Winner of the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award

On Monday, July 27, 2020, the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation was proud to announce the winner of the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award for North Carolina Science Fiction and Fantasy, the result of juried selection from the list of finalists, in turn the result of juried selection from an eligibility list of over 80 titles. The award was presented online via ConTinual to Durham author Michael G. Williams for A Fall in Autumn, published by Falstaff Books:

Set thousands of years into humanity’s future, A Fall in Autumn features staggering world-building both in technology and culture and religion, an amazing, living, breathing, dying, flying city, a private eye for the science fictional ages, and a mystery with plenty of twists and turns that add up to a truly stunning book which reflects on human and artificial human nature, past, present, and future.

Accepting the award, Williams thanked the many people who helped the book along its path from inception to publication (publisher John G. Hartness, editors Erin Penn and Melissa McArthur), and added a personal note about the community of fellow authors in North Carolina:

I want to also thank everyone else who was nominated, the longlist, the shortlist, finalists, most of all for helping to create an environment in North Carolina where it is possible for someone to join in and try to find their voice and be a part of this amazing environment of writers, and feel very supported and very welcomed at all times. And I am desperate for times to return when I can be with those people again.

The Manly Wade Wellman Award was founded in 2013 to recognize outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy novels written by North Carolina authors. The 2020 award covers novels published in 2019.

The award is named for long-time North Carolina author Manly Wade Wellman with the permission of his estate.

To promote the writing and reading of speculative fiction in North Carolina and to recognize outstanding achievements in North Carolina science fiction and fantasy.