The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council has just announced the winner, honor list, and long list of recommended reading for the 2011 Tiptree Award. As the announcement says, the Tiptree Award “is presented annually to a work of science fiction or fantasy that explores and expands gender roles. The award seeks out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. It is intended to reward those writers who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.”
This year’s winner was Redwood and Wildfire, a novel by Andrea Hairston, published by Aqueduct Press. Of the novel, the Tiptree Award says: “Intersections of race, class, and gender encompass these characters’ entire lives. They struggle with external and internal forces around questions of gender roles, love, identity, and sexuality. This challenge drives how they move through the world and how it sees them. The characters in Redwood and Wildfire deftly negotiate freedom and integrity in a society where it’s difficult to hold true to these things.”
The honor list is as follows on the press release, the jurors’ comments on the works are included. For those stories and novels which I’ve reviewed here, I’ll include links.
- Libba Bray, Beauty Queens (Scholastic Press 2011)
- L. Timmel Duchamp, “The Nones of Quintilus” (in her collection Never at Home, Aqueduct Press 2011)
- Kameron Hurley, God’s War (Night Shade Books 2011)
- Gwyneth Jones, The Universe of Things (Aqueduct Press 2011)
- Alice Sola Kim, “The Other Graces” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2010) reviewed here as a story in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2011, ed. Rich Horton.
- Sandra McDonald, “Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots” (Strange Horizons, 2010.10.04) reviewed here as one of the stories in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5, ed. Jonathan Strahan.
- Maureen F. McHugh, “After the Apocalypse” (in her collection After the Apocalypse, Small Beer Press 2011) reviewed as a story in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 6, ed. Jonathan Strahan.
- Delia Sherman, The Freedom Maze (Big Mouth House 2011) reviewed
- Kim Westwood, The Courier’s New Bicycle (Harper Voyager Australia 2011)
The long-list includes other stories that were “worthy of attention:”
- Lauren Beukes, Zoo City (Angry Robot 2011)
- Sigrid Ellis, “No Return Address” (Strange Horizons, 2010.11.29)
- Karen Healey, The Shattering (Allen & Unwin (Aus/NZ) 2011; Little, Brown (US) 2011)
- Sue Isle, “Nation of the Night” (in her collection Nightsiders, Twelfth Planet Press 2011)
- Alaya Dawn Johnson, “Their Changing Bodies” (Subterranean, Summer 2011)
- Malindo Lo, Huntress (Little, Brown 2011) reviewed
- Meghan McCarron, “We Heart Vampires!!!!!!” (Strange Horizons, 2010.05.03-10)
- Teresa Milbrodt, Bearded Women Stories (ChiZine Publications 2011)
- Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch (Viking 2011)
- An Owomoyela, “Of Wolves and Men” (Fantasy Magazine, February 2011)
- Helen Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox (Riverhead 2011)
- J.R. Pournelle, Outies (New Brookland Press 2011)
- Lev AC Rosen, All Men of Genius (Tor 2011) reviewed
- Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless (Tor 2011)
The jurors for the 2011 award were Lynne Thomas (chair), Karen Meisner, James Nicoll, Nisi Shawl, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.
Lee Mandelo is a writer, critic and occasional editor whose primary fields of interest are speculative fiction and queer literature, especially when the two coincide. Also, comics. She can be found on Twitter or her website.
