World Fantasy Award—Life Achievement
The World Fantasy Awards are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction and fantasy art published in English during the preceding calendar year. The awards have been described by sources such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and as one of the three most renowned speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards. The World Fantasy Award—Life Achievement is given each year to individuals for their overall career in fields related to fantasy. These have included, for example, authors, editors, and publishers. The specific nomination reasons are not given, and nominees are not required to have retired, though they can only win once. The Life Achievement category has been awarded annually since 1975.
World Fantasy Award nominees are decided by attendees and judges at the annual World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner of each category. Unlike the other World Fantasy Award categories, the nominees for the Life Achievement award are not announced; instead, the winner is announced along with the nominees in the other categories. The panel of judges is typically made up of fantasy authors, and is chosen each year by the World Fantasy Awards Administration, which has the power to break ties. The final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention at the end of October. Through 2015, winners were presented with a statuette of H. P. Lovecraft; more recent winners receive a statuette of a tree.
During the 45 nomination years, 71 people have been given the Life Achievement Award. Multiple winners have been awarded 22 times, typically two co-winners, though five were noted in 1984. Since 2000, it has become an unofficial tradition for two winners to be announced, often with one winner primarily an author and the other not. While most winners have been authors and editors, five winners have been primarily artists of fantasy art and book covers, and four winners are best known for founding or running publishing houses that produce fantasy works.
Winners
In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony. Items in the Work column are items and companies that the winner created or worked at; they are meant to be representative of the winner's career in the field of fantasy to that point, but the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement is not given for any specific achievement, and no such achievements are listed by the World Fantasy Convention as reasons for the award. In many cases the winner is well known for their non-fantasy works, such as science fiction novels, which are not listed.| Year | Winner | Work | |
| 1975 | Psycho, "That Hell-Bound Train" | ||
| 1976 | "Gonna Roll the Bones", Ill Met in Lankhmar | ||
| 1977 | Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man | ||
| 1978 | The Hounds of Tindalos, The Horror from the Hills | ||
| 1979 | "The Garden of Forking Paths", Ficciones | ||
| 1980 | Worse Things Waiting, Who Fears the Devil? | ||
| 1981 | Jirel of Joiry, Northwest of Earth | ||
| 1982 | The Baron in the Trees, The Castle of Crossed Destinies | ||
| 1983 | James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | ||
| 1984 | The Goblin Tower, Land of Unreason | ||
| 1984 | Bid Time Return, I Am Legend | ||
| 1984 | "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", Far Lands, Other Days | ||
| 1984 | The Dying Earth, Lyonesse Trilogy | ||
| 1984 | The Web of Easter Island, Strange Harvest | ||
| 1985 | Without Sorcery, E Pluribus Unicorn | ||
| 1986 | The Phoenix and the Mirror, Vergil in Averno | ||
| 1987 | The Body Snatchers, Marion's Wall | ||
| 1988 | Editing Guide to Supernatural Fiction, A Treasury of Victorian Ghost Stories | ||
| 1989 | The Island of the Mighty, The Song of Rhiannon | ||
| 1990 | Serpent's Egg, The Devil is Dead | ||
| 1991 | The Bishop's Daughter, The Devil's Mirror | ||
| 1992 | Artwork for Unknown, Fantasy Press | ||
| 1993 | Deathbird Stories, Mefisto in Onyx | ||
| 1994 | "Hocus Pocus Universe", Darker Than You Think | ||
| 1995 | A Wizard of Earthsea, Always Coming Home | ||
| 1996 | The Book of the New Sun, Soldier of the Mist | ||
| 1997 | A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet | ||
| 1998 | Editing The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction | ||
| 1998 | Witch World, The Halfblood Chronicles | ||
| 1999 | Murgunstrumm and Others, Death Stalks the Night | ||
| 2000 | The Mists of Avalon, Darkover | ||
| 2000 | Elric of Melniboné, The Knight of Swords | ||
| 2001 | Artwork such as Conan the Destroyer, Death Dealer | ||
| 2001 | Hadon of Ancient Opar, Inside Outside | ||
| 2002 | Editing Famous Monsters of Filmland, work as a literary agent | ||
| 2002 | Editing Weird Tales, Amra | ||
| 2003 | The Black Cauldron, The High King | ||
| 2003 | Founding/running Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Centaur Press | ||
| 2004 | , It | ||
| 2004 | Artwork for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The New Yorker | ||
| 2005 | Founder of Tor Books, publisher for Ace Books | ||
| 2005 | The Mount, The Start of the End of It All | ||
| 2006 | Little, Big, Great Work of Time | ||
| 2006 | Artwork for Dungeons & Dragons, Ladies & Legends | ||
| 2007 | Co-founded Bantam Books, Ballantine Books | ||
| 2007 | Howl's Moving Castle, Charmed Life | ||
| 2008 | Artwork for Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, Ashanti to Zulu | ||
| 2008 | Harpist in the Wind, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld | ||
| 2009 | Editor of Science Fiction Book Club, New American Library | ||
| 2009 | Owl Moon, Lost Girls | ||
| 2010 | Necroscope, Blood Brothers | ||
| 2010 | The Colour of Magic, Mort | ||
| 2010 | Ghost Story, The Talisman | ||
| 2011 | The Last Unicorn, "Two Hearts" | ||
| 2011 | Kalpa Imperial, Opus dos | ||
| 2012 | The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, "The Owl Service" | ||
| 2012 | A Song of Ice and Fire, Sandkings | ||
| 2013 | The Dark Is Rising, The Grey King | ||
| 2013 | Death's Master, The Birthgrave | ||
| 2014 | Editing Omni, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror | ||
| 2014 | The Palace, Ariosto | ||
| 2015 | To Wake the Dead, Alone with the Horrors | ||
| 2015 | The True Game, Beauty | ||
| 2016 | Editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction, Tor Books | ||
| 2016 | The Witcher Saga | ||
| 2017 | Shannara series, Magic Kingdom of Landover series | ||
| 2017 | Research and non-fiction works on fairy tales and myths | ||
| 2018 | Newford series | ||
| 2018 | President, co-Publisher and co-Editor-in-Chief of DAW Books | ||
| 2019 | Co-founder of Studio Ghibli, and animator, filmmaker, screenwriter, author, and manga artist of multiple works | ||
| 2019 | Academic and folklorist on fairy tales |