The 2021 Aurora Awards were announced during a live streamed ceremony organized by Ottawa’s Can*Con convention on October 16th, 2021. Author Silvia Moreno-Garcia gave a keynote to start the awards ceremony. Author Kevin Hearne announced the first time nominees who were receiving their nominee pin. The ceremonies also included the induction of authors Monica Hughes and Jean-Louis Trudel, and fan and Godzilla expert, Stan G Hyde, into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s (CSFFA) Hall of Fame.
The Best Novel award went to author Silvia Moreno-Garcia for Mexican Gothic. Susan Forest’s Flights of Marigold won in the Best Young Adult Novel category. Showrunner Steve Blackman took home his second Aurora for the second season of The Umbrella Academy.
Aurora awards are given out for Canadian literary and fan works that members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) feel are exceptional. A total of eleven awards were given out. This year the society split the Short Fiction category to create a Novelette/Novella and a Short Story award. Few conventions happened in 2020, so works that would normally have been in the Fan Organizational category were combine with the Fan Related Work category,
Next year’s awards will be hosted by Calgary’s When Words Collide festival. Can*Con was voted to be the host for 2023 at the society’s AGM in June.
The full list of 2021 Aurora Awards is:
Best Novel: Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Random House Publishing Group
Best YA Novel: Flights of Marigold, Susan Forest, Laksa Media Groups Inc.
Best Novelette/Novella: “Tool Use by the Humans of Danzhai County“, Derek Künsken, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July/Aug
Best Short Story: “All Cats Go to Valhalla“, Chadwick Ginther, Swashbuckling Cats: Nine Lives on the Seven Seas, Tyche Books
Best Graphic Novel: It Never Rains, Kari Maaren, webcomic
Best Poem/Song: “Nidhog“, Jo Walton, The Book of Dragons, Harper Voyager
Best Related Work: On Spec Magazine, Diane L. Walton, Managing Editor, The Copper Pig Writers Society
Best Visual Presentation: The Umbrella Academy, Steve Blackman, Netflix
Best Artist: Samantha M. Beiko, cover for Flights of the Marigold, Laska Media Group
Best Fan Writing and Publication: Polar Borealis, Issues #13 to #16, edited by R. Graeme Cameron
Best Fan Related Work: When Words Collide, Randy McCharles, chair, online festival
Interested in the awards statistics? Go to our results grid. It contains information about how voting went and all the works that received at least five nominations. The link is: https://prixaurorawards.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-aurora-results-grids.pdf