Wow! Lots of Cornish connections. Will be back once we double check (so we don't leave anyone out!) Congrats to all.

So many Seattle artists being happy.

I am very happy to see Jherek Bischoff get on the short list for music. He's so freaking talented.

Zoe's photo is genius.

CAKE !

Congrats to all!

I remember seeing really super cool little cakes for the nominees last year, but it looks like it's back to QFC cakes this year. Too bad... those little weird green ones looked so cool!

whoa. i don't know who zach weintraub is but i would like him to kiss my face. whatta babe.

also i just have to know--why the one special cake for amy o'neal?!?!?!?

Congrats to all the Artist Trust grant recipients on the short list!

Every year I look at the short list for the Stranger Genius Awards hoping to see Ben Verellen nominated for music and every year he is ignored. He has the distinct honor of making dozens and dozens of local and national bands sound better with his amplifiers, then he picks up a guitar and makes them all sound inferior to his band Helms Alee. I haven't seen one nominee since the inception of that award that holds a candle what Ben has accomplished and offered the Seattle music scene.

Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang have the 2 most accomplished resumes in music internationally right now. @10 Ben is an amazing and talented asset to Seattle's music scene, but don't oversell, this is a great batch (with the possible exception of Katie Kate, who will be much more interesting in 5-10 years' time)

+1 to what @10 said

Congratulations to all the nominees! Special shout out to recent Frye artists; Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey, Jherek Bischoff, Eyvind Kang, and Matthew Offenbacher. Good luck to you all. We are thrilled to be hosting the Shortlist events this summer. Stay tuned to fryemuseum.org for event details.

I'm a bit torn on Stephenson. He obviously is a genius, and has been putting out solid work for a long long time, but this would probably do less for his career and writing endeavors than it would for the others.

YES Jherek!!!

Woah, just listened to Jherek Bischoff and wish I'd heard him sooner. I love his arrangements

sikandro @14: That is an interesting point, but it seems weird to punish a great local writer for being successful, doesn't it? (After a certain point, it felt strange to not give the Genius award to Sherman Alexie, for instance.) Looking at it a different way, maybe Stephenson's many fans will find something to enjoy in Zaher's poetry (Zaher and Stephenson share more themes than you'd initially suspect) and enjoy going to next year's APRIL Festival.

But thank you for bringing this up—these are definitely issues to discuss! We try to span a very large spectrum of artists—in literature alone, we've got a festival that's been around for two years, a poet who's published three books, and someone who's been writing fiction for a couple decades—in order to start exactly this kind of conversation.

BRAVO to all the nominees! We're thrilled to see dance dominate the new Performance category: Velocity Artists-in-Residence zoe|juniper + Amy O'Neal, Velocity Advisory Board member Pat Graney. Contrats also to Next Dance Cinema filmmakers Rodrigo Valenzuela + Ben Kasulke and Velocity music buddies Jherek Bischoff Jessika Kenney + Eyvind Kang.

@14:

Presumably, the same thing could have been said about Jonathan Raban, who won the Literature Award in 2006.

And I'm a little disappointed that the Performance nominees all come from dance/choreo - was there really not a single theatre or multi-media performance artist out there worthy of nomination this year? What about Desdemona Chiang? Scotto Moore? Mary Ewald? Nick Garrison? Aimee Bruneau? Trimpin? Rob Witmer?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/world/2013/…

@7 You nailed it; QFC's 3 minute special occasion cakes.
Also, Katie Kate should have been on this list last year. Congratulations!

Golly, Mr. Valenzuela is just...lush. Congratulations to everyone who made the first cut!

Yet again, First Thursday Art Schlock gets shafted.

That cake looks pretty terrible. Is it like a store bought sheet cake?

@24 -- Yep, per Genius tradition, they're disgusting, super-sugary QFC sheet cakes.

I have no idea who Zach Weintraub is but when I saw his picture I immediately wanted to lick that cake off all his special places. And I don't even like cake!

this list is really white, even by seattle standards

Lots and lots of white people.

Links, please! I applaud all these people but I want to see their work.

I'd pork Kelly O in a hot second, or even sloppy seconds.

aye let katie live yo. i hate when ppl talk about shit you haven't heard yet—but her new album is fucking certified.