The Otherwise Motherboard is delighted to announce the selection of two new Otherwise Fellows: illustrator and animator Aude Abou Nasr and author Ayida Shonibar.

Aude Abou Nasr is a French-Lebanese illustrator, animator, and visual artist based in Beirut. She was selected for the beautiful illustrations she is contributing to Le Chat de Sara, a children’s book written by Loé Petit that uses magic to explore intersex embodiment and bodily autonomy. Sara’s titular cat witnesses her loss of magic as she undergoes forced medical intervention. Unable to help Sara alone, the cat organizes with other animals who have accompanied their children into the Dream World, safe from the harms of the Real World. Collectively, they empower Sara to resist the imposed medical violence. In the process, readers, alongside Sara, learn that there are many ways to embody who you are, and see, alongside the cat, the magic and beauty that is intersex life.

The committee was moved by Abou Nasr’s bridging of her artistic talents (that purple cat is beyond gorgeous, as is Sara!) and her activist work as a member of Collectif Intersexe Activiste. We love that this is an intersex-led project that champions agency for intersex children. The importance of children’s agency is often overlooked, especially when their bodies are medicalized. It’s wonderful to see a project for children that addresses this difficult experience with both honesty and joyfulness. Now more than ever, we need stories that show intersex kids and their families that advocating for their bodies is not only possible, but empowering.

Ayida Shonibar is an Indian-Bengali immigrant whose short fiction, essays, and poetry tell stories, horrific and powerful, about the ties that bind communities. Shonibar was selected for their horror novel in development with grounded speculative science elements inspired by her experiences as a marginalised researcher.

The committee was inspired by Shonibar’s skill and care when weaving together the stories of so many, including the experiences of immigrants, the neurodiverse, and the queer. In a time when immigrants are facing immense hostility, especially in the US, it feels especially important to create space for speculative fiction from immigrant voices. This fellowship will offer Shonibar the chance to work on a longer piece, and we are very excited to see how that develops.

The Otherwise Award celebrates works of speculative fiction that imagine new futures by exploring and expanding our understanding of gender roles. Through the Fellowship program, the Otherwise Motherboard also encourages those who are striving to complete works, to imagine futures that might have been unimaginable when the Otherwise Award began. The Fellowship program seeks out new voices in the field, particularly from communities that have been historically underrepresented in science fiction and fantasy and by those who work in media other than traditional fiction.

Each Fellow will receive US$500. The work produced as a result of this support will be recognized and promoted by the Otherwise Award. Over time, the Fellowship program will create a network of Fellows who can build connections, provide mutual support, and find opportunities for collaboration.

The members of the 2025 selection committee for the Otherwise Fellowships were former Otherwise fellow Mars Lauderbaugh and Otherwise Motherboard members Julia Rios and Jed Samer.

For more about the Fellowships and the work of past Fellows, visit the Otherwise Award website.

This blog post also serves as a press release announcing the 2025 Otherwise Fellowship recipients. For more information on the Otherwise Award or this press release, contact Jed Hartman, secretary of the Otherwise Award Motherboard, at info@otherwiseaward.org.

Applications for this year’s Otherwise Fellowships are due December 15, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, via email.

For more information about what the Fellowship entails and how to apply, see How to apply.

The Otherwise Motherboard is now soliciting applications for two 2025 Otherwise Fellows!

The Otherwise Fellowship (formerly Tiptree Fellowship) was established in 2015 to support and recognize new voices who are creating work that is changing our view of gender today. The Fellowship program seeks out creators who are striving to complete new works, particularly creators from communities that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy genre and those who are working in media other than traditional fiction! Each Fellow receives USD $500 in support of a new or ongoing project.

Applications are due December 15, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, via email. Selected Fellows will be announced in February 2026. This year’s Fellowship committee consists of Otherwise Motherboard members Jed Samer and Julia Rios, and 2024 Otherwise Fellow Mars Lauderbaugh.

For more information about what the Fellowship entails and how to apply, see How to apply.

The Otherwise Motherboard is pleased to announce the selection of two new Otherwise Fellows: author Eugen Bacon and illustrator and comic artist Mars Lauderbaugh.

Eugen Bacon is a writer of black speculative fiction that confronts matters of gender inequality, climate action, social (in)justice, motherhood, family, poverty, domestic violence, sexuality, and racial inequality. Bacon’s fiction playfully defamiliarizes how we understand humanity, gender, and the everyday, by freely imagining alternative worlds and possibilities, with stories that are truly speculative and invite us to see our own world with new eyes. The committee found Bacon’s prose lively and evocative. This fellowship will support her new collection of short stories, Black Dingo, where the literary strange unravels in genre bending Afro-irreal tales of longing and belonging, unlimited futures, queerness and sexuality, a collision of worlds and everything in between, in hues of shadow and light. Upon learning of being awarded an Otherwise Fellowship, Eugen wrote, “I am deeply moved to find myself in this stimulating space of engaging with difference—our world as we know it needs it now more than ever. It’s my hope that readers and publishers will consciously choose to be part of rewarding quality in enabling literature that truly makes a worthy contribution in the characters and themes, such as tradition, belonging, gender, climate action, the ‘other’, betwixt, unlimited futures… it spotlights.”

Mars Lauderbaugh is an artist whose work explores the rich everyday experiences of gender’s expansiveness. In a time where trans and nonbinary kids’ and teens’ rights are under threat across the world, Lauderbaugh’s dynamic and wonderfully illustrated graphic novel projects and book cover art—often featuring genderqueer characters on exciting and fantastical journeys—are rays of hope for the young readers of today and tomorrow. The committee was amazed by Lauderbaugh’s beautiful, committed work. This fellowship will support an upgrade of their working materials so they might continue with their current project, Brighter Stars, which they describe as something they would “want to share with the me of ten years ago, when I was alone and afraid of who I was, frustrated with not fitting into trans space.” Upon learning of being awarded an Otherwise Fellowship, Mars wrote, “This is truly a bright point in the chaos of the past few months.”

In addition to choosing two Fellows, the fellowship committee named poet Erica Rivera and author Isaac Kozukhin as honorable mentions. Rivera’s experimental poetry, grappling with autofabulation, technocritique, disability, and the trans-Latinx experience, is unflinching and powerfully written. Kozukhin’s evocative, deftly-written novel-in-progress is a promising exploration of gender fluidity and intersex identity in speculative fiction.

The Otherwise Award celebrates works of speculative fiction that imagine new futures by exploring and expanding our understanding of gender roles. Through the Fellowship program, the Otherwise Motherboard also encourages those who are striving to complete works, to imagine futures that might have been unimaginable when the Otherwise Award began. The Fellowship program seeks out new voices in the field, particularly from communities that have been historically underrepresented in science fiction and fantasy and by those who work in media other than traditional fiction.

Each Fellow will receive $500. The work produced as a result of this support will be recognized and promoted by the Otherwise Award. Over time, the Fellowship program will create a network of Fellows who can build connections, provide mutual support, and find opportunities for collaboration.

The members of the 2024 selection committee for the Otherwise Fellowships were former Fellows Cat Aquino, Shreya Ila Anasuya, and committee chair (and Motherboard member) Jed Samer. For more on the work of the latest Otherwise Fellows (and on the work of past Fellows), visit the Otherwise Award website.

This blog post also serves as a press release announcing the 2024 Otherwise Fellowship recipients. For more information on the Otherwise Award or this press release, contact Sumana Harihareswara, chair of the Otherwise Award Motherboard, at info@otherwiseaward.org.

We are pleased to announce the selection of three new Otherwise Fellows: children’s fiction writer Cat Aquino, speculative fiction writer Naseem Jamnia, and speculative fiction writer and illustrator Dante Luiz.

Cat Aquino is a Filipino children’s fiction writer, currently working on a young adult graphic novel titled Champion of the Rose. This graphic novel is a fantasy reimagining of the centuries-long Spanish colonization of the Philippines and South America, and features two main characters: Rey, a trans “indio” swordsman, and Rosa, a“mestiza” princess. Through the story of these characters, Cat hopes “to explore how the intersections of race, class, trauma, and gender interact, neither favoring one identity pole over the other, to talk about how empires and governments restrict human lives, but can also be defied because of human choices and actions.” Cat will use the fellowship to fund Dominique Duran, illustrator Champion of the Rose‘s illustrator and co-creator. Cat’s work creates BIPOC-led, anti-colonial, and anti-monarchical narratives for young adults.

Naseem Jamnia is a speculative fiction writer whose work contains “unquestioned and undoubted queerness so deeply embedded in the worldbuilding that it can no longer be called queer, and gender is a central focus of that inclusion.” For Naseem, queer genders are central to their fiction, even though their stories are seldom about queerness. They will use the grant money for historical research on non-Western genders that exist outside the binary, in order to better understand the world in which their novella The Bruising of Qilwa (Tachyon Publications 2022) takes place. In Naseem’s novella, “the main character Firuz, an agender nonbinary trans person—who would not use those terms for themself, but rather, call themself a binoh, ‘one without type’—grapples with their responsibilities as a clinician and a magic user in a city overrun by refugees like them. Meanwhile, their younger brother, Parviz, a binary trans boy, is desperate to transition with the magic only Firuz can do in their new home. The issue here is not whether Parviz is actually a boy, or whether Firuz runs the risk of being misgendered; the issue is while the city is in crisis, while an ethnic genocide of Firuz’s people happens in the background, the rest of life continues on and demands Firuz’s attention and time when they’re stretched so thin.” Naseem’s work is “a promise of possibility” and a love letter to their queer, brown communities,

Dante Luiz is a Brazilian speculative fiction writer and illustrator. In the application, Dante wrote about wanting to “write flawed yet humane trans men who are adults, responsible for their actions, both the good and the bad” as a way to combat inadequate and often infantilizing representations of transmasculine people. Dante’s story My Mother’s Hand, which was part of the application as a writing sample, is a historical fantasy set in 19th century Desterro. This story “is a short tale of a trans man dealing with the ghost of his mother possessing his dominant hand—a witch mother who never accepted his gender identity, or his love for women.” Dante is currently working on a graphic novel, Thicker Than Blood, which follows a “trans man who does a Faustian deal with the devil to keep the ancestral land of the family who does not see him as the legitimate heir, and separates him from his former lover and current enemy, a woman after the same land.” He is also working on a Brazilian romantasy novella with a trans man protagonist. Overall, Dante is deeply invested in creating fully-rounded trans characters who find themselves in exciting speculative situations and spaces.

In addition to choosing three Fellows, the Fellowship Committee announced an honor list, which includes L.J. Phillips, Calvin Gimpelevich, A.L. Major, Nicole Martinez, and Eugen Bacon. These writers and artists are all doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction.

The members of the 2022 selection committee for the Otherwise Fellowships were Aqdas Aftab (chair), Shreya Ila Anasuya, and Eleyna Sara Haroun.

Perhaps you noticed that we did not award Fellowships in 2021. In these difficult times, our selection process took longer than usual. We decided it really didn’t make sense to give out 2021 Fellowships in 2022. So to catch up, we skipped a year. Fortunately, we managed to give out the same number of Fellowships by providing three Fellowships in both 2020 and 2021, rather than our usual two. Applications for the 2023 Fellowships will be due in summer 2022.

We are pleased to announce the selection of two Otherwise Fellows: Devonix and Martha Riva Palacio Obón.

The 2019 Otherwise Fellowship committee (Rox Samer, Gabriela Damián Miravete, Vida Cruz, and Ana Hurtado) describes their work as follows:

It is our belief that Devonix and Obón’s projects are pushing forward the boundaries and possibilities of the speculative, playing joyously with the traditional sense of el género (which, in Spanish, means genre and gender at the same time) across a range of mediums.

Devonix’s contributions to the New Orleans drag scene challenge how we currently understand and access speculative fiction. In the fusion of genre and drag, Devonix encourages audiences to critique our dystopian reality and imagine other possibilities. Devonix’s drag king performances are fiercely intelligent, provocative, and playful. It is extremely pleasing that the Otherwise Fellowship will be used to further the career of one whose robot overlord performance deconstructs and rearranges like a jenga game how we think of gender.

Martha Riva Palacio Obón is a writer and sound and media artist, who creates hybrid projects through words and sound. Her current project seeks to bring her fascination with outer space into inner space. Human and non-human memories, her grandmother’s voice and the chirping of crickets, her own body and voice, all meld into a fascinating exploration of the space a body occupies. Obón erases the line we constantly draw between us and them: our bodies and planet Earth, our consciousness and an expanding galaxy, our sense of self and every single being surrounding us.

We are also proud to announce an honors list, which includes Marina Berlin, M.L. Krishnan, Kailee Pedersen, and Aigner Loren Wilson. The committee is extremely excited by the work these writers and artists are doing in gender and speculative fiction and look forward to following its development.

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The Fellowship program, now in its fifth year, is designed to provide support and recognition for the new voices who are changing our view of gender today. Each Fellow will receive $500. The work produced as a result of this support will be recognized and promoted by the Otherwise Award.

Over time, the Fellowship program will create a network of Fellows who can build connections, provide mutual support, and find opportunities for collaboration. This effort will complement the ongoing work of the Award — that is, the celebration of speculative fiction that expands and explores gender by imagining otherwise in thought-provoking, nuanced, and unexpected ways.

If you would like to donate to the fund for future Otherwise Fellowships, you can do so here. Let us know if you would like your donation to support the Fellowships program specifically.

To read about the work of our previous Fellows, click on their names below.

• Ana Hurtado (2018)
• Vida Cruz (2018)
• H. Pueyo (2017)
• Shelley Parker-Chan (2017)
• Mia Sereno (2016)
• Porpentine Charity Heartscape (2016)
• Walidah Imarisha (2015)
• Elizabeth LaPensée (2015)
• micha cárdenas (inaugural)