On Winning The Sidewise Award For Alternate History And Other Alternate Timelines

This weekend, I found out I had won the Sidewise Award For Alternate History – Short Fiction with my story “A Dream Of Electric Mothers” (shared with the wonderful Eric Choi for his story “A Sky and a Heaven” in a tie, which is great because sharing is the best!)

This, after a three week whirlwind that has seen me attend the spectacular and one-of-a kind Chengdu Worldcon (where I did not win the Hugo award for best novelette), be a virtual panelist at the World Fantasy Convention and move to a new country (and continent) while working a regular full-time job most of the time. And an award win like this to close it all out. Its something isn’t it?

I’ve barely slept. I’ve met so many amazing people. Its been a lot. I feel like I’ve been living three lives worth of experiences all at once. And I’ve been thinking about alternate timelines.

About the million possible worlds where I never get any of these opportunities. Never lived any experiences. And there are many things that could have kept me from them. Small things. Important things. And yet, here I am. So while I am exhausted, I am also very grateful to be where I am now.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

More on Chengdu later but in the spirit of thanks, here are my acceptance remarks which were delivered by the wonderful Alex Jennings.

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I am fundamentally opposed to the idea of taking myself too seriously so I usually never really prepare an acceptance speech in advance for awards. I always think “I’ll never win” and “even if by some miracle I do, I’ll just wing it”. Which may explain why I have not won any of the awards I’ve been nominated for. The universe knows. Or maybe there are several alternate timelines where I have won all those other awards and given some rambling, rant I made up at the last minute about the meaning and power of stories.

Well, this time, and in this timeline, [Alex Jennings] is accepting on my behalf and “just wing it” is probably not a good enough set of instructions.

So, a speech. 

First things first. Thank you to the readers! Everyone who read, reviewed, shared, and talked about this story. You are the ones that make stories matter.

And thank to my fellow nominees Michael, Eric, Gillian, and Paul. [Especially you, Eric!] Writing is not a competitive sport and so while this is indeed special, it is a nominal title. We are all winners tonight because we wrote something that connected with people. We did something important. Something fundamentally human.

A big thank you to my editors Sheree, Oghenechovwe, Zelda and the entire Africa Risen book team at Tordotcom for publishing this story alongside many other gems in such a cool anthology and sharing it widely with the world. This was the only award I specifically asked them to submit this story for since I knew many readers would think it’s a far-future story, but it’s actually set in an alternate timeline where Africa was never colonized. That background mattered to me.

And finally, thank you Steven Silver and this year’s wonderful panel of judges: Eileen, Matt, Olav, and Kurt for recognizing that in the story and choosing to honor it.

I have been nominated for many awards before and if I win (which I did since you are hearing this) I am glad it’s for this story. A story that really encompasses my usual themes and style. A story that is about African history, African ingenuity, African belief systems, African grief, African technology, African joy, African Science Fiction. That is purposeful. Growing up, the Africa that was reflected back to me from the media I loved was severely limited. It still is. I am glad to be able to reflect something else into the world. An alternative story of our people, something different, something with ideas that makes the mind feel like it can expand and connect to so much more. I hope I get to keep doing that.

Thank you again, everyone.