feeling I get from the SFR community is that the awards will be sorely missed, and I hope a new award system for Science Fiction Romance might take root in the future to pick up where the SFR Galaxy Awards left off. I don’t anticipate being involved if that happens, however. As Jon Snow would say, “My watch has ended.”

The SFR Galaxy Awards Say Goodbye

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