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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!

Tiptree Award Presented to Pat Schmatz in Minneapolis

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Because Pat Schmatz, author of Lizard Radio, was unable to attend WisCon 40, we arranged a special ceremony for her in her home town of Minneapolis, thanks to the generosity of the folks who run 4th Street Fantasy.

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Elise Matthesen, the jeweler who designed and made the beautiful Tiptree tiara, crowns Pat, who rocks her temporary headgear.

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Elizabeth Bear presents Pat with Tiptree award schwag, including an original piece of art by likhaininspired by Lizard Radio. Pat didn’t write down her acceptance speech, but she graciously gave us a paraphrased version to publish here:

If last week’s shooting in Orlando was the poison – and it was for me, a poison to creativity and freedom of expression that made me want to hole up, shut up, keep my head down and stop writing – then the Tiptree is the antidote.

Just knowing that for decades, the Tiptree Motherboard and Juries have been encouraging expansion and exploration of gender in Sci-fi and Fantasy…that’s a beautiful thing, and I thank you for an antidote at a point when I really needed it.

Lizard Radio was my first departure from realistic fiction, and I know I have a lot to learn in that realm. I look forward to learning from you all this weekend.

We cannot say how gratifying it is for us to be considered an antidote to the shootings in Orlando; we cannot imagine a compliment more meaningful … we only hope we can, in our small way, live up to it.

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.

Tiptree Award at WisCon 40

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WisCon 40 is over, and it was a smashing success for all concerned. With enormous thanks to the committee, and the fabulous (unionized) staff at the Madison Concourse Hotel, the Tiptree Award is now looking back on our WisCon experience.

On Friday afternoon, we had an auction and direct sale display at The Gathering, WisCon’s opening swap/craft/exhibit market. People got a chance to pose with Leslie What’s fabulous Space Babe raygun in front of a space poster. (You can see our Tiptree winner E.J. Fischer taking his turn in the second picture above.)

Also on display at the Gathering was the amazing 2016 Tiptree cake made by Georgie Schnobrich (bottom left with E.J.). Note the beautiful way Georgie captured both Tiptree winning covers in one design.

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On Friday night, one of the co-winners of the very first Tiptree Award crowned E.J. with his tiara-for-the-weekend (first picture above).

Saturday afternoon Darrah Chavey, ably assisted by various others, ran the Tiptree Bakesale.

Saturday night was the traditional auction, hosted by the inimitable Sumana Harihareswara. At one point, Sumana and E.J. both modeled the Superman (Supergirl!) pants which E.J. is wearing in the third picture above. Those pants were donated to Nicole, our delightful CART (“Communication Access Realtime Transcription”) transcriptionist, and her assistant Brit, who were thrilled to get them.

Other auction highlights included everything from a signed copy of Octavia Butler’s first book through getting to watch Sumana smash a Pilates for Weight Loss DVD with a hammer. Dr. Teresia Sauter-Baillet brought her hand-made James Tiptree Jr. outfit from Germany, and we passed the hat to send that to retiring auctioneer Ellen Klages.

And on Sunday, after unbelievably powerful speeches by WisCon 40 guests of honor Justine Larbalestier, Sofia Samatar, and Nalo Hopkinson, we celebrated this year’s winners and honor list. (Pat Schmatz could not attend WisCon and will be celebrated in person at 4th Street Fantasy in Minneapolis later this month.)

Now the auction materials are safely stowed for next year (or maybe sooner?) and we’re all catching up on sleep.

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!

The Motherboard Cooks the Books!

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Fran Wilde, host of the amazing long-running podcast “Cooking the Books,” interviews three motherboard members: Jeanne Gomoll, Ellen Klages, and Debbie Notkin in a podcast entitled “Twenty-Five Years of Moving the Conversation Forward.” As you can imagine, much hilarity (and some substance) ensues.

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Cooking the Books showcases the intersection between SF&F and food. Fran is a lovely, generous, and amusing host, and the whole series is terrific. You can get it on iTunes or through the link above. But go to the link, because that’s where you’ll find the recipe for Space Babe’s blueberry crumble.

Fran is also the author of Updraft, and the forthcoming Cloudbound. You can support Fran’s hard work cooking the books on Patreon. And you can always support the Tiptree Award moving the conversation forward, through the “Donate” button at the bottom of this page.

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.

Karen Joy Fowler, Tiptree Founding Mother, Judging the National Book Award

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“The mission of the National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America.”

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The Tiptree Award’s own true founding mother, Karen Joy Fowler, second from the left in the top row will be one of the five judges on the fiction panel (top row). Categories are fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s literature. All of the other judges are stellar, of course, but ones that stood out to me are Melissa Harris-Perry (judging nonfiction), Joy Harjo (judging poetry) and Ellen Oh, of We Need Diverse Books (judging young people’s literature).

Nominations are now open (they cost $135 per entry!) and will be open until May 16. Winners will be announced in November.

Go Karen!