Over the weekend, “The Paper Menagerie” won the World Fantasy Award. Jonathan Strahan told me that it’s the first piece of fiction to win all three of the Nebula, the Hugo, and the World Fantasy Award.
Seems impossible to believe…
Thank you, and congratulations to all the nominees and winners!
Gordon Van Gelder, who was going to accept the award for me, had to leave to catch his flight. So David Levine very graciously accepted in his place. I still haven’t seen the award yet, but there’s a place reserved for it on my shelves.
Here’s what I had to say in my acceptance speech:
I’ve always thought of fantasy as literature that literalizes metaphors. That is what I tried to do in “The Paper Menagerie,” and I’m grateful to the many readers who have found the metaphor effective and this story to their liking. The reaction has been far more than I ever expected, and indeed, overwhelming.
I wish my grandmother had lived to see me win this award. She was the one who taught me origami as a child, and I’ll always remember the first time I saw her blowing into one of her paper creations, seeming to bring it to life.
I also want to thank my editor, Gordon Van Gelder, for making the story better, and my wife Lisa, without whom none of my successes would have been possible.
Thank you, everyone.
A few more items of “The Paper Menagerie”-related news. The British Origami Society reprinted the story in the October issue of their member magazine, and Dennis Walker, the editor, sent me a beautiful origami tiger.
And finally, io9 reprinted “The Paper Menagerie” today (read), and I’ve literally never received so many tweets about any story.
This story has gone further than I ever dared to hope. Thank you, readers and fellow writers. This means so much to me.
