Waterloo, Ont. writer Vanessa Ricci-Thode, Hamilton, Ont.-based author Phoebe Barton, Kitchener, Ont.’s Kate Heartfield and London, Ont.’s A.D. Sui are among the winners of the 60th Annual Nebula Awards.
The annual awards are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA).
Ricci-Thode’s The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts won the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction.
In The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts Lusi is a 12-year-old wizard who can talk to ghosts — the only problem is that no one believes ghosts are real. Her big sister Marsi is the only one who believes her, but she’s running away to escape an arranged marriage.
So Lusi and Marsi leave their family behind — only to have their creepy uncle hot on their heels. The sisters must enlist the help of a ghost girl, a dragon and a strange wizard to help Lusi learn to control her abilities and keep her loved ones safe.
Ricci-Thode is a writer based in Waterloo, Ont.
Phoebe Barton and Kate Heartfield both won in the Best Game Writing category for A Death in Hyperspace.
The interactive fiction game puts players into the role of a spaceship’s AI who’s determined to get to the bottom of the case when their captain is murdered leaving them to pilot themself.
Barton is queer, trans, science fiction writer from Hamilton, Ont. Her short fiction has appeared in Kaleidotrop, Analog and Lightspeed and her story The Mathematics of Fairyland won the Aurora Award for Best Short Story in 2022.
Kate Heartfield is a former journalist and the author of The Embroidered Book, Alice Payne Arrives, which was shortlisted for a Nebula Award, and The Valkyrie. Her debut novel, Armed in Her Fashion, won the 2019 Aurora Award for Best Novel.
A.D. Sui won the Nebula Award for Best Novella for The Dragonfly Gambit.
The novella is a space opera with themes of romance, betrayal and disability. After a woman suffers a injury during a military exercise gone awry, she orchestrates a plan to destroy the fleet that she was once a part of.
Blockbuster film director Denis Villeneuve also won the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation for his work on Dune: Part Two.
Villeneuve is a renowned filmmaker from Quebec. His films include Dune, Dune: Part Two, Bladerunner 2049 and Arrival.
Volunteer C.J. Lavigne also won the Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award. The award honours a volunteer of SFWA who best exemplifies the ideal of service.
Winners were announced on June 5-8 at the 2025 Nebula Conference and Awards Kansas City, Missouri.
The full list of winners is below:
- Best novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
- Best novella: The Dragonfly Gambit by A. D. Sui
- Best novelette: Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being by A. W. Prihandita
- Best short story: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim
- Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Dune: Part Two written by Jon Spaights and Denis Villeneuve
- Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts by Vanessa Ricci-Thode
- Best Game Writing: A Death in Hyperspace by Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Natalia Theodoridou, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, M. Darusha Wehm and Jingjing Xiao
