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Media Contact: Isis Asare
Carl Brandon Society
isis@carlbrandon.org
www.carlbrandon.org
Anselma Prihandita, Clarion UCSD Octavia E. Butler Scholar 2024, First Indonesian to win Nebula Award
Seattle, WA—June 16, 2025 Anselma Prihandita (penname: AW Prihandita), Clarion UCSD Octavia E. Butler Scholar for 2024, has won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette: “Negative Scholarship On The Fifth State Of Being,” and is a finalist for the 2025 Ignyte Award for Outstanding Novelette. Prihandita’s Nebula award on June 7th makes her the first Indonesian to win—or even be nominated—for the prestigious award.
Her novelette, “Negative Scholarship On The Fifth State Of Being” was published in Clarkesworld in November 2024. The novelette follows an intrepid practitioner-doctor who works to diagnose an extremely rare alien species. The novelette—with a word count at just over 8K words—covers climate change, the healthcare industrial complex, and how we navigate morality when limited by legality.
“Semau thought, maybe not for the first time but it felt like the first time, that maybe the health model was designed to fail. In some cases, at least. For some beings.” from “Negative Scholarship On The Fifth State Of Being.”
With Semau, Prihandita develops a compelling main character grounded in her research for her PhD in language and rhetoric and inspired by her participation in “ASIAN 207: Science and Speculative Fiction of Southeast Asia,” taught by Prof. Nazry Bahrawi at the University of Washington. Prihandita was able to further develop this story, and others, while a participant of Clarion San Diego. Her participation was made possible by her Octavia E. Butler scholarship.
“Anselma Prihandita’s historic Nebula win is a pivotal moment for Southeast Asian speculative fiction and global storytelling. Anselma is mapping new ground. Her work reminds us that the future of speculative fiction must be multilingual, multicultural, and unapologetically inclusive. The Carl Brandon Society is thrilled by Prihandita’s achievement, and the promise of her future literary career,” says Jaymee Goh, a Carl Brandon Society Steering Committee Member.
Learn more about the Carl Brandon Society and become a part of the future of speculative storytelling by visiting https://carlbrandon.org/. Look for our fundraising request in your email early next week. Every donation makes work like this possible.
About the Author: Anselma Widha Prihandita (she/her) is an Indonesian speculative fiction writer, college writing instructor, and PhD candidate in rhetoric and composition, with scholarly (and personal) interests in decolonial and transnational writing. She splits her time between the US West Coast, where she currently teaches and studies, and Indonesia, where she grew up and where her home remains. She attended the Odyssey workshop in 2023 on their Fresh Voices Scholarship and the Clarion workshop in 2024 on the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholarship. Her stories are published or forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Cast of Wonders, and khōréō, among other venues.
About the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship: The Fund is administered by the Carl Brandon Society because its mission is consistent with one of the Society’s primary goals: increasing the representation of people of color in the fantastical genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In addition, Butler was an early member of the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit charitable organization. Donations made to the fund through the Carl Brandon Society are tax-deductible.
About the Nebula Awards: The Nebula Awards® are voted on and presented by full, senior, and associate members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Founded as the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 by Damon Knight, the organization began with a charter membership of 78 writers; it now has over 2,000 members, among them many of the leading writers of science fiction and fantasy.
About the Ignyte Awards: The Ignyte Awards began in 2020 alongside the inaugural FIYAHCON, a virtual convention centering the contributions and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Speculative Fiction. The Ignytes seek to celebrate the diversity of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.
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