Best Semiprozine Hugo

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The Best Semiprozine (sometimes misspelled "Semi-Prozine") Hugo category was established by the WSFS Business Meeting starting in 1984, (long) after the large newszines, produced to professional printing standards and available only by subscription and not the usual fannish way, began to dominate the Best Fanzine Hugo.

After their appearance and consolidation, in the 15 years between 1969 and 1983 Best Fanzine Hugo only one "traditional" fanzine won (Energumen in 1973, just after it finished publication and at its "home turf"): Locus took the bare majority, 8 statues (withdrawing from the nomination in 1979); Science Fiction Review / The Alien Critic the other 6 (tying with also-semiproish Algol in 1975). When the separation was achieved (with much inevitable argument pro and con, debating about the decline of fanzines and fanzine fandom in general, and desirability and measurability of various criteria; although in the end it went comparatively smoothly, as Hugo changes go), this meant that the top of the Fanzine field was cleared for another, yet more modest and personal newszine and perennial also-ran File 770, which went on to win 1984 Best Fanzine Hugo and again in 1985 (and yet again 1989, and then in the 2000s).

As befits a fuzzy distinction, the criteria which separated fanzines from semiprozines were complex (WSFS Constitution subsection 3.3.12. Note that the definition went through several hard-to-trace changes and below seems to be the state as of 2011. Afterwards Best Fancast Hugo was explicitly split from both Fanzine and Semiprozine, and the Semiprozine definiton was much simplified to either criterion of the previous (2), i. e. paying somebody, and new "was generally available only for paid purchase"): 

Any generally available non-professional publication devoted to science fiction or fantasy which by the close of the previous calendar year has published four (4) or more issues (or the equivalent in other media), at least one (1) of which appeared in the previous calendar year, and which in the previous calendar year met at least two (2) of the following criteria:
(1) had an average press run of at least one thousand (1000) copies per issue,
(2) paid its contributors and/or staff in other than copies of the publication,
(3) provided at least half the income of any one person,
(4) had at least fifteen percent (15%) of its total space occupied by advertising,
(5) announced itself to be a semiprozine.

They were basically designed to draw a line between the traditional fanzine (which, even if it has a subscription price, never brings in enough money to have a significant impact on its production values) and its bigger cousins. Note that there is no distinction between fanzine and semiprozine based on content.

Year Winner
Split off from the Best Fanzine category
1984 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1985 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1986 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1987 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1988 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1989 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1990 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1991 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1992 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1993 Science Fiction Chronicle ed. by Andrew I. Porter
1994 Science Fiction Chronicle ed. by Andrew I. Porter
1995 Interzone ed. by David Pringle
1996 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1997 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1998 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
1999 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
2000 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
2001 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
2002 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown
2003 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown, Jennifer A. Hall and Kirsten Gong-Wong
2004 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown, Jennifer A. Hall and Kirsten Gong-Wong
2005 Ansible ed. by Dave Langford
2006 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong and Liza Groen Trombi
2007 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong and Liza Groen Trombi
2008 Locus ed. by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong and Liza Groen Trombi
2009 Weird Tales ed. by Ann VanderMeer and Stephen H. Segal
2010 Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
2011 Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker
(definition simplified, Best Fancast Hugo separated explicitly from Semiprozine and Best Fanzine Hugo)
2012 Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.
2013 Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Jason Heller, Sean Wallace, and Kate Baker
2014 Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, and Stefan Rudnicki
2015 Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams, Stefan Rudnicki, Rich Horton, Wendy N. Wagner, and Christie Yant
2016 Uncanny Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky
2017 Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, Julia Rios, and podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky
2018 Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, Julia Rios, and podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky
2019 Uncanny Magazine, publishers/editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, managing editor Michi Trota, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Special Issue editors-in-chief Elsa Sjunneson-Henry and Dominik Parisien
2020 Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky
2021 FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, publisher Troy L. Wiggins, executive editor DaVaun Sanders, managing editor Eboni Dunbar, poetry editor Brandon O’Brien, reviews and social media Brent Lambert, art director L. D. Lewis, and the FIYAH Team
2022 Uncanny Magazine, publishers and editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas; managing/poetry editor Chimedum Ohaegbu; nonfiction editor Elsa Sjunneson; podcast producers Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky
2023 Uncanny Magazine, publishers and editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas; managing/poetry editor Chimedum Ohaegbu; managing editor Monte Lin; nonfiction editor Meg Elison; podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky.

Hugos 1984—
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