This past April, Monica Byrne and Jo Walton were both honored with the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for their novels The Girl in the Road and My Real Children. But while Byrne received her customary Tiptree tiara—and engaged in some impressive arm-wrestling—at the official ceremony at WisCon 39, Walton was unable to attend. As she was already attending Balticon 49 as the Guest of Honor, the Tiptree Award folks made sure she got crowned, albeit remotely.
But on August 9, San Francisco’s Borderlands Books is bringing the Tiptree Award to Jo Walton! They’ll be honoring her with all the fun of the award ceremony that she missed out on.
The press release promises all manner of irreverent fun:
As is traditional at the Tiptree Award ceremony, the winner will be crowned with a tiara, serenaded with a song, and given chocolates and art—all specially created to honor her novel, My Real Children. In addition, this event will also include an interview with Jo Walton, a reading and acapella musical performance by Ada Palmer, and a cake. Other mischief may ensue. At a Tiptree event, it’s hard to say what might happen.
If you’re in San Francisco, you shouldn’t miss this; RSVP to the Facebook event. If you haven’t had a chance to read My Real Children, check out an excerpt. Plus, we’re all abuzz over Walton’s latest, The Philosopher Kings: It’s got us pondering what moments of choice mean, and why it would be a bad idea for the Greek pantheon to be real and exist out of time, meddling in human affairs.