International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

We are so sad to hear of Joanna Russ’s passing after a series of strokes. Thank you Locus for this obituary.

Joanna Russ was a prolific fiction and non-fiction writer and is best known for her novel, The Female Man, written in 1975 and which was awarded a retro-Tiptree and inducted into the Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame and is a staple in many science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, and feminist university classes today. She entered the science fiction scene in the 1960’s and challenged the male dominance in this field to become a leading fiction author and critic who was nominated for nine Nebula and three Hugos and won the following awards:

• Nebula in 1972 for her short story “When it Changed”
• National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship
• O.  Henry in 1977 for her short story “An Autobiography of My Mother”
• Hugo in 1983 for her novella “Souls”
• Locus award, 1983
• Science Fiction Chronicle award, 1983
• Pilgrim in 1988 for her scholarship

Minority art, vernacular art, is marginal art. Only on the margins does growth occur. -Joanna Russ