Hugo Winner lineup

(Photo Credits: Top row, Ashley Rogers. Bottom row left to right: Paul Weimer, James Farmer, Ashley Rogers)

Hugo speech transcript given Seattle WorldCon 2025 / the 83rd WorldCon at the Seattle Convention Center on August 16, 2025.
Official livestream via YouTube

Good evening. I’m stunned. Truly. Thank you.  Last time I was honored in 2021, for which I’m truly grateful, I spoke about breathing during a plague, and now this honor comes in times of devastation. I accept this award knowing that there have been other noble artists and fighters who have accepted awards only later to be imprisoned, to vanish, to be killed or murdered for who they are and for the work they have done. Tomorrow, rights can be broken, marriages be erased, children starved and dying. Glory can feel slight and ephemeral. Art can feel insignificant and small. Liberation can feel impossible.

But, I still believe, it is the art that sustains us, guides us, and reminds us of the necessary things that make life beautiful and tender. Stories of how people can be frail and foolish but also mighty and compassionate. In the many tomorrows ahead, let us remember our best stories and use them to help us prevail. We must fight against fascism, in ways large and small, especially when the moral duty to do so feels overwhelming.

I’m truly grateful for the support of the SFF community and WorldCon. Editors never work alone, and I thank those who built Erewhon Books brick by literary brick before me: Cassandra Farrin, Marty Cahill, Kasie Griffiths, Sarah Guan and Liz Gorinsky. And – most especially – to my fellow editor, Viengsamai Fetters. I expect you to stand here one day! Thanks most of all to my authors; your words are magical and necessary.

Thanks to Steve Zacharias, Adam Zacharias, Jackie Dinas and Lynn Cully for your trust in Erewhon’s mission and to everyone at Kensington. Much gratitude to my fellow editor nominees: Ali, Lee, Carl, David, and Stephanie, for being my friends and colleagues, for buoying the field with such talented wordsmiths.

Thank you to my family and friends – linked by blood and those found through the heart. To my best friend and wife Ashley: the love we share is a flower that blooms every day. My siblings Patrick, Kim and Danny, who are way cooler and funnier than I am. To my mother Dau, who taught me the strength of caring. To my father, Nguyen, now with the ancestors. When he was in his final illness, four years ago, I told him I won my first Hugo and he cried. He would be proud tonight.

In reverence to the great activist Assata Shakur, whose story of Black liberation is one we all can turn to, I end with her words: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Thank you.