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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!!

@rblemberg.bsky.social

7.3K followers 860 following 1.4K posts

RB (they/them). Immigrant, SFF writer + academic. Neurodivergent. Le Guin Prize Shortlist 2023. Nebula, Ignyte, World Fantasy, Locus and Crawford finalist. Views always my own. <3 דאָיִקייט http://rblemberg.net/ https://patreon.com/rblemberg

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Nov 15

Welcome, new followers! I am RB Lemberg (they/them), an author of a number fantasy books, and an academic. I was born in L'viv, Ukraine, I'm Jewish, queer, and nonbinary (bigender), and I speak and have studied many languages.

My awesome spouse is @bogiperson.bsky.social. We have one child, Mati.

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 46m

They asked me very nicely for a speech in case they get to read it, read my speech for me and emailed me about it after I won. I was not at the con. I think the email probably hinted that I won but I am autistic

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 13h

all the love

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 15h

Thank you!!

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 16h

Anyway, YOKE OF STARS is a book about exile and translation and fish communism and a language with no verbs, so I guess that parts of speech have now been really and truly cancelled.

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18h

thank you so much!!! I am still in shock

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18h

THANK YOU to my whole publishing team at Tachyon, my agent Mary, my whole community of supporters on Patreon (THANK YOU), my incredible readers, and the jury and judges and organizers of the World Fantasy Award.

special thanks to my early readers who saw the first iteration of this story ages ago 😍

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18h

I am grateful to many people, but two first and foremost: 1) @jhameia.bsky.social , my intrepid editor, who GOT what I was doing and fought for this book and worked so hard to make it better; 2) @bogiperson.bsky.social who has encouraged me SO MUCH with this book when I agonized endlessly

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18h

It is going to take me some time to process what all of this means. Yoke of Stars is my most daring and my most non-traditional work in terms of form after a lifetime of writing strange forms, and it's the work I was the most proud of, and also the work I was the most worried would not land.

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18h

Until a few hours ago, my experience with major awards has been "finalist, but not a winner." I've been honored to be a finalist for many major awards. Birdverse works have been repeatedly shortlisted. Major wins up until today - not there. This is the first big win and it's MY FAVORITE AWARD

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18h

Finally home. For a bit of context, I had no idea I was going to win the World Fantasy Award. I spent all my morning at a local bake sale with no internet access. Then we were delivering food to a friend recovering from surgery. So no, I had no idea!!

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 20h

Ok but the real star in all this is @jhameia.bsky.social who made this book happen, she is AMAZING

Jaymee Goh (she/her) @jhameia.bsky.social · 21h

YOKE OF STARS by @rblemberg.bsky.social is a World Fantasy Award winner! 💞💞💞💖💖❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 20h

I wasn't even online, I am still processing lol

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 20h

No seriously WHAT

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Reposted by R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!!

World Fantasy 2025 @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social · 21h

Best Novella: #WorldFantasyAwards2025
Winner: Yoke of Stars, R.B. Lemberg (Tachyon)

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 20h

WHAT

World Fantasy 2025 @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social · 21h

Best Novella: #WorldFantasyAwards2025
Winner: Yoke of Stars, R.B. Lemberg (Tachyon)

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 17d

So proud and excited to have a poem upcoming in the Deadlands. This is a poem about a Yiddish play I can't stop thinking about (and writing about)

The Deadlands @thedeadlands.com · 19d

POETRY

Amanita Season, Belle Biscotti

I had a dream and in the dream I knew I was dreaming so I believed I could change things, @shanaross.bsky.social

Bay nakht afn altn mark: A rehearsal, by @rblemberg.bsky.social

Not a Bird, Ellen Romano

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · 18d

Thank you 😍

@gavreads @gavreads.co.uk · 22d

I have just finished Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg. I am speechless. Such a powerful novella. 5 ⭐️

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Oct 1

People who research Jewish genealogy on the post-Soviet side run into these issues trying to determine name equivalencies before and after the revolution (of course, there's also an issue of document destruction during various periods, language and script switching, etc).

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Oct 1

In some cases people changed names multiple times, or had multiple variations under different regimes, e.g. my own great-grandfather was listed in one place as Maks Berkovich and in another as Mark Borisovich (his name was Motl, and his father's name predictably was Berl)

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Oct 1

Yes, I've written about some of this. After the revolution many Soviet Jews were pressured to russify their names, with some stable equivalencies between some names (e.g. Borukh -> Boris). With time some Russian names became so associated with Jewishness that ethnic Russians stopped using them.

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Sep 25

Today I learned that John Lasser passed away. I knew he was sick. This is awful. His memory for a blessing.

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · Sep 24

I regret to relay that Jon Lasser passed away. He was a kind peer and delightful writer. If you read any SFF magazine, you probably read a story of his, and you surely enjoyed it. I'm going to miss him.

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Sep 18

I love this story and am super happy to see it out.

Bogi Takács / SONG OF SPORES coming Nov 2025! @bogiperson.bsky.social · Sep 18

I have a new flash story in Lightspeed!

"On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting"

Somewhere in the borderlands between folk horror and hard SF... Hard fantasy??? #Hauntology something.

www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/on-a... @lightspeedmagazine.com

On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting - Lightspeed Magazine

Dear Dr. Erzsébet Krajcsik-Nagy, I am contacting you as a member of the general public, and not as a fellow scholar, though I must say my chosen field of art history does have certain similarities to...

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Sep 18

Some of @amalelmohtar.com 's work I feel is in conversation with it; I think there's also a larger strand of works of fiction with a deeply poetic sensibility, not necessarily unidirectionally influenced by any single author

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R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Sep 17

ooh my favorite game!! Thank you :) Remote only from Europe unfortunately.

R.B. Lemberg YOKE OF STARS WON THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD!!!!!! @rblemberg.bsky.social · Sep 11

Such an awesome list!! I am happy to be on it.

Otherwise Award @otherwiseaward.org · Sep 11

Spotlighting more gender-expanding genre fiction from 2022 & 2023:

"Squire" (@nadiashammas.bsky.social & @saraalfageeh.bsky.social)
winners of the 2023 @goldencobra.bsky.social
"The Unbalancing" (@rblemberg.bsky.social)
"Mage of Fools" (@genni.bsky.social)
"The Way of Baa’gh" (Cheryl S. Ntumy)

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