AWARDS NEWS! Congratulations, Henry Vogel and Barbara V. Evers!

We’ve just learned that Henry Vogel’s latest Rampant Loon Press novel, THE PRINCESS SCOUT, is a finalist for the 2025 Imadjinn Award for Best YA Novel, which will be presented at Imaginarium 2025 this coming July.

We’re pretty pumped about this. Two years ago Henry’s previous novel, THE HOSTAGE IN HIDING, made a strong run for the Imadjinn Award, only to be beaten in the final round by a big-budget novel co-written by a pair of NY Times and USA Today best-selling authors and published by a major publishing house with a HUGE advertising budget. This year he’s facing no such competition, so we don’t want to jinx the thing, but we are, as they say, “cautiously optimistic.”

BUT WAIT! IT GETS BETTER!

It doesn’t stop with THE PRINCESS SCOUT. This year Henry is also a finalist in the category of Best Graphic Novel, for ARISOCRATIC XTRATERRESTRIAL TIME-TRAVELING THIEVES COMPLETE COLLECTION! (Try saying that three times fast!) We’ve been slow to plug this one, as a.) we didn’t publish it; Critical Blast did, and b.) the book is a bit pricey and weighs three pounds in hardcover, and made an audible thump! when it landed on the porch. But now that the book is available in a somewhat more affordable and considerably lighter paperback edition, you should check it out!

MEANWHILE, LAST BUT NOT LEAST…

Stupefying Stories contributor and former slush-pile reader Barbara V. Evers is also a finalist for the Imadjinn Award this year, in the category of Best Short Story, for “Kaleidoscope,” which I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more about as I don’t know where it was published. I can tell you though that Barbara is already a two-time winner of the Imadjinn Award in the category of Best Fantasy Novel, for her Watchers of Moniah trilogy, so you owe it to yourself to check out her website. She’s been busy since she moved on from writing columns for us!

Wow. Not one but three award finalists. It’s been a busy day and I haven’t even had my second cup of coffee yet. I wonder what the afternoon will bring?

~brb

Categories: RLP news