The nominees for the third annual Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction have been announced. Established in honor of the late writer and editor Eugie Foster, the Eugie Award honors “irreplaceable” stories that “will become essential to speculative fiction readers.” Foster, who passed away in 2014, was a prolific short fiction writer; her novelette “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” won the 2009 Nebula Award.

Eligible works are original speculative short fiction, no more than 20,000 words, published for the first time in the English language in the previous year. This is a juried award, with long list nominations coming from editors, reviewers, and select book readers. Catherynne M. Valente was the recipient of the inaugural award, for “The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild”; N.K. Jemisin was the 2017 recipient for “The City Born Great.”

The complete list of nominees:

The Eugie Award will be presented at Dragon Con 2018 (August 30-September 3).