January is the month where the British Science Fiction Association announces their longlist. This is where any member can put forward a selection of science fiction work that has been created in the previous calendar year - in this case 2025. 

For me personally, the longlist is the moment that I most look forward to. In my six years as Chair of the BSFA (I stepped down in June 2025), the one thing I think we've done really well in promoting is the long list release. This is a event where any published work at any level could feature. All it takes is one member to enjoy and recognise a good read, a fantastic piece of art, or a brilliant piece of audio work. 

This year, I'm still involved in helping to organise the longlists and shortlists for the BSFA. The new awards administrator is Donna Parlby. She's not done this before, so I've agreed to help and support her through the process, although I will have to follow the correct procedures on how much I help (see below).

The longlists are an extensive selection of science fiction that has impressed BSFA members. As you can see on the webpage linked here, it's a lot of work to produce. We take the submitted forms from members and track down all the different titles they've put forward. Sometimes those titles are incorrectly spelled, or even unattributed (a garbled title with no author is hard to find!), but we do our best to find everything submitted to the longlist.

Occasionally, authors and artists vote for themselves. That's not permitted. Nor is voting for a work you were a named contributor on, or publisher of. All of this is clearly explained in the BSFA's rules, but we still get people doing it. That means the volunteers running the awards have to track through every anthology (for example) working out if the member nominating the work has sufficient distance from it. That probably takes a lot more time than it did for the nominee to fill in the form!

Nominations

This year, I've been very fortunate to have received longlist nominations for two of my Fractal episodes, Insurgents and Pioneers. These are episodes 7 and 8 of the series. Additionally, the tessellated cover (pictures above), produced by my publisher Nick Wells was also nominated. 

Another work that I edited, which has received a long list nomination, is Creative Futures: Beyond and Within. This is the edited anthology of short stories I worked on as part of my research project with Coventry University and DSTL. Excellent writers like Gareth Powell, Gavin Smith, Emma Newman, Stark Holborn, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Sophia Macdougall, Stephen Oram and Stewart Hotston were all involved in contributing to this. 

There were also longlist nominations for season 3 of The Dex Legacy and Wasteland: A Dex Legacy Story, both of which I wrote the music for.

If any of these works reaches the shortlists for their respective categories, then I have to recuse myself from helping with the shortlist voting. That's the guidance we stick to on the BSFA committee. I've had to do that a couple of times in the past.

After February 19th, the shortlists for the BSFA Awards will be announced. After that, Eastercon attendees get to join BSFA members and vote for their favourite works.

I would definitely recommend engaging with the BSFA Awards. For new writers, it's an opportunity to assess the territory, to see where you might be able to submit your writing or to read a few things that are clearly getting attention. It's also an opportunity to celebrate the hard work creative people are doing. 

As I've previously mentioned, I'm the world's worst promoter of my own work, but if you're a BSFA member and want to vote in my direction, I can promise you, it'll warm my heart and help keep me writing.