PHILON AWARDS 2026 – Noms are open!!
KiScon is honoured to once again host the Philon Awards. Originally established by Jenna Sinclair and Shelley Butler in 1997, this annual event’s purpose is to honour outstanding authors and artists in K/S fandom.
Important dates:
Nominations: 20 June – 15 August, 2026.
Voting: 1 September – 31 October, 2026.
Eligibility (works created & published): 1 August 2025 – 31 July 2026.
There are 11 categories:
Ficlet (word count under 1K)
Short fic (word count 1K–5K)
Medium-length fic (word count 5K–10K)
Long fic (word count 10K–20K)
Novella (word count 20K–50K)
Novel (word count over 50K)
Podfic
Traditional Art
Digital Art
Poetry
Zines
For each category the voters will determine a Gold (first place) and a Silver (second place) winner.
Rules
Nominating and Voting:
Nominations are open from 20 June to 15 August, 2026. Each fan can nominate up to 3 works per category, but you cannot nominate the same work twice.
For a work to make it onto the voting ballot, it needs at least 3 nominations. Before we add it to the ballot, we will get in touch with the creator to ask whether they are fine with this!
Voting is open from 1 September to 31 October, 2026.
The winners will be announced during a special online event in early November that we will announce soon. Each winner will receive a certificate and a small prize.
It bears repeating: One person —> one submission of the nominations form. Same for voting: one person —> one submission of the voting ballot. Please do not attempt to game the system by using multiple accounts; we see this and it makes us question the future of the Philon Awards.
Nominating and voting both take place via Google Forms, and you need to be logged in and enter either your AO3 or your Discord name on the form in order to submit the nominations; this ensures that people do not nominate or vote multiple times for the same work. If we suspect sockpuppet activity, we will get in touch for clarification. We keep the nomination and voting process completely confidential! Only the KiScon concom will see the submitted forms.
While *we* won't talk about who nominated what, *you* can still discuss your faves and promote them, if you feel comfortable doing so. Making fellow fans aware of great works and sharing why you love and want to nominate them, is encouraged.
You can submit the nominations form only once, but you can edit your response if you need to add or change something (just follow the link in the email you receive after submitting the form). Please make sure to include every fanwork you want to see on the shortlist. You cannot edit your responses after nominations have closed (15 August 2026, end of day, timezone: Anywhere on Earth, i.e. UTC -12).
To answer a question we receive frequently: yes, you *can* nominate (and vote for) your own work(s). We won't judge you. ;-)
The work must focus on the pairing Kirk/Spock or Kirk & Spock. Slash (romantic and/or sexual relationship) and gen (friendship) are equally eligible. If a fic includes Kirk and/or Spock in relationships with other characters, be they canonical or original, this does not disqualify the work for the Philon Awards, as long as the focus is clearly on Kirk and Spock's relationship.
Art must feature Kirk or Spock or both of them; additional characters in the artwork are allowed, but no depiction of Kirk/Other or Spock/Other.
All universes are welcome: TOS (series and movies), TAS, and reboot, Discovery and Strange New Worlds. AUs and mirror universe are equally allowed. Crossovers between different Trek franchises or between Trek and other media are permitted, as long as Kirk and Spock are the work’s main characters.
RPF works (e.g. Shatnoy) are not eligible.
All ratings and genres are allowed. If a work among your nominations includes strong elements that would merit a warning on the AO3 (e.g. rape, major character death etc.), we'd appreciate a heads-up on the nominations form, so that we can make sure to include the warning on the shortlist.
The work must be complete. It can be part of a series, but the work itself must not be a WIP (missing chapters or a draft/unfinished sketch).
Eligibility: The work must have been created and published (print or online) after last year's nomination period. So, everything from 1 August 2025 onwards until the end of the current nomination phase (31 July 2026) is eligible. Reprints or uploads of earlier works (e.g. a fic you wrote and published a few years ago and uploaded to the AO3 only recently) cannot take part in this contest. If a multi-chapter fic was started earlier, but the date of completion falls within the eligible range, then it can also be nominated.
For podfic the creation/publication date of the actual podfic counts, not of the written fic that inspired it.
AI-generated works are NOT allowed.
Traditional art means that it was hand-drawn or hand-painted; scanning or photographing the finished work in order to publish it online is allowed, of course.
With digital art, we mean art that was created by a fan artist directly on a tablet or computer, or art that started out as hand-drawn and underwent significant digital alterations in the next steps. We do NOT allow AI-generated art! Manips based on still images or photos of the actors are not eligible in this contest.
Zines: Both e-zines and print zines published between 1 August 2025 and 31 July 2026 are eligible.
Last but not least: these awards are meant to be fun and a celebration of the K/S fandom. The shortlist will double as lovely rec list! We get to talk about our faves and let the creators know that we love their works.
You can fill in the nominations form here: https://forms.gle/a63k1HGHfMopRF7PA
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