FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Introducing SFWA’s 61st Annual Nebula Award Winners

San Francisco, CA  – Saturday, June 6, 2026

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is proud to announce its latest Nebula Award winners for works published in 2025, as first presented during the Nebula Awards Ceremony on Saturday, June 6, at the organization’s 61st Annual Nebula Awards Conference at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel and Conference Center in Chicago, Illinois.

The Nebula Awards are voted on by SFWA Members in good standing, and they represent the views of professional SFF writers on the state of their industry and recent excellence within it.

Since 1965, SFWA has advocated for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and related genres. From that very first year, the Nebula Awards process has been one of SFWA’s foundational pathways to improving literary community for SFF writers.

This year, SFWA celebrated two inaugural awards: one for Poem, and one for Comic. Like the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation and the Nebula Award for Best Game Writing, these new awards celebrate writers at the heart of productions that also involve editors, artists, publishers, producers, and a wealth of other team members who make the magic happen. When voting opens later this year for work published in 2026, the second of these awards will be listed as Comics Writing.

The Nebula Awards Ceremony also celebrates excellence in science fiction, fantasy, and related genres through the issuance of special awards. This year, under the care and guiding words of Toastmaster Tananarive Due, the organization honored its 42nd Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, N. K. Jemisin, the seasoned author of the Inheritance Trilogy, the Broken Earth Trilogy, and the Great Cities Duology, among others. SFWA also celebrated the excellent curatorial and community-building work of Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award Recipient David Langford, the tremendous genre commitment of Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Recipient Gay Haldeman, and the outstanding legacy of Infinity Award Recipient Roger Zelazny.

SFWA is delighted to announce that its next Nebula Awards Conference and Ceremony will be held in Seattle in June 2027. There is much to do to prepare for Nebula 62, but it all starts and ends with the power and purpose of good writing. Thank you to everyone who votes, writes, reads, and otherwise contributes to the betterment of this genre in all its brilliant forms.

When We Were Real, by Daryl Gregory (Saga)
★ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK) ★ 
Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor (Morrow; Gollancz)
The Incandescent, by Emily Tesh (Tor; Orbit UK)
Sour Cherry, by Natalia Theodoridou (Tin House; Wildfire)
Wearing the Lion, by John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia)

Disgraced Return of the Kap’s Needle, by Renan Bernardo (Dark Matter INK)
★  The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom; Arcadia) ★ 
The Death of Mountains, by Jordan Kurella (Lethe)
Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz (Tordotcom)
But Not Too Bold, by Hache Pueyo (Tordotcom)
“Descent”, by Wole Talabi (Clarkesworld 5/25)

“Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh”, by Marie Croke (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/9/25)
★ “Uncertain Sons”, by Thomas Ha (Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, Undertow Publications) ★
“We Begin Where Infinity Ends”, by Somto Ihezue (Clarkesworld 2/25)
The Name Ziya, by Wen-Yi Lee (Reactor; Tor Books)
“Never Eaten Vegetables”, by H.H. Pak (Clarkesworld 1/25)
“The Life and Times of Alavira the Great as Written by Titos Pavlou and Reviewed by Two Lifelong Friends”, by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 3-4/25)

“Through the Machine”, by P.A. Cornell (Lightspeed 5/25)
“Six People to Revise You”, by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny 1-2/25)
“In My Country”, by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 4/25)
“The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead”, by E.M. Linden (PodCastle 2/18/25)
“Because I Held His Name Like a Key”, by Aimee Ogden (Strange Horizons 6/16/25)
★ “Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything”, by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots 5/25) ★

The Tower, by David Anaxagoras (Recorded Books)
Gemini Rising, by Jonathan Brazee (Semper Fi Press)
Wishing Well, Wishing Well, by Jubilee Cho (Atthis Arts)
Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
★ Into the Wild Magic, by Michelle Knudsen (Candlewick) ★
Goblin Girl, by K.A. Mielke (self-published)

Spire, Surge, and Sea, by Stewart C. Baker (Choice of Games)
★ Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, by Guillaume Broche & Jennifer Svedberg-Yen (Kepler Interactive), Developer: Sandfall Interactive, Sandfall S.A.S. ★
Hollow Knight: Silksong, by Ari Gibson & William Pellen (Team Cherry)*
Dispatch, by Mayanna Berrin, Ashley Jeffalone, Suzee Matson, Chris Rebbert, Chad Rhiness, & Pierre Shorette (AdHoc Studio)
Hades II, by Greg Kasavin (Supergiant Games)
Blue Prince, by Tonda Ros (Raw Fury, Developer: Dogubomb)

KPop Demon Hunters, by Danya Jimenez, Maggie Kang, & Hannah McMechan (Netflix)*
Sinners, by Ryan Coogler (Warner Bros Pictures)*
Severance: “Chikhai Bardo”, by Dan Erickson & Mark Friedman (Apple TV+)*
Pluribus: Season One, by Vince Gilligan (Apple TV+)*
Superman, by James Gunn (Warner Bros Pictures)*
★ Murderbot: Season One, by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz (Apple TV+) ★

The Nebula Award for Comic

Second Shift, by Kit Anderson (Avery Hill)
Carmilla Volume 3: The Eternal, by Amy Chu (Berger)
Helen of Wyndhorn, by Bilquis Evely and Tom King (Dark Horse)
Fishflies, by Jeff Lemire (Image)
★ Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: The Killing Stone, by Jessica Maison (Wicked Tree) ★
Strange Bedfellows, by Ariel Slamet Ries (HarperAlley)
The Flip Side, by Jason Walz (Rocky Pond)
The Stoneshore Register, by G. Willow Wilson (Berger)

The Nebula Award for Poem

“Though You Always Are”, by Linda D. Addison & Jamal Hodge (Everything Endless, Raw Dog Screaming Press)
“They Said Robots Are”, by Casey Aimer (Penumbric 6/25)
★ “The World To Come”, by Jennifer Hudak (Strange Horizons 12/22/25) ★
“The Mourning Robot”, by Angela Liu (Uncanny 9-10/25)
“Care for Lightning”, by Mari Ness (Uncanny 1-2/25)
“To Be the Change”, by Nico Martinez Nocito (Strange Horizons 3/10/25)

*No statement on LLM-use received from finalist during final ballot.