We are 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 Issac 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 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.