The Otherwise Award, originally known as the James Tiptree Jr. Award, is an American annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February 1991 by science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, subsequent to a discussion at WisCon, a feminist SF conference.
In addition to the award itself, the judges publish an Honor List, which they describe as "a strong part of the award's identity", "used by many readers as a recommended reading list".
In 2024, the award administrators announced that they would be switching from a single winner each year to a shortlist of three to six winners.
The award was originally named for Alice B. Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr. Due to controversy over the appropriateness of naming an award after Tiptree, the committee administering the award announced on October 13, 2019, that the award would be renamed the Otherwise Award.
On October 13, 2019, the Tiptree Motherboard released an announcement stating that the Tiptree Award would become the Otherwise Award. The name refers to "the act of imagining gender otherwise" at the core of what the award has always honored, as well as being "wise to the experience of being the other". The title also draws from the Black queer scholarship of Ashon Crawley around what is termed "otherwise politics". According to the statement, "Otherwise means finding different directions to move in—toward newly possible places, by means of emergent and multiple pathways and methods."
Fundraising efforts for the award have included publications (two cookbooks), "feminist bake sales", and auctions. The Tiptree cookbook The Bakery Men Don't See, edited by WisCon co-founder Jeanne Gomoll, was nominated for a 1992 Hugo Award. Otherwise Award juries traditionally consist of four female and one male juror (the "token man"). The auctions were one of the keynote events of WisCon, and they were run by author Ellen Klages from their inception in 1994 until 2016. A variety of items were auctioned, ranging from signed first editions of art or written works by SF luminaries and authors, such as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzette Haden Elgin, Freddie Baer, and many others, to quirky items with some connection to feminism, science fiction, or fandom, such as a hand-knitted uteruses created by Klages, letters, photos, memorabilia, toys, and art.
Anthologies
Selections of the winners, various short-listed fiction, and essays have appeared in four Tiptree-related collections, Flying Cups and Saucers (1999) and a series of annual anthologies published by Tachyon Publications of San Francisco. These include:
- Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by the Secret Feminist Cabal and Debbie Notkin (1999)
- The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1 edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith (2005)
- The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2 edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith (2006)
- The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith (2007)
Winners
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"
|+
!Year
!Author(s)
!Work
!Publisher
!Ref.
|-
! rowspan="2" |1991
|
|
|William Morrow
|
|-
|
|White Queen
|Victor Gollancz Ltd
|
|-
!1992
|
|China Mountain Zhang
|Tor
|
|-
!1993
|
|Ammonite
|Del Rey Books
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |1994
|
|
|Broken Mirrors Press
|
|-
|
|Larque on the Wing
|AvoNova
|
|-
! rowspan="7" |1995
|
|Waking the Moon
|HarperPrism
|
|-
|
|
|Random House
|
|-
|
|Motherlines
|Berkeley-Putnam
|
|-
|
|Walk to the End of the World
|Ballantine
|
|-
|
|
|Walker & Co.
|
|-
|
|
|Bantam Books
|
|-
|
|
|Doubleday
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |1996
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|Random House
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |1997
|
|Black Wine
|Tor
|
|-
|
|
|Small Beer Press
|
|-
!1998
|
|
|Tor
|
|-
!1999
|
|
|Tor
|
|-
!2000
|
|Wild Life
|Simon & Schuster
|
|-
!2001
|
|
|Red Deer Press
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |2002
|
|Light
|Victor Gollancz Ltd
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|-
!2003
|
|Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls
|HarperCollins
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |2004
|
|Camouflage
|Ace
|
|-
|
|Not Before Sundown (Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi)<br />Published in the United States as Troll – a love story
|Peter Owen Publishers
|
|-
!2005
|
|Air
|St. Martin's Griffin
|
|-
! rowspan="3" |2006
|
|Half Life
|HarperCollins
|
|-
|
|
|Spectra Books
|
|-
|
|James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
|St. Martin's Press
|
|-
!2007
|
|
|Faber and Faber (UK 2007); HarperCollins (US 2008)
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |2008
|
|
|Walker & Co. (UK); Candlewick Press (US)
|
|-
|
|Filter House
|Aqueduct Press
|
|-
!2011
|
|Redwood and Wildfire
|Aqueduct Press
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |2012
|
|
|Roc Books
|
|-
|
|Ancient, Ancient
|Aqueduct Press
|
|-
|
|My Real Children
|Tor
|
|-
!2017
|
|Who Runs the World?
|Macmillan
|
|-
!2018
|
|
|Latin American Literature Today
|
|-
!2019
|
|Freshwater
|Grove Press
|
|-
!2020
|
|Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon
|Aurelia Leo
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |2021
|
|Light from Uncommon Stars
|Tor Books
|
|-
|
|Sorrowland
|MCD Books
|
|-
!2023
| colspan="3" |On hold
|
|-
! rowspan="4" |2024
|
|In Universes
|HarperCollins
|
|-
|
|"Kiss of Life"
|FIYAH
|
|}
See also
- Gender in speculative fiction
- Sense of Gender Awards
- Sex and sexuality in speculative fiction
- Women in speculative fiction
- Women science fiction authors