For anyone wondering how The Headline Awards work…
Every year, around the beginning of December, the call is sent out for volunteers to judge the awards. And the call is answered. These are dedicated fans who spend all year creating and enjoying fandom work new and old. We are grateful to everyone who gives their time and effort in order to make the awards happen year after year. If you think you’d like to help us as a judge, be sure to contact us and let us know.
On January 1st we open the awards for nominations. This is a twenty day period in which everyone in any Anthony Head fandom is encourage to share their favorite and most engaging finds with us. Our moderators gather these nominations and, as long as our rules are followed, add them all to the nominee list. During the same time, our judges are put into teams for every category and given their assignments. It is their responsibility to read and/or view every entry to make sure all nominees are given equal consideration.
On January 21st the judging and voting period begins. Each category has a team of judges who read and view all of the entries, deliberate and discuss, and come to a consensus on one winner and one runner-up. This is never an easy task. They are not allowed to declare a tie, so there are sometimes heated debates about the merits of several works. All of the wonderful works that get submitted deserve to be recognized and praised. Winners can sometimes come down to the nit-pickiest details where judges must rely on their guts to choose the most deserving entry.
This is the reason we allow and encourage re-entries in future years for everyone except the winners. With other judges, another work might have come out on top. So, never get discouraged. If you were nominated, it’s because someone loves your work and thinks you deserve to win! We hope to see you all back again and again.
After the judges have made their choices, they are asked to write a comment for the winning works. This is because, as we all know, the one thing authors and artist covet above all else is feedback. They are our gift to the creators. We hope that our comments might give you a hint as to why the winning pieces stood out for us.
The judging and voting ends on February 18th. The winners list and comments are sorted and prepared, and the votes are tallied. Then our artist(s) has the frantic task of making all of the award banners. This could be as many as 66 different individualized banners! And our artist(s) always makes sure each one gets the attention they deserve. Every year they are beautiful.
The big day is February 20th, when we post the winners, banners, and comments in honor of Tony’s birthday. This is a very exhausting day for our moderates. But then everyone takes a breath and takes a well-earned rest for next year.
We hope this gives you a small glimpse into how the Headline Awards happen every year. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. As always, thank you for your interest and participation.