One of the miracles of the modern world is that Frederik Pohl has a blog. Nicely chatty and interesting it is too, with much about the early days of science fiction fandom, which is enough reason for Jo Walton to nominate him for the fan Hugo. Fanzine turned blog File 770 finds this ä bit special”:
All very true. So haven’t you stopped to wonder why has he never been nominated for Best Fan Writer in any of the 40+ years the category has existed? Certainly not because his writing isn’t good enough. Nor that he failed to write about fandom — surely we all remember his autobiography “The Way the Future Was.” The real question is whether a long-time pro like Fred Pohl would take the nomination as a compliment. This enforced egalitarianism is not always welcomed by pros. Recall that Harlan Ellison turned down his Best Fan Writer nomination.
This is a bit like, as we say it Dutch, looking for nails at low tide, raising objections for the sake of objecting, rather than from genuine concern. Anybody familiar with Frederik Pohl and sf fandom enough to worry about the fan Hugo should know about his long involvement with fandom, even longer than his career as a filthy pro. The fact that he started a blog in his late eighties on which most of his posts are about his love for fandom, the history of how he get involved with fandom and science fiction and so on is a rather large clue as well that Pohl has no problems with fandom.
He’s also about the only living link with First Fandom still present and active – honouring him for this work by nominating him for a fan Hugo does not seem an insult to me and I doubt very much he would think differently. Doesn’t necessarily mean he needs to win it too, but the nomination is at very least a signal that people in fandom like and appreciate what he’s doing. Good on Jo to do so.
The idea that pros are pros and fans are fans and they’re separate species is a filthy modern heresy (for some values of modern). Pohl surely is somebody who knows otherwise. File 770 should know otherwise.
The only real objection you could make to Pohl’s nomination is the idea that people will then vote for him based purely on name recognition. Since this is a long existing problem that has never stopped anybody before, i wouldn’t worry too much about it though.