The wave of conversation about diversity and representation in fiction is about to crest again: Women swept this year’s Nebula Awards, handed out this past weekend in Chicago.
All of the fiction awards — for short story, novelette, novella, novel, and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult novels — went to women authors, and Mad Max: Fury Road (a film NPR’s Chris Kilmek called a “boldly feminist chase flick“) won the Ray Bradbury Award for dramatic presentation. (The Solstice Award — given occasionally at the discretion of the SFWA board to people who’ve made a big impact in the field — did go to a man, the late Terry Pratchett.) In some ways the winners, and the full nominating ballot they were chosen from, represent a local, genre-specific eddy of change in the larger ocean of literature.
“I think it is a product of our time that great stories, diverse stories, are appearing and being celebrated,” says Sarah Pinsker, whose story “Our Lady of the Open Road” won best novelette.
The Nebulas are nominated by and voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), an organization made up of working writers, editors, and other publishing professionals. They’re given out during the group’s annual conference, which is dedicated to celebrating, educating, and supporting genre writers.
This year’s celebration started with the presentation of the SFWA Grand Master award to C. J. Cherryh, honoring her lifetime contributions to the science fiction and fantasy field. Then, in category after category, authors like Alyssa Wong, Nnedi Okorafor, and Naomi Novik took home glittering nebulae and planet replicas encased in clear Lucite.