Theodore Sturgeon Award Explained

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award
Awarded For:The best short science fiction stories published in English in the prior calendar year
Presenter:Center for the Study of Science Fiction
Year:1987
Holder:Samantha Mills ("Rabbit Test")
Holder Label:Most recent winner
Website:sfcenter.ku.edu/sturgeon-award

The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to the author of the best short science fiction story published in English in the preceding calendar year. It is the short fiction counterpart of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, which was awarded until 2020 by the Center at the same conference. The award is named in honor of Theodore Sturgeon, one of the leading authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction from 1939 to 1950. The award was established in 1987 by his heirs—including his widow, Jayne Sturgeon—and James Gunn, at the time the Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction.

From 1987 through 1994 the award was given out by a panel of science fiction experts led by Orson Scott Card. Beginning in 1995, the committee was replaced by a group of jurors, who vote on the nominations submitted for consideration. The initial jurors were James Gunn, Frederik Pohl, and Judith Merril. Merril was replaced on the jury by former winner Kij Johnson in 1997. One of Sturgeon's children—Noel Sturgeon in most years—was added to the panel in 1999. George Zebrowski served as a jury member from 2005 to 2014. Elizabeth Bear was added in 2013. Andy Duncan was a juror from 2013 to 2018. Sarah Pinsker was added in 2019, Taryne Taylor in 2020, and Kelly Link in 2024. The current jury includes Elizabeth Bear, Kelly Link, Sarah Pinsker, Noel Sturgeon, and Taryne Taylor. Awards administrators have included Christopher McKitterick, Kij Johnson, and Jason Baltazar (current).

Nominations are submitted by reviewers, fans, publishers, and editors, and are collated into a list of finalists to be voted on by the jury. The maximum eligible length that a work may be is not formally defined by the center. The award is given each year at the University of Kansas; it was previously presented at the Campbell Conference along with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, but since 2022 is presented as part of the annual Sturgeon Symposium. Winners are invited to attend and read at the ceremony. Since 2004 winners have received a personalized trophy, and since the inception of the award a permanent trophy has recorded all of the winners.

During the 37 years the award has been active, 218 authors have had works nominated, 38 of whom have won, including one tie. No author has won more than once. John Kessel has won once out of eight nominations, Michael Swanwick one of seven, Ursula K. Le Guin, Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, and Ted Chiang one of six, and Paolo Bacigalupi and Lucius Shepard have won once out of four times. Robert Reed has the most nominations without winning at eight, followed by James Patrick Kelly and Ian R. MacLeod at seven, Ken Liu at six, and Greg Egan, Yoon Ha Lee, and Bruce Sterling at five.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the work was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist.

  *   Winners

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Theodore Sturgeon Award".

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YearAuthorWorkPublisher or publicationRef.
"Surviving"
"Elephant" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Grave Angels"
Omni
"Pretty Boy Crossover" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Rachel in Love" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Omni
"Dinosaurs" Asimov's Science Fiction
Analog Science Fact & Fiction
"Heroics" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Schrödinger's Kitten" Omni
"Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Stairs" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner" Asimov's Science Fiction
Full Spectrum 2 (Doubleday)
"Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Dori Bangs" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Dancing with the Chairs" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Faith" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Bears Discover Fire" Asimov's Science Fiction
United Mythologies Press
"My Advice to the Civilized" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Buffalo" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Ma Qui" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"This Year's Class Picture" Still Dead (Mark V. Ziesing)
"Death and the Lady" After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tor Books)
"Danny Goes to Mars" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Even the Queen" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Slipping" Borderlands 2 (Avon Books)
"Fox Magic" Asimov's Science Fiction
"At the Shadow of a Dream" Aboriginal SF
Full Spectrum 4 (Bantam Spectra)
"Forgiveness Day" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Nekropolis" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Cri de Coeur" Asimov's Science Fiction
Beloit Poetry Journal
Tomorrow Speculative Fiction
"Cocoon" Asimov's Science Fiction
Omni
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Melodies of the Heart" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Paris In June" Omni
"Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Symphony for Skyfall"Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Understanding Entropy" Science Fiction Age
"Jigoku no Mokushiroku (The Symbolic Revelation of the Apocalypse)" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Diamonds Aren't Forever" David Copperfield's Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism)
"Fault Lines" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Home for Christmas" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"I, Iscariot" Crank!
"Mortimer Gray's History of Death" Asimov's Science Fiction
"We Were Out of Our Minds With Joy" Asimov's Science Fiction
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Age of Aquarius" Asimov's Science Fiction
Starlight 1
Asimov's Science Fiction
Buzzcity Press
Crank!
"Erase/Record/Play" Starlight 1 (Tor Books)
"Gone" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Marigold Outlet" Twists of the Tale: An Anthology of Cat Horror (Dell Publishing)
"Radio Waves" Omni
"Thirteen Phantasms" Omni Online
"House of Dreams" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Coming to Grips with the Great Plague" Omni Online
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Echoes" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Get a Grip" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Itsy Bitsy Spider" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Lethe" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Loose Ends" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"One Good Juror"Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Universal Grammar" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Story of Your Life" Starlight 2 (Tor Books)
"Wading River Dogs and More" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Advantage, Bellarmine" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Animae Celestes" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation by K.N. Sirsi and Sandra Botkin" Starlight 2 (Tor Books)
"Crane Fly" Amazing Stories
"Craphound" Science Fiction Age
"Dance at the Edge" Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction (The Overlook Press)
"Echea" Asimov's Science Fiction
"How Meersh the Bedeviler Lost His Toes" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Love of the True God" Talebones
"Lovestory" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Maneki Neko" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Radiant Doors" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Radio Praha" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Wild Minds" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Daddy's World" Not of Woman Born (Roc Books)
"Everywhere" Interzone
"Five Days in April" Chiaroscuro
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Green Tea" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Jennifer, Just Before Midnight" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Macs" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Once Upon a Matter Crushed" Science Fiction Age
"Reality Check" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Suicide Coast" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Winemaster" Fantasy & Science Fiction
PS Publishing
"Sheena 5" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Radiant Green Star" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Antibodies" Interzone
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Heart of Glass" Asimov's Science Fiction
Science Fiction Age
"Milo and Sylvie" Asimov's Science Fiction
"On the Orion Line" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Reef" Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science (Harcourt)
"Savior" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Seventy-Two Letters" Vanishing Acts (Tor Books)
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Lobsters" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Undone" Asimov's Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Eternity and Afterward" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Have Not Have" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Hell Is the Absence of God" Starlight 3 (Tor Books)
"Interview: On Any Given Day" Starlight 3 (Tor Books)
"Isabel of the Fall" Interzone
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"New Light on the Drake Equation" Sci Fiction
"Over Yonder" Sci Fiction
"Bronte's Egg" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Singleton" Interzone
"Breathmoss" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Coelacanths" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Halo" Asimov's Science Fiction
"In Paradise" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"" Stories of Your Life and Others (Tor Books)
"Madonna of the Maquiladora" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Stories for Men" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
PS Publishing
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Bernardo's House" Asimov's Science Fiction
"It's All True" Sci Fiction
"Dead Worlds" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Dry Bones" Asimov's Science Fiction
Sci Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Looking Through Lace" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Off on a Starship" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Only Partly Here" Asimov's Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Sergeant Chip" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Sci Fiction
"Mere" Golden Gryphon Press
Conqueror Fantastic (DAW Books)
"Arabian Wine" Asimov's Science Fiction
Sci Fiction
"Dancer in the Dark" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Invisible Kingdoms" Fantasy & Science Fiction
(Tor Books)
Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (Warner Aspect)
Denver Quarterly
"Savant Songs" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Scout's Honor" Sci Fiction
"Singing My Sister Down" Black Juice (Allen & Unwin)
"Start the Clock" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Stone Animals" Conjunctions 43: Beyond Arcadia
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Venus Flowers at Night" Microcosms (DAW Books)
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Magic for Beginners" Magic for Beginners (Small Beer Press)
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
"Inside Job" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Keyboard Practice, Consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with Two Manuals" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Little Faces" Sci Fiction
"Panacea" Sci Fiction
"Second Person, Present Tense" Asimov's Science Fiction
FutureShocks (Roc Books)
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Lord Weary's Empire" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Another Word for Map Is Faith" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Strange Horizons
"Inclination" Asimov's Science Fiction
PS Publishing
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Yellow Card Man" Asimov's Science Fiction
"You Have Never Been Here" (Tachyon Publications)
"Finisterra" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Tideline" Asimov's Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Memorare" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Always" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Baby Doll" (Tor Books)
(Viking Press)
(Viking Press)
Inferno (Tor Books)
Foundation
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Memory Dog" Asimov's Science Fiction
Galactic Empires (Science Fiction Book Club)
"From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled" Asimov's Science Fiction
Fast Forward 2 (Pyr)
"His Master's Voice" Interzone
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Special Economics" (Del Rey Books)
"True Names" Fast Forward 2 (Pyr)
Tachyon Publications
"As Women Fight" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Things Undone" Jim Baen's Universe
"This Wind Blowing, and this Tide" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Blood Dauber"Asimov's Science Fiction
"Clockatrice" Fantasy Magazine
Subterranean Press
"Eros, Philia, Agape" Tor.com
"Her Voice in a Bottle" Subterranean Press
(Eos)
"Spar" Clarkesworld Magazine
"True Fame" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Stories (William Morrow and Company)
Clarkesworld Magazine
"Dead Man's Run" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" Lightspeed
"Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Mammoths of the Great Plains" Mammoths of the Great Plains (PM Press)
Strange Horizons
"Troika" Godlike Machines (Science Fiction Book Club)
"Under the Moons of Venus" Subterranean Magazine
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Six Months, Three Days" Tor.com
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Ghostweight" Clarkesworld Magazine
Lightspeed
Panverse 3 (Panverse Publishing)
"Silently and Very Fast" Clarkesworld Magazine
Strange Horizons
"Things Greater Than Love" Strange Horizons
"Immersion" Clarkesworld Magazine
"Scattered Along the River of Heaven" Clarkesworld Magazine
Subterranean Magazine
Lightspeed
"Mono No Aware" The Future is Japanese (Haikasoru)
"Nahiku West" Analog Science Fiction and Fact
PS Publishing
Edge of Infinity (Solaris Books)
"(To See the Other) Whole Against the Sky" Clarkesworld Magazine
Tachyon Publications
"In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind" Strange Horizons
"Bloom" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass" Asimov's Science Fiction
"Over There" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Electric Velocipede
"Mystic Falls" Clarkesworld Magazine
"Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer" Clockwork Phoenix 4 (Mythic Delirium Books)
Clarkesworld Magazine
2015Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (William Morrow)
"Lady With Fox" Carbide Tipped Pens (Tor Books)
"Childfinder" Unexpected Stories (Open Road Media)
"In Her Eyes" Fantasy & Science Fiction
"Herd Immunity" (CreateSpace)
"When It Ends, He Catches Her" Daily Science Fiction
Tachyon Publications
Tachyon Publications
Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (William Morrow)
Upgraded (Wyrm Publishing)
Fantasy & Science Fiction
"We Are the Cloud" Lightspeed
Reach for Infinity (Solaris Books)
"Shatterdown" Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
2016Strange Horizons
"And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead" Lightspeed
"Avery Cates: The Walled City" self-published
"Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan" Old Venus (Bantam Books)
"Damage" Tor.com
"Emergence" Meeting Infinity (Solaris Books)
"Folding Beijing" Uncanny Magazine
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Gypsy" Fantasy & Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Our Lady of the Open Road" Asimov's Science Fiction
Clarkesworld Magazine
2017Drowned Worlds (Solaris Books)
Tor.com
"Seasons of Glass and Iron" (Saga Press)
"Touring With The Alien" Clarkesworld Magazine
Tor.com Publishing
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Things With Beards" Clarkesworld Magazine
"Project Empathy" Asimov's Science Fiction
Tor.com Publishing
2018"Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue" Global Dystopias (The Boston Review)
"Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance" Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far Away Galaxies (Saga Press)
Asimov's Science Fiction
"Sidewalks" Omni
Tor.com
Clarkesworld Magazine
"And Then There Were (N-One)" Uncanny Magazine
"Fandom for Robots" Uncanny Magazine
Clarkesworld Magazine
"Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" Apex Magazine
"We Who Live in the Heart" Clarkesworld Magazine
2019"When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis" Slate.com
"Freezing Rain, A Chance of Falling"
Tor.com Publishing
Fireside Magazine
"Umbernight" Clarkesworld Magazine
"Nine Last Days on Planet Earth" Tor.com
"When We Were Starless" Clarkesworld Magazine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Tor.com Publishing
"On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog" Apex Magazine
"Yard Dog" Fiyah
2020"Waterlines" Asimov's Science Fiction
Saga Press
Tor.com
Lightspeed
Uncanny Magazine
New Suns (Solaris Books)
"Give the Family My Love" Clarkesworld Magazine
"New Atlantis"
"Omphalos" (Alfred A. Knopf)
Clarkesworld Magazine
Tor.com Publishing
2021Clarkesworld Magazine
"50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know" Uncanny Magazine
"AirBody" Clarkesworld Magazine
Tor.com
"If You Take My Meaning" Tor.com
"Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon" Dominion (Aurelia Leo)
Dominion (Aurelia Leo)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Big Girl (PM Press)
Clarkesworld Magazine
"Yellow and the Perception of Reality" Tor.com
2022""
Tor.com Publishing
"Bots of the Lost Ark" Clarkesworld Magazine
"If the Martians Have Magic" Uncanny Magazine
Asimov's Science Fiction
Neon Hemlock Press
"Philia, Eros, Storge, Agápe, Pragma" Clarkesworld Magazine
"Proof by Induction" Uncanny Magazine
"Sarcophagus" Clarkesworld Magazine
2023"Rabbit Test" Uncanny Magazine
"Babang Luksa" Reckoning
"Bonsai Starships" Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Sunday Morning Transport
"If We Make It Through This Alive" Slate
"In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird" Lightspeed
"Slow Communication" Fantasy
"Ten Steps for Effective Mold Removal" Apex Magazine
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