Category Archives: General News

2016 “Tiptree Symposium” Celebrates Ursula K. Le Guin

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Clockwise from left: Ursula K. Le Guin, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Brian Attebery

This year’s 2016 James Tiptree Jr. symposium is a celebration of Ursula K. Le Guin. Last year’s inaugural symposium featured James Tiptree, Jr., and was such a success that the University of Oregon (at Eugene) has made it an annual event.  It will be held December 2 and 3 on the Eugene campus. The Tiptree Award will almost certainly host a party; watch this space for details.

Tentative keynote speakers are Brian Attebery, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Karen Joy Fowler.

Along with the tentative keynoters, here’s a peek at the tentative schedule.

At 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, December 1 (before the symposium starts), Dr. Alexis Lothian will give the Sally Miller Gearhart Lesbian Lecture, “Queer Longings in Straight Futures: Notes Toward a Prehistory for Lesbian Speculation.”

On December 2, festivities start at 10:00 a.m. and end at 7:00 p.m. Joan Haran will moderate a panel on The Dispossessed, and another panel will feature Dr. Carol Stabile’s feminist SF students discussing The Lathe of Heaven. That day’s keynote (and question and answer session) will be by Karen Joy Fowler.

On December 3, the schedule runs from 9:30 a.m. to 5;00 p.m. Alexis Lothian will chair the panel on The Left Hand of Darkness, and Karen Ford will moderate a panel on  Ursula Le Guin and the Field of Feminist Science Fiction. The two keynotes that day will be: Kelly Sue DeConnick and Ben Saunders having a conversation about Le Guin’s influence; and Brian Attebery.

We couldn’t resist counting: the speakers include: one Tiptree Award founding mother, three award winners , two Motherboard members, at least six previous jurors, and our inaugural Tiptree Award Fellow. Ursula Le Guin, who has won twice and been on the jury twice, may also attend. We’ll be well represented. And for the fun of it, also several past WisCon guests of honor and one upcoming one.

Will you be there?

2016 Fellowships Deadline Extended!

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We have excellent applications for this year’s Tiptree Fellowships — but we still have time for a few more.

The Tiptree Fellows can be writers, artists, scholars, media makers, remix artists, performers, musicians, or something else entirely. If you are doing work that is changing the way we think about gender through speculative narrative – maybe in a form we would recognize as the science fiction or fantasy genre, maybe in some other way – you will be eligible for a Fellowship. You won’t have to be a professional or have an institutional affiliation, as we hope to support emerging creators who don’t already have institutional support for their work.

Fellowship winners receive $500 grants. If you were wishing you had time to apply but missed yesterday’s cut-off, now is your chance. Applications will be open until September 15, 2016.

MidAmericon Auction Report plus Tiptree/Sheldon Birthday Links

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The Tiptree Award Auction at MidAmericon II was a smashing success, thanks to so many people!

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Worldcon gave us the space. Motherboard members Jeanne Gomoll and Pat Murphy (shown above on the Soap box, and also modeling the Spacebabe hoodie) did a lot of planning. Jeanne, Scott Custis, Jim Hudson, and Diane Martin transported Stuff from Madison to Kansas City. Jim also handled the sales. Many others provided essential help. And auctioneer Sumana Harihareswara cajoled almost $1500 out of the audience!

The prize item, unsurprisingly, was the signed copy of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, her most famous novel and one of her finest.

A great time was had by all!

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We were pleased to see these birthday tributes to Alice Sheldon:

Leah Schnelbach talks about “What James Tiptree Jr. Can Teach Us about the Power of the SF Community” at tor. com . Schnelbach’s excellent long essay recaps Sheldon/Tiptree’s history. The piece ends with this:

I think it’s worth pointing out, though, and repeating, and underlining, and emphasizing, that Alice Sheldon, a person who felt out of joint for most of her life, found in SF a community that didn’t just tolerate her weirdness, but celebrated it. And that celebration helped her to create some of the greatest work the genre ever saw.

Tachyon Press also gives Tiptree a birthday shout-out here:

Alice adopted her “James Tiptree, Jr.” persona to protect her academic reputation. As Tiptree, she garnered immense praise for her numerous tales that often stretched the boundaries of the genre by challenging the perceptions of gender. Her many awards include two Hugo (1974 novella, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In”; 1977 novella, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”), three Nebula (1973 short story, “Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death”; 1976 novella, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”; 1977 novelette, “The Screwfly Solution”), and a 1987 World Fantasy for the collection TALES OF THE QUINTANA ROO.

Both articles are also kind enough to namecheck the Tiptree Award as part of her legacy.

Happy Birthday, Dear Tip/Ally, Happy Birthday to You!

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Alice B. Sheldon
Alice B. Sheldon

It’s Alice Sheldon’s 101st birthday! We don’t have a special birthday cake for her, so we’re re-giving Georgie Schnobrich’s beautiful cake celebrating this year’s Tiptree Award winners.

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As a birthday present, all three of WisCon 40’s guests of honor are posting their superb guest of honor speeches today. Justine Larbalestier’s moving speech was largely about the rights of young people, and especially young people of color. Sofia Samatar spoke eloquently about writing and flight. And Nalo Hopkinson announced the Lemonade Award, a kindness award for people who foster positive change in the science fiction community

These three speeches made for an amazing evening, capped by the Tiptree Award ceremony. If you were there, reading the speeches will bring it back for you. If you couldn’t be there, reading the speeches will give you something of the flavor. Also, Tiptree Award winner Eugene Fischer has posted an excellent summary of the speeches, with long quotations.

And, of course, we believe that Ally/Tip would be delighted if you felt like marking her birthday by donating to the award that preserves her legacy of exploring and expanding gender in speculative fiction.

Tiptree Auction at Kansas City Worldcon, Friday, August 19

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Can’t get enough Tiptree auctions at WisCon? Don’t get to WisCon, but curious about Tiptree auctions? Fan of Sumana Harihareswara? Want to support science fiction that explores and expands gender? Want to roar with laughter? There are dozens of possible reasons to go to the Tiptree Auction at MidAmeriCon II.

You’ll find us in the auction space in the Exhibits Hall, on Friday, August 19 at noon. We’re auctioning a short list of prime items, such as a signed first edition of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. We will also be selling this year’s lovely Freddie Baer 25th anniversary t-shirt–with the names of all the winners–as well as the two Tiptree cookbooks.

James Tiptree, Jr. 25th Annual Award T-Shirt
James Tiptree, Jr. 25th Annual Award T-Shirt

We hope to see you there!

Tiptree Auction at MidAmericon II!

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We are delighted to announce that MidAmericon II has graciously agreed to host a special brief Tiptree Award charity auction. The convention is in Kansas City, and the auction will be on Friday, August 19 at noon in the Auction Space in the exhibits gallery. Auctioneer extraordinaire Sumana Harihareswara will be there to persuade you to open your wallet.

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Unlike the longer WisCon auctions, this one has a fixed set of items being auctioned, all of which are pictured above. (Unless we decide to slip in a surprise or two at the last minute …)

Start thinking now about what you want to take home from Kansas City. Your options are:

  • A signed first edition of Kindred, by Octavia Butler.
  • Your very own Space Babe Hoodie.
  • Weird Tales #2, Winter 1985. Contributor Terry Garey says: “The [magazine] went under right after [this issue] was printed, and the editor sent us all extra contributors’ copies, since the company couldn’t pay us. Very few other copies were distributed, and most were destroyed. The cover art was a rip off of a Victoria’s Secret cover, which didn’t help matters.”
  • Cooking Out of This World, edited by Anne McCaffrey. Mass market paperback, containing recipes from dozens of famous science fiction writers from the 1980s
  • Mythologies, A suite of six miniatures for string quartet, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Photocopy. No performance rights included. Includes program from piano performance at WisCon 10.
  • Exploring the Solar System, Children’s Book by Fabric (Do-it-yourself fabric book, made by cutting fabric and stitching seams)
  • A set of the 2015 Tiptree winners: a signed first edition of Lizard Radio, by Pat Schmatz and a signed copy of the April-May 2015 Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine containing “The New Mother,” by Eugene Fischer

The cookbooks and t-shirts at the bottom of the illustration will be available for direct sale.

Even if you don’t intend to buy anything, the Tiptree Auction is the best entertainment value you’re likely to find on Friday afternoon at Worldcon, so we hope to see you there!

More from WisCon 40

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All Tiptree awards come with an original piece of art inspired by the winning fiction. In our WisCon wrap-up post, we neglected to show off the marvelous nesting doll art created by Rebecca (Foxy) Ford for Eugene Fischer’s “The New Mother.” (Thanks to the 2015 jury for the nesting doll concept!)

Except for the very smallest doll, which is wraparound, each doll has two pieces of art. Together the art reflects fertility images from various cultures plus scientific images of reproduction.

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The art we commissioned for Pat Schmatz’s Lizard Radio will be revealed later this month, after Pat has bee celebrated and has had a chance to see it herself.

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In our previous WisCon report, we mentioned Dr. Theresia Sauter-Baillet’s Tiptree costume, which she made and wore to a conference in Germany, and then donated to the auction. We raised over $300 to give this to Ellen Klages, and we thought you’d like to see exactly what Ellen now owns.

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The Tiptree Jam logo is embroidered on the front, and a constellation on the back.

WisCon 40 So Far

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We are in the middle of WisCon, and so far the convention itself, and the Tiptree Award presence here, have been a huge success.

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Eleanor Arnason, co-winner of the very first Tiptree Award, crowned Tiptree winner Eugene Fischer with the beautiful tiara which Elise Matthesen donated to the award on Friday night. We think he once again proves the dictum that every winner looks magnificent in the tiara.

Last night’s auction, hosted by the amazing Sumana Harihareswara (aka brainwane) was a financial success, but if you could measure the success in laughter, we’d be in the one percent. If you were there, you would have seen Sumana in a bustier, in King George’s crown, and in other guises, but here she is modeling the Superman (Supergirl?) pants which were auctioned off and donated to the fabulous women who struggled to provide closed captioned versions of Sumana’s fast patter.

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Our undying thanks to Sumana, the captioners, all the volunteers (set-up, tear-down, at-auction helpers, tweeter, cashiers and more) and to the audience and bidders!

Tonight Eugene Fischer gets officially honored and gets his check, original artwork, chocolate, and more!

Tiptree Winner Nominated for Sturgeon Award; Cupcakes Raise Tempers, Awareness in Australia

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We’re delighted to see that “The New Mother” by Eugene Fischer, co-winner of this year’s award, is also a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Fischer’s story is on an excellent list which also includes “Emergence” by previous winner Gwyneth Jones and “The Game of Smash and Recovery” by previous winner Kelly Link (and lots of other great stuff). Special thanks to The Sturgeon Award and SF Signal for giving us a link to the text of of “The New Mother” (see above)!

The Sturgeon Award recognizes the best science fiction short story each year. It was established in 1987 by James Gunn and the heirs of Theodore Sturgeon, as an appropriate memorial to one of the great short-story writers in a field distinguished by its short fiction.

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If you ever doubted the Tiptree Award’s position that holding a bake sale can be a radical act, a feminist organization at the University of Queensland has underscored the point in a powerful (and apparently threatening) fashion.

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Here’s Madeline Price, writing for The Guardian (warning: her piece contains some very ugly comments from the men who were angered by the idea):

If someone had told me, one week ago today, that a simple bake sale aiming to educate students about wage disparity in Australia would rile up a university campus to the point of death threats to the organisers, would reach media sources across Australia, the UK and US, and would result in the single most successful bake sale ever to be held on campus, I would have told them not to be silly; no one cares about a bake sale.

I also would have been wrong. …

The idea was that each baked good would only cost you the proportion of $1 that you earn comparative to men (or, if you identify as a man, all baked goods would cost you $1). For example, for a woman of colour in the legal profession, a baked good at the stall would only cost you 55 cents. …

This innocuous bake sale drew a vitriol of negative, derogatory and threatening online comments from people threatened by a discussion about equality and feminism; a discussion that we now, so obviously, need to be having in a public space.

As with all keyboard warriors, however, they never materialise in real life. The actual bake sale event was filled with positivity, support and enthusiasm for starting the conversation about wage disparity, the online behaviours of others, and, most importantly, global gender equality.

But while the keyboard warriors remained behind their screens, the threat to the safety and lives of women, the silencing of women in public spaces, and the wage disparity around the world are still very real issues that impact upon women and other marginalised groups in everyday life. These are the issues that the vitriol of online comments regarding the bake sale brought to light.

The Tiptree Award has generally been remarkably cushioned from this kind of hatred and threat. We extend our support and sympathy to all the people who have not been so lucky.