<\/div>\n

Headed to the Brotherhood Without Banners Party from there \u2014 and that joint was jumping! The Bros always throw a terrific party and I have a lot of friends there. X-Ray gave me my Chesley. She and Mr. X had Balvenie Caribbean waiting for me. Good times, great people (shoutouts to Boiled Leather, Red Woman, Mutha Hydra, Lady Chattaya, Lodey, Raya, Lacey, Leigh, Tara, Will, and more), and a lot of laughs. And still no sightings of RaceBannon but Steve Spaulding was in the house. (BWB inside joke that I inadvertently created\u2026..if you\u2019re non-BWB, nothing to see here. :))\n

<\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Chapter Four: Rocket Sunday<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

\n

<\/i><\/div>\n(pictured above: Mary Robinette Kowal and her husband Rob at the Pre-Hugo Reception)<\/i>\nHad breakfast with George, Parris, Raya and her boyfriend. Good way to start the day. Lunched with LOCUS<\/a>\u2018 Liza Trombi. With the Hugo Award Semi-Prozine rule changes being instituted, 2012 will be the last year that LOCUS is eligible for a Hugo in the category. The magazine won a massive haul of Hugos under the leadership of Charles Brown, but since Liza assumed the leadership of the mag, they hadn\u2019t landed a Hugo yet. I was rooting for her to pull it off because this was her last chance.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Many conversations and meetings later \u2014 it was time for the pre-Hugo Awards reception. I\u2019ve been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist seven consecutive times. I\u2019ve been through these events six previous times. They\u2019re a joy because there are so many friends dressed to their best, but they\u2019re also nerve-wracking because everyone is on edge for the results to be announced. This one was no different.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
When it was time to head to the awards, I was seated next to Irene Gallo and Greg Manchess, with Patty Wells and Colin Harris on my other side. Irene was accepting for Stephan Martiniere and I was convinced that either he or Dan Dos Santos was gonna win the award. The more Irene kept scribbling on notepaper as each category was announced, I was sure that Stephan had won his second Hugo.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
John Scalzi was the MC, and he did what Scalzi does \u2014 he\u2019s eloquent, funny, gracious, and in command of the moment. It\u2019s what all Toastmasters hope to be, and Scalzi does it effortlessly. He\u2019s been with me at many a Losers\u2019 Party. We\u2019ve shared several post-Hugo commiserations over the years.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
After losing seven straight years, there were two noticable differences this time around though. 1) I\u2019ve received loud cheers at past Hugo announcements, but there was a massive roar from the audience for my name this time when the nominees\u2019 names were read. 2) And then there was Scalzi and when that little smirk creeped across his face and he did that giant pause, something in my stomach went, \u201cOh f**k.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And I barely even heard my name because the room exploded with screams and cheers, and I was utterly stunned and glued to my chair. Stared at the floor for about a second, before heading for the stage. Chris Garcia bearhugged me in the aisle. Steven Silver was there too. And at the end of the aisle, before I hit the stairs, stood Liza, who had won her \u2018first\u2019 Hugo \u2014 the one that means the most to her because she earned this one without Charles, and totally under her leadership, along with Kirsten Gong-Wong, Francesca Myman and the rest of LOCUS\u2019 crew. I\u2019ll never forget the look on her face, and for she and I to have earned our Hugos on the same night is a very special thing.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As far as my speech \u2014 I didn\u2019t have one. What came out of my mouth is what was on my mind at that moment. That\u2019s the only way I know how to do these things. It was important that at least two artists who were never recognized with Hugos were celebrated this night and those were Richard Powers and John Berkey \u2014 two giants who opened doors to new frontiers where many of us pros now thrive, and hopefully expand upon.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u2019m extremely grateful to all who voted for me all of these years, and who voted for me this year. I\u2019m grateful to have won this on a night when my friends Liza, Paul Cornell, John DeNardo, Charlie Jane Anders, Kij Johnson, Sheila Williams, George R. R. Martin, and Neil Gaiman also won.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
George is special to me because he gave me the opportunity to do that 2012 ASoIaF Calendar, and spending that time in Westeros is a time that I will never forget. I\u2019m really glad that GAME OF THRONES won a Hugo. I wish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS would have fared better in the final Best Novel tally. I believe George will own a Best Novel Hugo someday.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Standing next to Neil at the post-Hugo photos, I reminded him that I won my first pro award \u2014 the International Horror Guild Award (Best Artist) \u2014 ten years ago in this same city. The person who handed me that award? Him.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Congrats to all winners and nominees Sunday night \u2014 and especially Dan Dos Santos, Michael Komarck, Bob Eggleton, and Stephan Martiniere \u2014 so honoured to be amongst you. It\u2019s an honour just to be nominated for a Hugo \u2014 yes, no doubt about it. And being nominated seven straight years is a massive achievement \u2014 I know this. But wow, I\u2019m so grateful to win this Hugo on my eighth nomination. More grateful than I have words to express. It really is a dream come true. Thanks to all friends and family, who were there along the way, including my mother, father, and sister who always believed \u2014 and Traci who was there for so many of those losing years and now will be treated to many celebratory dinners over this next month because she deserves to savour this as much as anyone.
<\/a><\/div>\n
What can I say? I\u2019m a Hugo Award winner \u2014 only the 17th artist to ever win in the Best Professional Artist category (18th if you count Leo and Diane Dillon as individuals, but since they were such a team, they\u2019re really one artist).<\/div>\n
Wow.\n
Time to get back to work. Time to make better art. Thanks, everyone!<\/p>\n
(Thanks to Brenda Cooper for the above photo.)<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Still haven\u2019t quite wrapped my brain around that one. Dreamed about it for many, many years, but now that it\u2019s reality, it still hasn\u2019t sunk in, even several days after a magical night. A lot to say \u2014 what follows are highlights from an amazing weekend. If you want to just read the Hugo reaction, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conventions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/PICACIOawards2012.jpg?fit=497%2C798","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5te7x-1a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}