Glasgow Worldcon chair promises transparency following Hugo censorship

In the US, a report by science fiction and fantasy writers Chris M Barkley and Jason Sanford on the 2023 Hugo Awards—which draws on leaked emails from a member of the 2023 Hugo administration team—suggests the exclusion of works by several authors (including Neil Gaiman, R F Kuang, Paul Weimer and Xiran Jay Zhao) from the awards presented in Chengdu, China was an act of censorship.

‘As far as our investigation is concerned there was no reason to exclude the works of Kuang, Gaiman, Weimer or Xiran Jay Zhao, save for being viewed as being undesirable in the view of the Hugo Award admins which had the effect of being the proxies [of the] Chinese government’, the report stated.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, earlier this month, Worldcon Intellectual Property (WIP), the nonprofit that holds the trademarks for the World Science Fiction Society and the Hugo Awards, censured and reprimanded several individuals, including board director Dave McCarty, who resigned from the position, following the revelation that the works had been deemed ineligible.

Kat Jones, an administrator from Glasgow Worldcon who was involved in the 2023 Hugo Awards process, has since resigned from the Glasgow team.

Esther MacCallum-Stewart, chair of Glasgow Worldcon 2024, has issued an apology on behalf of Worldcon for the acts of censorship that impacted the Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards, reported Publishers Weekly. MacCallum said the Glasgow Worldcon team had taken steps ‘to ensure transparency and to attempt to redress the grievous loss of trust in the administration of the Awards’.

Category: International news