The Tiptree Award winners have been announced. If you're not familiar with the story behind this prestigious award, here is a synopsis: the award is for science fiction and fantasy works that are "thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating." It was inspired by the discussions about gender writing that arose by the revelation that James Tiptree, Jr. was a pen name for a female writer, Alice B. Sheldon. (See the Tiptree Award winners and What is the Tiptree Award? at the award site.)

The 2009 winners are:

• Greer Gilman, Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales, Small Beer Press: "a dense, poetic, impressionistic book"
• Fumi Yoshinaga, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, volumes 1 & 2, VIZ Media: the jury worried about its lack of experience with manga, but chose the story as a winner. Its premise is that 3/4s of Japanese men were killed by a plague, so the shogun and daimo are women. "Through-out the two books, Yoshinaga explores the way the deep gendering of this society is both maintained and challenged by the alteration in ratios."