Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)

Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed

Introduction

Jeanne Gomoll: for final event bring up tiptree motherboard ...

Tiptree Jurors

Liz Henry: i had a wonderful time on the tiptree jury ... matt ruff, hiromi goto until hse had to drop out ... death in the family ... so we were extremely pleased to put several books on the shortlist and i think that our shortlist and longlist represent the diversity of our opinions. and i loved all of these books and i loved talking about them for a year ... which was really really fun. matt and i just remailed each other about how we kinda of miss it.

Matt Ruff: that's sort of what we said.

on the short list is ... "Little Faces" ... Remains, A Brother's Price

we were ...

we all loved AIR, and we settled on it with wild enthusiasm as the winner for the tiptree...we were very pleased to talk about and what i thought was interesting that wae all loved it for different reasons, different intersecting reasons ... i loved it personally for its beautiful writing and its complicated and gripping story. but those things ndon't make it win the tiptree. what makes it win the tiptree is that it expands and explores gender. ... it complciated what it means to be a woman ... the main character may umm had many roeles she was a mtoher, wife, entrepreneur. her -- inf act she was a mother of children who had recently left the house and her role was very much in transition. then w/ the advent of new technology she was plunged into a world of double consciousness, madness, dealing very deeply w/ theaging, changing ... cross-cultural, relationships w/ women, politics, local, national ... very interesting...so many levels to this book ... the ending gave me chills na d made me pace around the house insanely talking nto myself and pacing around the house in the middle of the night. i love that kind of ending. my husband hates that kind of ending b/c i'm apcing around the house in the middle of the night ... controversial ending and i can't say what it is b/c it's a spoiler. but it and many other things right int he middel fo the book are a beautiful disruption of science fiction ... comfortable for us ... world of science ficiotnn we understand what's going on ... the disruption puts us into a different place, magical realism, which we're going to kill after the panel today ... a different ... that's difficult to swallow ... [laughter] yes. makes us as a reader feel outsider to the story that we're in ... make us understand gender ... women's role ... a way to explore women's role as something of a prdouction. so that's what i leave you with b/c a lot of people have approached me to ask what is this weird thing about ...

matt - it was a privilege to serve w/ all members of of the jury & especially liz ... final list much better ... let's do it again some time ...

by september last year the tiptree judges had begun to grow concerned. more than half our time was gone. ... interesting submissions particularly in the area of harry potter / csi fanfic ... but nothing that screamed give me the itara. it was at this point ... email ... a novel called air left over from the previous year's deliberations that we might want to take a look at .. in hindsight ... clear a maneuver performed on behalf oa the secret feminist cabal ... air turned out to be the story of residents in a village in a country that ends in -stan. ... what impressed me about geoff ryman was not just what ihe did but what he didn't. could have been humorless polemic ... could have romanticized third world poverty ... what i took away from air is that technological progress is a wonderful thing ... also painful ...b urden does not fall evenly ... someone gets the scutwork ... in air she is the hero fo the story.

six chapters in when i turned to my wife and said ... in a year when the tiptree judges sometimes despaired of agreeing nabout anything ... short list, long list ... but when we talke dabout what should win the decision was swift and it was unanimous. and so mr. ryman sir i believe this belongs to you ...

Award

tiara is placed on geoff ryman's head.

... check.

tiara ... award ... a beautiful work of art representing air .

a work of silk art

Geoff Ryman

Geoff Ryman: thank you. we should probably have a round of applsause ... queen for a day or something ... only not just for a day ... ... this jacket, it says, love and happiness, ... which kind of describes wiscon. if i want to rwrite a novel set in heaven i think heaven is going to look something like wiscon. i can't figure out whether the extraordinary well-=done organization allows everyone to be so kind or whether the kindness allows ... probably chicken and eggs .. no other convention like it ... with check by jowl conversation about all the things we care about ... i feel strange being up here ... the one thing that will stop you writing fatster than anything else is arrogance ... and all this stuff ... thank you so much. air was a difficult sell, it was a difficult write. i assumed nothing would happen to it whatsoever. i assumed it would come out & disappear. i knew that in my bones. and it's very strange to discover your bones can be that wrong. i now actually believe it oculd be a good book. i don't know who tot hank,. there seems to be so many people to thank ... the lovely lady ... the wondoerful people who left a basket of fruit on my bed. i came in , there was a basket of fruit it was terrific ... you have no idea .. how kind it is to let someone know BEFORE they set in this room ... b/c normally what happens, ... you sit in a room, and john clute comes up to you and says you know how these things go ... and someone else comes up and says i voted for you ... they're telling me i didn't win. smile and keep smiling. and you lean over and shake each other's hands and sometimes they really are your best friend. a... and you seit there and think why am i so nervousl. we know all these books are .. certainly true of all these marvelous books ... the people who came here b /c of the long list ... they deserve a round of applause ... and so i came up with a spirit of joy , my first time at a wiscon, i will certainly be back. applause. and again i'm trying to think of all the people i should thank, the people who organized the award, artshow, convention, the people who chased me around and around this room, but seriously i cannot think of another convention i would be so happy to be chased around a room.

Tips

Ellen Klages: We will sing to you now.

Pat Murphy: The Tips change with each Tiptree Award. Some remain the same and I will get Delia and Ellen to actually lead because I can't sing.

Those of you in the audience please join in.

(sung to the tune of "The Man on the Flying Trapeeze")

He wrote the book Air with the greatest of ease,

Geoff Ryman is here, and he's eager to please.

The means of production

His characters seize,

And now he has won an award.

In a faraway village, high fashion was born,

But for new technology, people had scorn.

A tiara is something

Chung Mae would have worn,

But Geoff gets to wear one today!

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