Skip to content
Answering Your Questions About Reactor: Right here.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Everything in one handy email.
When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Reactor

The third annual Ignyte Awards, hosted by Brent Lambert, were presented on Saturday, September 17th, 2022.

The Ignyte Awards “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.” Voting was open to the public in Spring 2022, resulting in 6935 votes across 1205 submitted ballots.

The Ignyte Awards committee is honored to present the following winners within their respective categories:

 

BEST NOVEL: ADULT

for novel-length work (40k words) Works intended for an Adult audience

 

Winner: A Master of Djinn – P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)

Black Water Sister – Zen Cho (Ace Books)

Light from Uncommon Stars – Ryka Aoki (Tor Books)

Sorrowland – Rivers Solomon (MCD)

The Unbroken – C. L. Clark (Orbit)

 

 

BEST NOVEL: YOUNG ADULT

for novel-length (40k+ words) works intended for the young adult audience

 

Winner: A Snake Falls to Earth – Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)

Redemptor – Jordan Ifueko (Harry N. Abrams)

The Wild Ones – Nafiza Azad (Margaret K. McElderry Books)

This Poison Heart – Kalynn Bayron (Bloomsbury YA)

White Smoke – Tiffany D. Jackson (Katherine Tegen Books)

 

BEST IN MIDDLE GRADE

for works intended for the middle grade audience

 

Amari and the Night Brothers – B.B. Alston (Balzer & Bray/Harperteen)

Josephine Against the Sea – Shakirah Bourne (Scholastic Inc.)

Winner: Root Magic – Eden Royce (Walden Pond Press)

The Insiders – Mark Oshiro (HarperCollins)

Tristan Strong Keeps Punching – Kwame Mbalia (Rick Riordan Presents)

 

BEST NOVELLA

for speculative works ranging from 17,500-39,999 words

 

Winner: And This is How to Stay Alive – Shingai Njeri Kagunda (Neon Hemlock)

Fireheart Tiger – Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom)

Flowers for the Sea – Zin E. Rocklyn (Tordotcom)

Nothing but Blackened Teeth – Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire)

Philia, Eros, Storge, Agápe, Pragma – R.S.A. Garcia (Clarkesworld)

 

BEST NOVELETTE

for speculative works ranging from 7,500-17,499 words

 

“Colors of the Immortal Palette” – Caroline M. Yoachim ( Uncanny)

“The Badger’s Digestion; or the First-Hand Description…of Deneshan Beastcraft” by an Aouwan “Researcher” – Malka Older (Constelacion Magazine)

“The Equations of the Dead” – An Owomyela (Lightspeed Magazine)

Winner: “The Future Library” – Peng Shepherd (Tordotcom)

“The Music of the Siphorophenes” – CL Polk (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)

 

BEST SHORT STORY

for speculative works ranging from 2,000-7,499 words

 

“The Center of the Universe” – Nadia Shammas (Strange Horizons)

“Delete Your First Memory for Free” – Kel Coleman (FIYAH Literary Magazine)

Winner: “If the Martians have Magic” – P. Djèlí Clark (Uncanny Magazine)

“The Fifth Horseman” – Martin Cahill (Fireside Fiction)

“The Tale of Jaja and Canti’ – Tobi Ogundiran (Lightspeed)

 

BEST IN SPECULATIVE POETRY

“Appeal to the Doppelgänger” – Terese Mason Pierre (Fantasy Magazine)

“Dragonslayer” – Priya Chand (Fantasy Magazine)

“Kuala Lumpur Urban Legends” – Jack Kin Lim (Strange Horizons)

“None of the Star Trek Ships Are Named After Confederate Generals” – Arden Eli Hill (Strange Horizons)

Winner: “Post Massacre Psyche Evaluation” – Abu Bakr Sadiq (Uncanny Magazine)

 

CRITICS AWARD

for reviews and analysis of the field of speculative literature

 

Akilah White

Arley Sorg

Thistle & Verse

Winner: Alex Brown

Rich in Color

 

BEST FICTION PODCAST

for excellence in audio performance and production for speculative fiction

 

Escape Pod

Winner: Khōréō Magazine

Gallery of Curiosities

Podcastle

Pseudopod

 

BEST ARTIST

for contributions in visual speculative storytelling

 

Tommy Arnold

Paul Kellam

Winner: Morgan Madeline

John Picacio

Raymond Sebastien

 

 

BEST COMICS TEAM

for comics, graphic novels, and sequential storytelling

Abbot: 1973  – Saladin Ahmed & Sami Kivelä  (Boom! Studios)

Count – Ibrahim Moustafa, Brad Simpson, & Hassan Otsame-Elhaou (Humanoids, Inc.)

Winner: Nubia: Real One – L. L. McKinney & Robyn Smith (DC Comics)

Shadow Life – Hiromi Goto & Ann Xu (First Second)

Squad – Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle (Green Willow Books)

 

 

BEST ANTHOLOGY/COLLECTED WORKS

For works related to the field of speculative fiction

 

Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan – Usman T. Malik (Kitab (Pvt) Ltd.)

Never Have I Ever – Isabel Yap (Small Beer Press)

Reconstruction: Stories – Alaya Dawn Johnson (Small Beer Press)

Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology – Alex Hernandez, Matthew David Goodwin, & Sarah Rafael García, eds. (Mad Creek Books)

Winner: We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020 – C.L. Clark, Charles Payseur, eds. (Neon Hemlock)

 

 

BEST CREATIVE NONFICTION

for works related to the field of speculative fiction

 

“Round Table: The Palestinian Speculative” – Fargo Tbakhi, N.A. Mansour, Rasha Abdulhadi (Strange Horizons)

Winner: “We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist” – Vida Cruz (Fantasy Magazine)

“What You Might Have Missed” – Arley Sorg (Uncanny Magazine)

“The Necessity of Slavery Stories” – Troy L. Wiggins (Uncanny Magazine)

“Where Will You Place Us When We Are Dead?” – Monte Lin (Strange Horizons)

 

THE EMBER AWARD

for unsung contributions to genre

 

Maurice Broaddus

Winner: Tananarive Due

Malinda Lo

Julia Rios

Sheree Renée Thomas

 

THE COMMUNITY AWARD

for outstanding efforts in service of inclusion and equitable practice in genre

 

Anathema: Spec from the Margins: Michael Matheson, Andrew Wilmot, Chinelo Onwualu

dave ring

Khōréō Magazine – Aleksandra Hill, Founder & Editor-in-Chief and Team

Winner: The Submission Grinder – David Steffen

We Need Diverse Books

 

About the Author

About Author Mobile

Emmet Asher-Perrin

Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin is the News & Entertainment Editor of Reactor. Their words can also be perused in tomes like Queers Dig Time Lords, Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction. They cannot ride a bike or bend their wrists. You can find them on Bluesky and other social media platforms where they are mostly quiet because they'd rather to you talk face-to-face.
Learn More About Emmet

See All Posts About