Special Announcement

When I created the LeK awards, I was trying to supply the M/K fic community with a forum in which to honor their favorite stories and authors. Having no experience in this sort of thing, I played it by ear, and tried to do my best creating categories I thought were appropriate. But as I began to prepare for this year's awards, I began to think that perhaps I had failed to create a category appropriate for a significant percentage of M/K stories.

I wasn't quite sure if it was my imagination or not, and I planned on asking the opinion of some friends. But then I received a wonderful letter of encouragement from an author that, in my opinion, writes the sort of stories the 1999 LeK awards excluded. This author was Loren Q.

Loren writes dark stories; the sort that feature non-consensual sex, characters behaving in an unpleasant or down-right nasty manner... I'm sure you all have come across the sort. I was worried that having LeK feature such categories as "Best Romance" and "Best Hurt/Comfort" but not including a category for darker fiction would make the authors of such fiction feel excluded from the awards. After discussing it with Loren, I found that my suspicions were true. I'd like to apologize to the authors of dark stories, and thank Loren for helping me come to a decision on the matter.

As I said, the point of LeK is to allow the readers to honor their favorite stories and authors. By excluding dark fiction I've thwarted the ability of dark fiction fans to honor their favorites. Furthermore, I've made it more difficult for dark fiction stories to win an award, because they are eligible in fewer categories than romantic fiction. To correct my error, I'm adding a new category this year- "Best Dark Story". A category description is available on the Categories Page.

Again, I apologize for not doing this sooner, and give a heartfelt thank you to Loren.

- Araxdelan
Creator and Organizer
of the Lisa e Krysa Awards