This weekend, my short story “The Man Who Sold the Moon” won the The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a juried prize for the best science fiction story of the year.
The story originally appeared in the anthology Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, edited by Kathryn Cramer and Ed Finn, based on a project started by Neal Stephenson to encourage ambitious science fiction grounded in real technological plausibility that would inspire a new generation of engineers and techies to put them minds to solving the world’s great problems.
Just accepted the Sturgeon Award on behalf of @doctorow for his @hieroglyphASU story "The Man Who Sold the Moon"! pic.twitter.com/yJXl0yyk7p
— Joey Eschrich (@JoeyEsch) June 13, 2015
The Sturgeon Award is given by Kansas University’s Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and presented at a ceremony held during a multi-day conference at the Center in Lawrence, KS. Regrettably, I was not able to be there, but Joey Eschrich from Arizona State University was kind enough to accept on my behalf (ASU’s Center for Science and Imagination hosted the Hieroglyph project). Here’s what I asked him to say:
I’m so sorry I can’t be here today in person — thank you again for
this tremendous honor. I would especially like to thank the jury for
selecting my story, and Heinlein for being such a frustrating,
magnificent crank whom the rest of us are going to need to shout at
and about for a long time to come.
I also sent a short video that they screened at the banquet:
“The Man Who Sold the Moon” has been selected for reprint in several other anthologies, including some of the annual Year’s Best roundups, and is also a finalist for this year’s Locus Award.
The KU folks were kind enough to supply some images from the event:
I have a special history with the KU Center for the Study of Science Fiction. They were the first people to ever nominate me for an award, for my short story “Craphound,” the first professional sale I ever made. I flew there that weekend for the event, and made friendships that endure to this day. Then they honored me by giving my novel Little Brother the Campbell Award for Best Novel, the other juried prize they hand out each year. What’s more they, hosted me for a Richard W. Gunn Memorial Lecture in 2013. I’m proud, delighted and honored to continue my association with the Center, and thankful beyond words for this honor.