We have several news items today:
- Announcing the Otherwise Awards 2025 jury.
- Reminding you to submit recommendations.
- Thanking our past Treasurer, Jim Hudson, and welcoming our new Treasurer, Rachel Kadel.
- Announcing our new Motherboard member, Nick Murphy.
The Otherwise Motherboard is pleased to announce the Otherwise Awards 2025 Jury:
Eugen Bacon (Chair): Eugen (Yu-gin) identifies as African Australian—the one is not exclusive from the other, and she’s okay with her dualities. She is a computer scientist mentally re-engineered into creative writing. She is a mother, a woman, a writer, an editor, a scholar, a colleague, a mentor, a friend, and pays close attention to climate action, social justice, stories of culture, the past, the future, Black people stories. She’s a Solstice, British Fantasy, Locus and Foreword Indies Award winner, and a finalist in major awards. Eugen is an Otherwise Fellow, and adores chocolate, swimming and getaways down untrodden paths. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.
Andrew Hook has had over 200 short stories appear since 1994 in addition to numerous novels, novellas, and short story collections published in a variety of genres (he’s most comfortable with the slipstream tag). Forthcoming works include an SF novel, Body and Soul, (Elsewhen Press, Oct 25), and a non-fiction book on the 1980 film Union City (PS Publishing, Electric Dreamhouse imprint). Most recent works include the short story collection Commercial Book, written in collaboration with the San Francisco art collective The Residents, and Candescent Blooms (Salt Publishing) which received a 5 star review in The Telegraph. He has been shortlisted for several British Fantasy Society awards, longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story award, and as editor has won several British Fantasy Society awards. He lives and works in Norwich, UK and can be found at www.andrew-hook.com.
Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of speculative fiction, romance and YA. She is part of the Sauútiverse Collective, which created a shared universe for Afrocentric speculative fiction, and Petlo Literary Arts, a creative writing organisation in Botswana. She has published several novels, short stories and novellas in various genres, including speculative fiction and romance. Her Sauútiverse novella Songs for the Shadows was published in 2024 by Atthis Arts and her short story collection Black Friday and Other Stories from Africa was published in 2025 by Flame Tree Publishing.
K. Ibura is a writer and visual artist from New Orleans, Louisiana. She writes essays about identity, race, and gender and fantastical fiction about ancient histories and future imaginings. She is the author of two short story collections: Ancient, Ancient—winner of the James Tiptree Jr./Otherwise Award—and When the World Wounds. She is the author of two books for young people: the middle grade novel When the World Turned Upside Down and the YA novel Tempest. She’s also the coeditor of the speculative anthology Infinite Constellations. Her Notes From the Trenches ebooks series examines the emotional underpinnings of the writing life. Learn more about her at kiburabooks.com and kibura.com.
Rebecca Fraimow is the author of the Locus Award-nominated novel Lady Eve’s Last Con and numerous works of shorter fiction, including the novella “The Iron Children,” the Yudah Cohen series of queer shtetl stories, and the Hugo-longlisted “This Is New Gehesran Calling.” Rebecca co-hosts the Hugo Award-winning podcast Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones with Emily Tesh and has contributed criticism to the Ancillary Review of Books, as well as numerous papers and presentations related to archival work (the other job.) Rebecca is married to fellow author Elizabeth Porter Birdsall; they live in Boston with two semi-invisible cats.
The jury is now considering works for the 2025 Awards, and will announce its decisions by late May 2026; we intend to celebrate Award winners at WisCONline 2026.
A major way the jury finds out about works to consider is your recommendations. Our recommendation form is open for works published in 2025, and our jury needs your nominations by November 14th. Let us know about the sf works you’re appreciating that explore or expand our understanding of gender! (Works can be books, stories, poems, music, video, fanfic, social media posts, or any other form of speculative fiction.)
We’re bidding a fond farewell to a longtime dedicated volunteer: Jim Hudson has served as our Treasurer for many, many years, and his help has been an immeasurably valuable and steadfast pillar for the organization. He went above and beyond, not only tracking and managing our finances and handling our tax and related filings, but also flexibly adapting to changes to our fundraising auctions with advice and work before, during, and after each event. Thanks, Jim, for your service and support of the Award; we wish you a fantastic retirement!
We have hired Rachel Kadel to succeed Jim as Treasurer. Rachel has served as the convention treasurer for the Boston-area convention Arisia, and has done board-level work with Arisia as well. Welcome, Rachel!
We’re also excited to introduce new Motherboard member Nick Murphy, a longtime supporter of the Award. Nick is an astrophysicist, research software engineer, and social justice activist. They work to make astronomy more inclusive, and co-founded a feminist science fiction book club; more about them in their bio. Welcome, Nick!