We can’t wait to see you at the Locus Awards on June 21, 2025 in Oakland, California!
For more than 50 years, the awards have been highlighting the very best in science fiction, fantasy, and horror publishing. The awards have a unique place in the industry, with votes that are open to the public, and a long track record of spotlighting breakthrough talent.
Last year’s event was a smash with winners including P. Djèlí Clark, Kelly Link, and Martha Wells, our host Henry Lien sprinkling a little stardust on proceedings, and author and activist Cory Doctorow delivering a barnstorming keynote speech. We’re excited to bring our community together again this year to celebrate the best in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
Locus Awards 2025 Schedule
Details of the full schedule will be released over the coming weeks: here’s what’s been announced so far.
WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY: The warm-up for the main event will begin with a series of online readings starting Wednesday, June 18. Each evening (Pacific Time), there will be several readers from our list of finalists, plus a live author Q&A. Join us for your favorite authors reading from their shortlisted works!
SATURDAY: On Saturday, we have several panels held in person at our beautiful location at the historic Preservation Park in downtown Oakland, CA for you — also broadcast online for our virtual attendees. This will be followed by a catered reception to mix and mingle with our local SFF folks, and then the awards ceremony featuring our guests of honor. The event will be streamed live for those who can’t make it in person, and those in the room will have a chance to pick up their swag bag full of books as well as browse from our bookseller’s table and other exclusive merch.
Membership Options
We have three main in-person and virtual membership options for this year’s awards, plus a sliding-scale virtual membership for those in need.
Live+Virtual Awards memberships are $95 and give you access to the in-person panels, Locus Awards ceremony and catered reception on Saturday, June 21, as well as exclusive swag, a commemorative program, six months of Locus Magazine‘s digital edition, plus access to our virtual readings and meetup.
If you’d like to support us as a top-tier donor and be thanked in our event program, you can purchase a special $350 Friend of Locus membership. This entitles you to attend all digital and in-person events, plus the Locus Awards 2025 T-shirt, a VIP reception on June 20, a special backer gift, and our eternal thanks. (Note: you don’t have to attend in person to support at this level.)
We also have a sliding-scale online-only membership for those who would otherwise be unable to attend. This entitles you to attend all Locus Awards online events this year, without the program, or digital Locus issues the regular ticket provides.
We can’t wait to see you!
Additional information
Hotel booking: For those traveling to the Bay Area, hotel rooms are available for Locus Awards attendees at a discounted rate Thursday June 19-Monday June 23, 2025, from $160 a night, at the AC Hotel Oakland Downtown. A hot breakfast is included in the nightly rate. The hotel is located just a few minutes walk from the awards location: Locus Awards events do not take place at the hotel! Click here to book: Marriott Event Reservations. Please book by Monday, June 2, 2025 to obtain these rates. Reservations can be cancelled up to 48 hours before the arrival date. Any changes made after that time will incur a cancellation fee of one night’s room rate + tax. Upon check-in, payment for the entire stay will be processed. No refunds will be given for an early departure. Any date changes must be made before June 2, 2025.
Safety and conduct: We ask members to test for COVID if possible prior to attending for the safety of the community. Our Code of Conduct is available here, and we encourage anyone to attend—including people of color, women, people with disabilities, older people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. We welcome people of any gender identity or expression, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, age, size, nationality, religion, culture, education level, and self-identification.
Dress code: There is no dress code for the Locus Awards. Wear whatever makes you happy! From geek chic to dressy casual to full red carpet regalia, we like it all.
Introducing Locus Awards 2025 Sponsors:
The Henderson Family Foundation
The Locus Science Fiction Foundation is pleased to announce The Henderson Family Foundation as a Locus Awards and LSFF sponsor.
Cal Henderson is the co-founder and was the Chief Technology Officer of Slack. The day-to-day work of Locus Magazine is currently coordinated exclusively through our very busy Slack account, so we are grateful for the venue! Cal oversaw Slack’s world-class engineering team and set the technical vision for the company.
In 2019, he was named a Fortune 40 Under 40 honoree and recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
Previously, Cal built and led the engineering teams at Flickr, through its acquisition by Yahoo. An experienced technology leader and a popular speaker on engineering scalability, he authored the best-selling O’Reilly Media book Building Scalable Websites. Cal was also a pioneer in the use of web APIs, and created the basis for OAuth and oEmbed, now used by YouTube, Twitter and many others.
Co-Founder of LinkedIn, co-Founder of Inflection AI, and partner at Greylock, Reid is an accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor. He has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses. In 2003 he co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service. In 2009 he joined Greylock. In 2022, he co-founded Inflection AI. He currently serves on the boards of Aurora, Coda, Entrepreneur First, Microsoft, Nauto, and a few early stage companies still in stealth. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZ Biohub, New America, Berggruen Institute, Opportunity@Work, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change. He is the host of Masters of Scale as well as Possible, a podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. He is the co-author of five best-selling books: The Startup of You, The Alliance, Blitzscaling, Master
craig newmark philanthropies
Craig Newmark Philanthropies is an organization started by craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who aims to “support and connect people and drive broad civic engagement, working to advance grassroots organizations that are effective and getting stuff done.”
Locus SF Foundation board president Liza Groen Trombi says, “Newmark’s support of the Locus Awards is crucial to our continued work in celebrating quality literature, amplifying new and diverse voices, and increasing interest in speculative fiction throughout the world.”
Started in 1971, the Locus Awards have served as a lodestone event for a growing community of new and experienced writers, readers, fans, artists, publishing professionals, and other genre supporters. The conference consists of author readings, writing workshops, panels on literary and industry topics, and the centerpiece, the presentation of the prestigious Locus Awards. Unlike most other awards in the field, the Locus Awards has an open voting system and allows write-in votes on the ballots. This open voting process allows democratic involvement in honoring the field’s top creators and supporters. The awards include a category to celebrate debut authors, in keeping with the Locus Science Fiction Foundation’s mission to promote new voices in genre works. The LSFF also confers an award for community development upon organizations or individuals who boost marginalized voices or contribute to the genre community in ways that might otherwise go unrecognized.
The Locus Awards Weekend occurs during the end of June, with voting for the Locus Awards open on the site, www.locusmag.com, from February 1-April 15, for works published in the previous year.
Our endless gratitude to all of our donors and to present and past sponsors.
