The Kitschies were British literary prizes presented annually from 2009 to 2024 for "the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic" published in the United Kingdom. The awards discontinued after November 2024 when the final winners were announced. The organisers said the award would discontinue due to the increasing and unsustainable amount of work it required of the volunteer staff.
Awards and criteria The Kitschies were administered by a non-profit association with the stated mission of "encouraging and elevating the tone of the discussion of genre literature in its many forms". The founders, Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin, said that they sought to bring attention to works with a fantastic or speculative element that were progressive in terms of content and composition.
The award was a juried prize that selected the books which "best elevate the tone of genre literature." Qualifying books needed to contain "an element of the fantastic or speculative" and have been published in the UK. Winners received prize money and a textile tentacle trophy.
The Kitschies were initially established in 2009 by the website pornokitsch.com. The Kraken Rum was the sponsor between 2010 and 2013. For 2014 and 2015, Fallen London (a creation of UK game developer Failbetter Games) was the sponsor. The award did not run in 2016. From 2017 the sponsor was Blackwell's Bookshop.
For the last ten or eleven years of operation, the Kitschies were awarded in five categories: Red Tentacle for the best novel (£1,000, since 2009) Golden Tentacle for the best debut novel (£500, since 2010) Inky Tentacle for the best cover art (£500, since 2011) Invisible Tentacle for the best natively digital fiction (since 2014) Glentacle, awarded at the judges' discretion (since 2010, called "Black Tentacle" until 2020)
Organisation The judging panel changes annually and the unpaid directors have changed due to workload or illness. The number of submissions increased from 70 in 2009 to 234 in 2013.
For each year, the judges, directors, and the number of submissions for each year were as follows: Year Literary Art Natively digital fiction Award Directors Submissions 2009 and Jared Shurin N/A N/A and Anne C. Perry 702010 and Jared ShurinN/AN/A and Anne C. Perry502011, Jared Shurin, Lauren Beukes, and Rebecca Levene, Craig Kennedy, Catherine Hemelryk, and Darren BanksN/A1502012, Rebecca Levene, and Patrick Ness, Gary Northfield, and Ed WarrenN/A2112013, Catherine Webb, Will Hill, Anab Jain, and Annabelle Wright, Sarah Anne Langton, Emma Vieceli, and Craig KennedyN/A2342014, Adam Roberts, Kim Curran, Frances Hardinge, and Glen Mehn, Dapo Adeola, Jim Kay, and Siân Prime, James Wallis, Phil van Kemenade, and Clwere Reddington1982015, James Smythe, Nazia Khatun, Nikesh Shukla and Glen Mehn, Regan Warner, Dapo Adeola, and Lauren O'Farrell, Emily Short, and Rebecca Levene1762016No award2017, Leila Abu El Hawa, Joshua Idehen, Alasdair Stuart, and Ewa Scibor-Rylska, Sharan Dhaliwal, Jet Purdie, and Stuart TaylorN/A and Leila Abu El Hawa1422018, Sharan Dhaliwal, Daniel Carpenter, Lucy Smee, and Matt Webb, Lily Ash Sakula, and Maeve RuttenN/A and Leila Abu El Hawa1782019, Kirsty Logan, Tasha Suri, Michaela Grey, and Alasdair Stuart, James Spackman, Kaiya Shang, and Sharan MatharuN/A and Anne Perry1962020, Clwere Rees, Mahvesh Murad, Kaiya Shang, and Daphne Lao Tong, Fleur Clarke, Claire Richardson, and Jeffrey Alan LoveN/A and Anne Perry177
Recipients All award information, unless otherwise referenced, is from the Kitschies Award's blog and tumblr, or from the sponsor Blackwell's website.
Red Tentacle (best novel) +Red Tentacle winners and finalistsYearAuthorNominated workResultRef2009WonBest Served ColdNominated (posth.) and Seth Grahame-SmithPride and Prejudice and Zombies2010Zoo CityWonChildren's CrusadeNominatedKrakenAurorarama2011 and Patrick NessWonNominatedEmbassytownOsama2012AngelmakerWonNominatedJack Glass2013WonRed DocNominatedMore Than ThisBleeding Edge2014Grasshopper JungleWonNominatedLagoon2015WonEurope at MidnightNominated2016No awards held2017Won, translated by L. SeegersFeverNominatedCity of CirclesWe See EverythingBlack Wave2018CirceWonRecord of a Spaceborn FewNominatedRosewaterUnholy Land2019Won and Max GladstoneThis Is How You Lose the Time WarNominatedAlways NorthFrom the Wreck2020PiranesiWonNominated2021No awards held2022WonBlack Water SisterNominated, trans. by Sean Lin HalbertBear Head2023WonBeyond the Burn LineNominated translated by Megan McDowellOur Share of NightTwelve Percent Dread2024JuliaWonIn AscensionNominatedInfinity GateJungle House
Golden Tentacle (best debut novel) YearAuthorNominated workResultRef2009Not awarded2010King MakerWon2011God's WarWonAmong ThievesNominatedMiss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children2012Redemption in IndigoWonvNNominatedPanopticonSeraphina2013Ancillary JusticeWonNominatedStrayNexusMr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore2014Viper WineWonNominatedMemory of Water2015Making WolfWonBlackassNominated2016No awards held2017Hunger Makes the WolfWonAge of AssassinsNominatedHow Saints DieMandelbrot the Magnificent2018Frankenstein in BaghdadWonChildren Of Blood and BoneNominatedSemiosisSweet Fruit, Sour Land2019JellyWonMy Name Is MonsterNominatedShe Would Be KingWilder Girls2020WonSharks in the Time of SavioursNominatedDjinn Patrol on the Purple LineRaybearer2021No awards held2022TemporaryWonComposite CreaturesNominatedSeveral People Are TypingWinter's OrbitIron Widow2023Our Wives Under the SeaWonBrother AliveNominatedThe Immortal King RaoThe Mountain in the SeaWhen We Were Birds2024WonBang Bang BodhisattvaNominatedShark HeartYour Wish Is My Command
Inky Tentacle (best cover art) YearWorkAuthorArtist(s)ResultRef2009Not awarded2010Not awarded2011 (designer)WonRivers of London (illus.) and Patrick Knowles (design)Nominated (design) and John Spencer (illus.)Equations of Life (design) and Siobhan Dowd (illus.)2012 (illus.)WonLa Boca (design)Nominated (illus.)Costume Not Included (illus.)Flame Alphabet (design)2013 (art)WonDreams and Shadows (design and illus.)NominatedHomeland and Pirate CinemaAmazing15 (design)Stray (art)Apocalypse Now Now (art)2014Tigerman (cover)Won (design)Nominated (cover)Through the Woods and Sonja Chaghatzbanian (cover) and Yehring Tong (cover)2015 (art direction and design)Won (design)NominatedMonsters (art design) and Patrick Leger (illus.) (design and illus.)Get in Trouble 2016No awards held2017 and the Simon & Schuster Art Department (cover)Won (illus.)NominatedBlack Wave (illus.) and Hannah Naughton (design)Black Sheep (illus. and jacket design)Our Memory like Dust (design)2018Killing Commendatore (cover)Won (design)Nominated (design)Squwere Eyes and Luke Jones and Luke Jones (design)Slender Man Anonymous (design)2019 (cover)WonAcross The Void (cover)Nominated (cover)ZedFaber & Faber (cover)This Is How You Lose the Time War and Max Gladstone (cover)2020 (cover) and Dexter Maurer (illus.)WonLittle Eyes (cover)NominatedMonstrous Heart (cover) (cover) and Amy Judd (illus.) (cover)2021No awards held2022 (art and design)WonNightbitch NominatedVelvet Was the Night Iron Widow 2023Paper Crusade WonCelestial , Tomas Almeida, Joanna Ridley & Helen EwingNominatedMotherthing Poster Girl 2024Out There Screaming & John Joseph Adams, Stuart Wilson & Arnold J. KempWonJulia NominatedLioness Greg Heinimann DesignRemember, Mr Sharma
Invisible Tentacle (best natively digital fiction) YearAuthor / DeveloperNominated workForm of MediaResultRef2014Cardboard Computer written by Jake ElliottKentucky Route Zero Act IIIvideo gameWon and others@echovirus12Twitter fictionNominatedInkle Studios written by Meg Jayanth and Jon Ingold, directed by Joseph Humfrey and Jon Ingold80 Daysvideo gameSimogoSailor’s Dreamvideo game2015Dontnod EntertainmentLife Is Strangevideo gameWonArcadiainteractive novelNominated@FrogCroakleyDaniel Barker’s BirthdayTwitter fictionBBC Writers RoomThe Last Hours of Laura K / FromSoftwareBloodbornevideo game
Glentacle (Discretionary award previously called the Black Tentacle) This award was called "Black Tentacle" until 2020, when it was renamed in memory of Kitschies co-founder Glen Mehn. Year Winner Citation2009 No award 2010 Memory, novel by Donald Westlake. "to recognize a novel that doesn't quite fit the award description but is so exceptional it merits the highest praise...noir, pure and simple, by a master of the genre … while we're sorry that Memory went unpublished while Westlake was alive, we're delighted that Hard Case brought the manuscript to light"2011SelfMadeHero, comics publisher "for their 2011 body of work and their contribution to elevating geek culture"2012Lavie Tidhar, Charles Tan, and Sarah Newton "for the World SF Blog, a website showcasing international speculative fiction"2013Malorie Blackman, British writer, Children's Laureate for 2013 "for outstanding achievement in encouraging and elevating the conversation around genre literature"2014Sarah McIntyre, author and illustrator "for tireless work to promote the rights of artists and to encourage others to value their work"2015The genre community, personified by Patrick Ness "for its response to the humanitarian refugee crisis" Ness began a fund that raised over £690,000 for Save the Children2016No awards held2017 No award20182019Nazia Khatun, Claire North, and Leila Abu El Hawa "for services to the SF/F community."2020Simon Key of the Big Green Bookshop in Hastings "demonstrated extraordinary generosity and selflessness to readers, introducing and running his "Buy a Stranger a Book" initiative every Wednesday to allow readers to access books at a time that even libraries were closed."2021 No awards held2022 Comma Press "for their remarkable 'book of' and +100 series of anthologies"
References
External links The Kitschies website