In the final hours of the Astra toy show in St. Louis last month, after I finished packing up my booth, I stopped on my way out of the show floor to see my friend Chrissy at EAP Toys & Games while she packed up her booth.
While we were chatting, my phone lit up with notifications.
I glanced down and saw that it said I was a finalist for the The Diana Jones Award for Excellence In Gaming.
I said to Chrissy, in a stream of extremely confident mumbles, this is strange, they have the wrong person, I'm sure they don't mean that I'm a finalist, someone made a mistake.
The Diana Jones Award, if you've never heard of it, is an annual award that has celebrated excellence in gaming. You can't enter it, the nomination committee is anonymous so that it can't be influenced, and the shortlist of nominees is decided, not based on commercial success or popularity, but by your peers. It's been going since 2001, and in the tabletop world, a pretty huge honor.
Chrissy, more level-headed than I am, asked if I was sure it was a mistake, so I opened the link and, to my absolute shock and delight, I learned that I'm one of this year's five finalists, which will be given out the night before Gen Con starts on Wednesday, July 31st in Indianapolis.
I'm so grateful to be recognized alongside the incredible finalists: Adepticon, Fastaval, United Paizo Workers, and TTRPGs for trans rights in Florida, a charity bundle by Rue Dickey. Polygon also wrote a nice piece about the award if you'd like to have a look.
Last year's winner of the Diana Jones Award was Connor Alexander, our dear friend from Coyote & Crow, who has a new project launching on Kickstarter very soon. You can click here to be notified when it goes live.
So, I'm headed to Gen Con for the first time! Please let me know if you'll be there, and be sure to say hello if you see me. I'll have a little gift for you if you do!
xoxo
Ami