Harris Wins Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award

Clare Winger Harris is the winner of the 2024 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, intended to bring attention to lesser-known SF and fantasy authors.

Mrs. Harris (1891-1968) was a true pioneer of the field of genre science fiction, and was the first woman to write regularly for the early Science Fiction pulps such as Amazing Stories and Science Wonder Stories under her own name. She published a dozen stories between 1926 and 1933, and her work was characterized by a truly expansive and exotic imagination, and by an uncompromising devotion to the consequences of the unusual events she conceived. Her best work, such as “The Fate of the Poseidonia”, “The Miracle of the Lily”, “The Diabolical Drug”, and “The Artificial Man”, is rewarding reading to this day. Her sole novel, Persephone of Eleusis (1923), is historical fiction. It is unfortunate that she abandoned her writing career so soon, but we hope this award will focus attention on her early contributions.

The award was announced at Readercon 33, held July 11-14, 2024, in Quincy MA Massachusetts. The jury members are Ann VanderMeer, Steven H Silver, and Rich Horton.

For more information about the award, see the Wikipedia page.

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