The James Tiptree, Jr. Award

In February of 1991 at WisCon (the world's only feminist-oriented science fiction convention), award-winning SF author Pat Murphy announced the creation of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. Pat created the award in collaboration with author Karen Joy Fowler.

The award is named for Alice B. Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her impulsive choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between "women's writing" and "men's writing." Her fine stories were eagerly accepted by publishers and won many awards in the field. Many years later, after she had written some other work under the female pen name of Raccoona Sheldon, it was generally discovered that she was female. The discovery led to a great deal of discussion of what aspects of writing, if any, are essentially gendered. The name, "Tiptree" was selected to illustrate the complex role of gender in writing and reading. For more information, including detailed descriptions of why each novel or story won the award, visit The Official James Tiptree, Jr. Award page.

[Titles in "quotes" below are short stories. Titles without "quotes" are novels. NOTE: The titles in this list are "hotlinked" to the library's catalog, for all those titles currently owned by the Lincoln City Libraries. Several of the earlier World Fantasy Award-winning novels have gone out of print and are no longer in our collection. If you see a title on this list that is not hotlinked to our collection, please consider ordering it through our Interlibrary Loan department.]

James Tiptree, Jr. Award Winners
for best SF/Fantasy novel or story dealing with gender issues

2007		Sarah Hall Daughters of the North (a.k.a. The Carhullan Army)
2006 (tie)		Shelley Jackson Half-Life
2006 (tie)		Catherynne Valente The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden
2006 Special Award		Julie Phillips James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
2005		Geoff Ryman Air: or Have, Not Have
2004 (tie)		Joe Haldeman Camouflage
(tie)		Johanna Sinisalo Not Before Sundown
2003		Matt Ruff Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls
2002 (tie)		M. John Harrison Light
(tie)		John Kessel "Stories for Men"
2001		Hiromi Goto The Kappa Child
2000		Molly Gloss Wild Life
1999		Suzy McKee Charnas The Conqueror's Child
1998		Raphael Carter "The Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation" in Starlight 2
1997 (tie)		Candas Jane Dorsey Black Wine
(tie)		Kelly Link "Travels With the Snow Queen" in Stranger Things Happen
1996 (tie)		Ursula K. LeGuin "Mountain Ways" in Birthday of the World: and Other Stories
(tie)		Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow
1995 (tie)		Elizabeth Hand Waking the Moon
(tie)		Theodore Roszak The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein
1994 (tie)		Ursula K. LeGuin "The Matter of Seggri" in Birthday of the World: and Other Stories
(tie)		Nancy Springer Larque on the Wing
1993		Nicola Griffith Ammonite
1992		Maureen F. McHugh China Mountain Zhang
1991 (tie)		Eleanor Arnason A Woman of the Iron People
(tie)		Gwyneth Jones White Queen
Retrospective Awards		Suzy McKee Charnas Motherlines and Walk to the End of the World
		Ursula K. LeGuin The Left Hand of Darkness
		Joanna Russ "When it Changed" in Again, Dangerous Visions
		Joanna Russ The Female Man