Welcome to the Website of the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award CouncilWhat is the Tiptree Award? | Why the Name Tiptree? | What's New “If you can’t change the world with chocolate chip cookies, how can you change the world?” — Pat Murphy
What is the Tiptree Award?In February of 1991 at WisCon (the world's only feminist-oriented science fiction convention), award-winning SF author Pat Murphy announced the creation of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. (To read her speech go to PatMurphy.pdf.) Pat created the award in collaboration with author Karen Joy Fowler. The aim of the award is not to look for work that falls into some narrow definition of political correctness, but rather to seek out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. The Tiptree Award is intended to reward those women and men who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society. Why the Name “Tiptree”?
The award is named for Alice B. Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her impulsive choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between “women’s writing” and “men’s writing.” Her fine stories were eagerly accepted by publishers and won many awards in the field. Many years later, after she had written some other work under the female pen name of Raccoona Sheldon, it was discovered that she was female. The discovery led to a great deal of discussion of what aspects of writing, if any, are essentially gendered. The name “Tiptree” was selected to illustrate the complex role of gender in writing and reading.
Welcome to our new website. It's a work in progress; you'll find incomplete pages and missing information. We'll be updating a lot in the next month or so. If you see anything you think we need to change, please drop us a line.
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2007 Award Winners Announced!A gender-exploring science fiction award is presented to Sarah Hall for The Carhullan Army (Daughters of the North). The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2007 Tiptree Award is The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall (published in the United States as Daughters of the North). The British edition was published in 2007 by Faber & Faber; the American edition in 2008 by HarperCollins. The Tiptree Award will be celebrated on May 25, 2008 at WisCon in Madison, Wisconsin. The winner of the Tiptree Award receives $1000 in prize money, an original artwork created specifically for the winning novel or story, and (as always) chocolate. Each year, a panel of five jurors selects the Tiptree Award winners and compiles an Honor List of other works that they find interesting, relevant to the award, and worthy of note. The 2007 jurors were Charlie Anders, Gwenda Bond (chair), Meghan McCarron, Geoff Ryman, and Sheree Renee Thomas. The Carhullan Army elicited strong praise from the jurors. Gwenda Bond said, Hall does so many things well in this book - writing female aggression in a believable way, dealing with real bodies in a way that makes sense, and getting right to the heart of the contradictions that violence brings out in people, but particularly in women in ways we still don't see explored that often. I found the writing entrancing and exactly what it needed to be for the story; lean, but well-turned. Geoff Ryman said, It faces up to our current grim future (something too few SF novels have done) and seems to go harder and darker into war, violence, and revolution. Meghan McCarron said, I found the book to be subtle and ambiguous in terms of its portrayal of the Army, and its utopia. The book became, ultimately, an examination of what it means to attain physical, violent power as defined by a male-dominated world. And it asserted that it could be claimed by anyone, regardless of physical sex, provided they were willing to pay the price. The book, which is Hall's third novel, also won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama) from Britain or the Commonwealth written by an author of 35 or under. The Tiptree Award Honor List is a strong part of the award's identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list for the rest of the year. The 2007 Honor List is:
What's New?Founding Mother Karen Joy Fowler has won the Nebula Award for her short story, "Always." Join the Tiptree BOOKCLUB! Hosted by Karen Joy Fowler.
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