Concerning the Dragon Awards

from Jonna Hayden, Production Manager for Raconteur Press

In an effort towards transparency, we have sent the following letter to the Dragon Awards team, via Dragon Con:

I am the Production Manager for Raconteur Press, and our Lead Designer is Cedar Sanderson. Cedar was nominated for a Dragon Award for her work on our book Goblin Market and achieved a place on the final ballot in the category "Best Illustrative Cover" for 2024. Or so we thought. Several hours after the final ballot was announced (and we proudly shared the information) Cedar's name was removed.

We were surprised by this removal—there has been no explanation, no replacement name added to the list, and no comment of any kind from the Dragon Awards as to the reason behind it. Cedar has not been contacted, and multiple emails from many, many fans have gone unanswered.

In their frustration, her fans have been emailing, messaging, and calling us, to see if we have any communication or information as to the why of this. We are, unfortunately, equally in the dark. We've been referring them to the contact form on the Awards page, but no information has been forthcoming. The lack of any comment on the Dragon Awards's part is now beginning to lead to speculation as to the integrity of the awards as a whole. In light of the recent Hugo issues at the China Worldcon, I would think your organization would be striving to maintain the utmost transparency.

Is there any plan whatsoever to address this? Will there be a statement of any kind as to the reasons? I would like to return to my regular job of publishing great short fiction, and not be fielding the frustrated and angry messages of fans who nominated her in good faith.

I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation, and sharing it will help.

Please let us know what the the plan for this is going forward.

Thank you.