Starting in 2002, we added a new type of recognition: the Hall of Fame for Outstanding or Extraordinary Midsouth Fiction for authors who have a body of work that appeared in prior years. Specifically, for now, we have decided to accept nominations for the Hall of Fame covering authors who have one (or more) published novel(s) and/or two (or more) published short stories or novellas and/or one movie or play available to the general public.

     As before, either the work must use the greater Memphis area as a significant setting and/or the author must be a resident of the greater Memphis area when the work appears.

     In recognition of the outstanding service rendered to Midsouth fandom by Dalvan Coger, who passed away in 2002, we renamed the Darrell Award Hall of Fame as the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award that year.
 

Dal Coger at Midsouthcon 20

The big difference between the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award and the Darrell Awards is that the Hall of Fame recognizes the author for a body of published work, whereas the Darrell Awards for Novel, Novella, Short Story, Young Adult Work and Other Media recognize the published work itself. Also, an author can only be inducted into the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame once, but can receive any one (or all three) of the Darrell Awards several times. Also, the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame will allow us to recognize outstanding authors who were overlooked previously, either because we simply did not know about their work or because they published before the Darrell Awards were instituted.      The first (and only) Darrell Award Hall of Fame Winner was Kathleen Ann Goonan, who was recognized in 2002.      The first Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award winner was Howard Waldrop in 2003.      The second Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award winner was the late Dan Henderson in 2004 for his novel Paradise, as well as other works.      The third Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award winner was Michael Reisig in 2005 for The New Madrid Run and other works.       The fourth Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award winner is Alan R. Rodgers. (2006)     The fifth Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award winner is E. E. Knight for his many works, including the Vampire Earth series, which began with Way of the Wolf (the 2004 Darrell Award Best Novel winner) and which is now up to several additional books, including Valentine's Exile (and several more since). (2007)     The sixth Coger Memorial Hall of Fame inductee is Eric Flint, primarily for this River of War series, an alternate history series involving several well-known Tennessee characters and locations in Tennessee and Arkansas. (2008)     The seventh Coger Hall of Fame inductee is Nancy A. Collins, whose Sunglasses After Dark was set in Memphis and featured a character that was based on like the much-beloved and dearly-missed late Memphis fan Claude Saxon. (2009)     The eighth Coger Hall of Fame inductee is Bryan Davis, a Memphis-area writer who had 3 multiple-book series of SF & F works in print when we discovered him. (2010)     The ninth Coger Hall of Fame inductee was Katherine Allred for her two comic space romances, Close Encounters and Close Contact.  (2011)     The tenth Coger Hall of Fame inductee is Seanan McGuire (writing as Mira Grant) for Feed, a zombie apocalypse book with the Memphis Centers for Disease Control playing a pivotal role in the book.  (2012)      The elevent Coger Hall of Fame inductee is Justin Cronin for The Passage and The Twelve, the first of which opens near the Memphis Zoo and spans the continent, weaving a tale of a vampire apocalypse that also has elements of zombies. (2013) Who will be the twelth Coger Hall of Fame inductee? What sort of tale(s) will they offer to us? Check back here in 2014 to see.