UPDATE: We didn’t win anything, there is no god, and everything sucks

April saw felix getting shortlisted for four Student Publication Association Awards last month, with Editor Lef Apostolakis and Comment Editor/Millennials Queen/felix Vice Chair/Office Legend Tessa Davey each garnering two nominations. Another member of the felix team received a nomination for work with the London Student which is totally fine and in no way awkward.

Apostolakis was shortlisted for Best Reporter and Best News Story. The latter was for an article surrounding consent training at Imperial which was published back in November. Davey was recognised in the categories of Best Feature and Best Comment for ‘Drunk Consent Is Not Consent’ and ‘Imperial Girls Can Do Without Sport Imperial‘ respectively.

The SPA Awards have largely taken over from the Guardian Student Media Awards which appear to have come to an end due to financial concerns. felix won the Guardian Student Media Publication of the Year in both 2006 and 2008 but has yet to find success at the SPA Awards.

The judges for the awards are a selection of industry experts including editors and writers from The Telegraph, Metro, The Times, The i, and Buzzfeed.

Davey was overjoyed at the nominations, “Both of my articles that have been shortlisted are on topics that I’m really passionate about. I’ve worked really hard over the last few years at felix to develop my writing to the point that I feel like I can do justice to important topics such as consent and feminism, and I’m really excited and proud to have this recognised by the SPA.”

Apostolakis, who has been accused of “gutter journalism”, finds the nominations reafirming. “It’s great to see that we’re on the same level as other major student publications.” Considering Imperial lacks not just journalism degrees but even any real arts or humanities degrees the standard of the paper is impressive. “I’m just hoping this will be enough to guarantee the future of the paper for at least a little bit longer”

The awards ceremony forms part of the Student Publication Association National Conference (SPANC for short) that takes place this weekend, which will all be live tweeted via @feliximperial. Probably.