2025 Awards

The Student Paper Award is presented to the outstanding scholarly essay read at the previous annual conference of the SFRA by a student

Committee Chair: Kathyrn Heffner

Recipient: Joanna Kaniewska for “Re-Enchanting the Future: Witches in Feminist Science Fiction”

Mary Kay Bray Award is given for the best review to appear in the SFRA Review in the previous year.

Committee Chair: Nora Castle

Recipient: Mehdi Achouche for the review of The Wandering Earth II (SFRA Review 54.1)

The SFRA Book Award is given to the author of the best first scholarly monograph in SF in the previous calendar year

Committee Chair: Sean Guynes

Honorable Mention: Jordan Caroll for Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt Right, (University of Minnesota Press, 2024).

Recipient: Kimberly Cleveland for Africanfuturism: African Imaginings of Other Times, Spaces, and Worlds (Ohio University Press, 2024).

Innovative Research Award is given to the writer or writers of the previous year’s best critical essay-length work.

Committee Chair: John Rieder

Recipient: Virginia L. Conn for “Formal Fictions: ‘Chinese’ ‘Science’ ‘Fiction’ in Translation.” Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories, edited by Li Hua, Nathaniel Isaacson, and Song Mingwei. Palgrave MacMillan, 99-120. 

The Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service is presented for outstanding service activities: including, the promotion of SF teaching and study, editing, reviewing, editorial writing, publishing, organizing meetings, mentoring, and leadership in SF/fantasy organizations.

Committee Chair: Graham J. Murphy

Recipient: Keren Omry

The SFRA Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship honors lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship.

Committee Chair: Andy Hegeman

Recipient: Takayuki Tatsumi