I'm late to this party-- I've just seen the announcement for the 2016 James Tiptree Jr. Award. I've taken this from the Award's website:
Congratulations to
Anna-Marie McLemore, who has won the 2016 Tiptree Award for her novel
When the Moon Was Ours (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2016).
About the Winner
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
is a fairytale about Samir, a transgender boy, and Miel, an orphan girl
who grows roses from her wrists and is bullied as a result. In fact,
there is a fairytale within the fairytale: the first chapter telling us
the version of the story that mothers would tell children for years
after — before also telling us what that story leaves out. Then the book
takes us through all of it, step by step, exploring the heartache and
frustration that being and loving differently generates. Beautifully,
the novel never lets go of its unique magical realism framework. While
the thoughts and emotions these characters share are incredibly familiar
to anyone who is queer or trans or has loved someone who is trans, the
imagery and particular scenarios the characters encounter are also
completely bright and new.
In the author’s note at the end of the
book, Anna-Marie McLemore tells us that when she was a teenager she fell
in love with a transgender boy who would grow into the man she married.
This is their story, reimagined as legend.
In addition to selecting the winners, the jury chooses a Tiptree
Award Honor List. The Honor List is a strong part of the award’s
identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list.
These notes on each work are excerpted and edited from comments by
members of this year’s jury.
This year’s Honor List is:
Eleanor Arnason, Hwarhath Stories:Transgressive Tales by Aliens
(Aqueduct Press, 2016) — This is a wonderful collection of stories that
examine the ways that culturally, deep-rooted assumptions around gender
restrict vocation and recognition of skills. Arnason tells of a culture
with significantly different gender assumptions and customs that lead
to a number of subtly shifted societal impacts — both positive and
negative.
Mishell Baker, Borderline
(Saga Press, 2016) — A fascinating whodunit with wonderful characters,
Borderline spotlights diversity and intersectionality. Most of the
characters in this novel are viewed as disabled by others, even by each
other. But the characters’ so-called disabilities give them advantages
in certain situations. Understanding this helps the characters love each
other and themselves. Almost every character can be described as having
attributes that are both disabilities and advantages. What builds us up
can bring us down. Or put another way: our imperfections are openings
to beautiful achievements.
Nino Cipri, “Opals and Clay” (
Podcastle,
2016) — A beautiful love story about solidarity. With just three major
characters, this story does a lot with gender, demonstrating how
gendering can be something one does to control or out of love.
Andrea Hairston, Will Do Magic for Small Change
(Aqueduct Press, 2016) — A beautiful story of magic and love that spans
two centuries and three continents, moving between times and places
through a book-within-a-book structure. Its 1980s protagonists are a
family who has been torn apart by an act of homophobic violence. Through
a discovery of their past, they are able to reconnect and find love
again. Among other things, this novel depicts an amazing range of queer
characters. Importantly, the book de-colonizes these representations,
making queerness not a white or American thing, but something that
emerges in different shapes and structures at different times and
places, particular to individuals as well as the cultures and
communities that they are a part of.
Rachael K. Jones, “The Night Bazaar for Women Becoming Reptiles” (
Beneath Ceaseless Skies,
2016) — A moving story set in a world where people live separate lives
by night and day, with an opposite-sex lover by day and same-sex lover
by night as the standard family structure. The theme of being trapped in
one’s body and circumstances and in the customs of one’s times is dealt
with well. The metaphor of a city/body that traps people in prisons of
identity was very powerful. A surprising (yet well set up) twist to the
story broadens its scope.
Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway
(Tor Books, 2916) — This is a lovely YA novel about teenagers who
return to our world, against their wishes, from magical lands that they
entered through secret pathways — a magic door, an impossible stairway
at the bottom of a trunk, a mirror. Their parents cannot understand
their pain and misinterpret the stories their children tell and send
their children to Miss West’s Home for Wayward Children. Miss West,
herself a returned child, helps them deal with their separation or
return to what they all think of as their real homes. This novel came to
the attention of the Tiptree jury because of the reasons the children
are taken from or rejected by their magical worlds. The protagonist,
Nancy, is asexual, and finds an ideal world through her door. A
character named Kade was born Katie, and discovers he is a boy, not a
girl. He is thrown out of Fairyland as punishment for his transition.
Two twin girls named Jack and Jill take up identities opposite from
those their parents imposed upon them. There are beautiful lessons here
about the importance of finding one’s home–that place where one can be
one’s self. An emotionally engaging novel.
Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning (Tor
Books, 2016) — This book will start conversations about gender,
philosophy, religion, government, even war.The judges perceived
contradictions within this book that may be resolved in the sequel, but
these only serve to spark interest. In the future in which it is set
(the twenty-fifth century of our world), gendered language is considered
taboo in most circles and gender/sex-related cues are minimized and
overlooked in clothing, vocation, and all other public areas of life.
However, the book slowly reveals that gender stereotypes, sexism, and
sexual taboos still remain strong despite the century’s supposed
enlightenment and escape from such notions.
Johanna Sinisalo, The Core of the Sun
(Grove Press/Black Cat, 2016) — This emotional, moving and
thought-provoking novel, set in an alternate present in Finland,
provides a critique of heteronormativity, eugenics, and all forms of
social control, done uniquely and with humor. In this alternate present,
the government values public health and social stability above all
else. Sex and gender have been organized as the government sees fit,
much to the detriment of women, who are bred and raised to be docile.
All .drugs, including alcohol and caffeine, have long been banned.
Capsaicin from hot peppers is the most recent substance to be added to
the list. Our protagonist, Vera/Vanna, is a capsaicin addict. Consuming
peppers provides an escape from a world that has treated her horribly.
Most chapters are from Vera/Vanna’s perspective, but others relate the
history, laws, fairytales, and other literature of this fictional
Finland.
Nisi Shawl, Everfair (Tor
Books, 2016) — In this gorgeous steampunk revisionist history of
anticolonial resistance, a coalition of rebels defeat King Leopold and
transform the former Belgian Congo into Everfair: a new nation whose
citizens comprise Africans, European settlers, and Asian laborers. Told
from many different perspectives, the story switches among the
viewpoints of a dozen protagonists. This novel shows how relationships
can grow over time between people of different races, classes, and
religions as they build community together. Characters work through
their internalized racisms and demonstrate how this is necessary for
those in interracial relationships.
But Wait — There’s More!
In addition to the honor list, this year’s jury also compiled a long list of twelve other works they found worthy of attention.
All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor, 2016)
The Waterdancer’s World, L. Timmel Duchamp (Aqueduct Press, 2016)
Lily, Michael Thomas Ford (Lethe Press, 2016)
King of the Worlds, M. Thomas Gammarino (Chin Music Press, 2016)
“
Vesp: A History of Sapphic Scaphism,” Porpentine Charity Heartscape (Terraform, 2016 – an online interactive story),
Cantor for Pearls, M.C.A. Hogarth (De La Torre Books, 2016)
The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit, 2016)
An Accident of Stars, Foz Meadows (Angry Robot, 2016)
Sleeping Under the Tree of Life, Sheree Renée Thomas (Aqueduct Press, 2016)
Suddenly Paris, Olga & Christopher Werby (CreateSpace, 2015)
The Arrival of Missives, Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories, 2015)
The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood (Europa Editions 2016)
Now What?
Anna-Marie McLemore, along with authors and works on the Honor List, will be celebrated during Memorial Day weekend at
WisCon 41
in Madison, Wisconsin, May 26-29, 2017. She will receive $1000 in prize
money, a specially commissioned piece of original artwork, and (as
always) chocolate.
Each year, a panel of five jurors selects the
Tiptree Award winner. The 2016 judges were Jeanne Gomoll (chair), Aimee
Bahng, James Fox, Roxanne Samer, and Deb Taber.
Reading for 2017
will soon begin. The panel consists of Alexis Lothian (chair), E.J.
Fischer, Kazue Harada, Cheryl Morgan, and Julia Starkey.
The Tiptree Award invites everyone to recommend works for the award. Please submit recommendations via our
recommendation page. Full information on all the books mentioned above will be in the
Tiptree Award database before the end of March 2017.
*******************************
It's me again, just to express special pleasure that two Aqueduct Press books (and three Aqueduct Press authors) are on the Honor List, and two Aqueduct Press books are on the long list. I have to say, between the works named above and the Lambda Literary Award finalists' list, no one can say that 2016 wasn't a fruitful year for those of us hungry for sharp, challenging reading.
L. Timmel Duchamp is the
author of the five-novel Marqssan Cycle, which was awarded a Special
Honor by the 2009 James Tiptree Award jury; two collections of short
fiction, Loves Body, Dancing in Time and Never At Home; the short novel The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding);
and numerous uncollected stories, for which she has been a Nebula and
Sturgeon Award finalist and short-listed numerous times for the Tiptree
Award. She lives in Seattle.
