The Evelyn Hopkins Award has been awarded every year since 2009, the 10th anniversary of Love is Murder. It is presented in recognition of Outstanding Efforts on Behalf of Readers and Writers of Genre Fiction.
The first award was given to its namesake, Evelyn Hopkins. It was she who conceived of holding a truly mixed readers' and writers' genre fiction conference in Chicago; without her initial vision and dedicated efforts, we would not have this conference that we all love so much.
The first LIM was sponsored by William Rainey Harper College and attended by fewer than 60 people. Many years and two moves later (first to College of DuPage, then to the current venue at InterContinental Hotel), Evelyn's broad and inclusive concept held together a group of true believers to see LIM become the premier, and only truly independent readers' and writers' genre fiction con in the Midwest.
Winners:
2009 - Evelyn Hopkins
2010 - no conference this year
2011 - Ophelia Julien
2012 - Mary V. Welk