Voting Opens For This Year’s British Fantasy Awards!

The time has come: voting is now open for this year’s British Fantasy Awards! Here’s what you need to know before opening up the form…

Who’s eligible to vote?

To be eligible to vote, you must be a member of the British Fantasy Society or be an attendee at World Fantasycon 2025 in Brighton, or have bought a ticket to the upcoming Fantasycon in Glasgow this year.

You can vote by completing this form.

What can I vote for?

Eligible titles must have been published for the first time in the English language in 2025, anywhere in the world. Titles must contain some speculative element, though we interpret “Fantasy” widely. You can find out more about the awards by reading our FAQ here.

You cannot vote for any work which you wrote, edited or published

Please do not vote for any title if you have a substantial professional involvement with it or would receive professional benefit if the title is shortlisted/wins. We ask each voter to use their best judgement with this, but here are some examples to help illustrate what we mean. If you are in doubt, please do reach out to us for guidance.

• Reviewers may vote for a title which they have reviewed.
• Agents should not vote for any work by their clients, regardless of whether they represented that work or not. 
• Contributors to an anthology should not vote for the anthology.
• If you’ve had a short story published in a magazine, you may vote for that magazine, as your contribution to the overall body of work is small and the magazine winning is unlikely to have any real effect on your career.
• Publishers should not vote for any title published by their company whether they personally worked on it or not.
• Freelance editors should not vote for a title they have edited.

How can I find out what’s works are eligible?

We crowd-sourced a list of eligible works in early April, which you can find here.

You do not have to vote for something on this list; it’s purely there to help jog memories. If you know something fits all criteria and is not on the suggestion list, please feel free to vote for it.

How are the winners decided?

Once the voting is closed, the votes are tallied and the short list for each category is formed. This shortlist is sent to a panel of peers who may then add up to two “egregious omissions”—works they think should be on the shortlist based on their knowledge of the category.

Once the shortlist is finalised, the jurors will have the opportunity to read, listen to, and/or view the works and discuss them as a group to decide upon the winners.

When do we know who’s won?

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at Fantasycon, which will be held in Glasgow this year from 9-11 October. Get all the details over here.

Call for Jurors!

We are now also inviting applications to be a juror for the British Fantasy Awards. You do not need to be a member of the BFS to volunteer as a juror – and in fact, we like to include as many non-members as possible. The only qualification you need to be a juror is a love of Fantasy in all its forms and the time and willingness to review the materials for as many categories as you volunteer for. 

Apply to be a juror for the British Fantasy Awards by filling in this form.

Jurors will be given first sight of the shortlists and will be asked to declare any conflict of interest at that point. Jurors are also invited to add up to two titles as egregious omissions at this time. It should be noted that jurors should not introduce any titles at this stage which they would have been disallowed to vote for under the guidance above. 

Your deadline is looming…

Both voting and the call for jurors will be open until 3 May. We anticipate the jury process will follow this timeline:

• Juror selection should be finalised by the end of May
• Jurors should have access to the shortlist material by mid-June
• Jurors will have until September to study the list and come to a collective decision