2022 CJA Award Entries

A month after posting 2022 CJA Awards Announcement (May 2022; 'Although I'm not a member of the CJA, I always look forward to seeing the winners and their work'), when the submission deadline had passed, I checked the CJA page 2022 CJA Awards Entry List (chessjournalism.org), and discovered that the competition organizers were in the process of listing the entries.

A month later, the list looks complete, and what a list it is! In last year's post, 2021 CJA Award Entries (July 2021), I wrote,

I didn't count the number of entries, but there might well be over 100, enough chess literature to keep the most ardent enthusiast occupied for months to come.

Change that '100' to '200' and the same statement is almost true. The difference this year is that I counted them. First I counted 241 entries total. When I realized that many of the entries were submitted in more than one category, I counted them again and came up with 214 distinct entries. Although that number might be a little high -- I found six variations of 'Mind Art Experience : World Chess Hall of Fame' (WCHOF), three of which pointed to a sales page, and three to single page artwork -- I can live with it.

The meta-category, 'Top Three Categories', is now four categories. The new category is '[Best] Book of the Year', in addition to the three other categories under meta-category 'Best Chess Book'. The WCHOF book 'Mind Art Experience' is entered under three of those four book categories.

Another of the 'Top Three/Four Categories' is 'Best Story of the Year'. Here there are three entries from American Chess Magazine (ACM) and two from Chess Life (CL), along with one other entrant who probably never expected to be competing with so many heavyweights. The rivalry between ACM and CL is found in other categories, and I expect we'll see many award winners listed '1st/2nd Equal' or 'Honorable Mention'.

Just like last year, all entries point to a digital copy of the entry. This means that anyone behind a particular entry can evaluate the competition. I looked at all six entries for 'Best Story of the Year', and I don't have a clue how to rank them.

The awards are traditionally announced in early August, coincident with the U.S.Open. The CJA judges are undoubtedly scrambling to cope with the increased load. The list of winners is already in place -- see 2022 CJA Awards List (chessjournalism.org) -- with the categories visible and the winners missing. I'll come back after the winners have been listed.