Nicola Griffith is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 author, editor and essayist. Griffith is a 1988 alumnus of the Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

 Clarion

Clarion Workshop

Clarion is a six-week workshop for new and aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers. Originally an outgrowth of Knight and Wilhelm's Milford Writers' Conference, held at their home in Milford, Pennsylvania, USA, it was founded in 1968 by Robin Scott Wilson at Clarion State College in...

 science fiction writing workshop and has won a Nebula Award

Nebula Award

The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...

, the James Tiptree, Jr Award, the World Fantasy Award

World Fantasy Award

The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...

 and six Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...

s. She also received the Alice B. Award

The Alice B Readers Award

The Alice B Readers Award is given annually to living writers of lesbian fiction whose careers are distinguished by consistently well-written stories about lesbians. Named for Alice B. Toklas, the award is given once, only, in appreciation of career achievement...

 in 2009.

Personal life

Nicola Griffith was born in Yorkshire, England, the fourth of five sisters. The youngest, Helena, died in a police-chase in Australia in 1988, and one of her older sisters, Carolyn, died in 2001. Griffith has stated in interviews that grief and rage over her sisters' deaths have played a large part in the writing process for her novels. In March 1993, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...

.

Griffith lives with her partner, writer Kelley Eskridge

Kelley Eskridge

Kelley Eskridge is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her work is generally regarded as speculative fiction and is associated with the more literary edge of the category, as well as with the category of slipstream fiction....

, in Seattle

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

, in the United States.

Career

Nicola Griffith published her first novel Ammonite

Ammonite (novel)

Ammonite is Nicola Griffith's first novel, published in 1992 . It won both the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT fiction, and the James Tiptree, Jr...

in 1993. It won both the James Tiptree, Jr Award and the Lambda Award

Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...

. Her second novel, Slow River

Slow River

Slow River is British writer Nicola Griffith's second science fiction novel, first published in 1995. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Lambda Literary Award in 1996.- Plot introduction :...

(1994), won the Nebula Award

Nebula Award

The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...

, for best novel, and another Lambda.

Together with Stephen Pagel, Griffith has edited a series of three anthologies, Bending the Landscape: Fantasy (1997), Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction (1998) and Bending the Landscape: Horror (2001). These explore gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 and lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 issues in fantastic settings.

The Blue Place (1998), Stay

Stay (novel)

Stay is a crime novel by Nicola Griffith. It is a sequel to her 1998 novel The Blue Place, and continues the story of its protagonist, Aud Torvingen....

(2002), and Always (2007) are crime novels

Crime fiction

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

. Her collection of stories, With Her Body (2004) is science fiction and fantasy. Her most recent work, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer's Early Life (2007) won the Lambda Literary Award in the Women's Memoir/Biography category. It is a multi-media memoir, a "do-it-yourself Nicola Griffith home assembly kit." Griffith is currently working on an historical novel.

Novels

• Ammonite
  Ammonite (novel)
  Ammonite is Nicola Griffith's first novel, published in 1992 . It won both the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT fiction, and the James Tiptree, Jr...
  
  (1993)
• Slow River
  Slow River
  Slow River is British writer Nicola Griffith's second science fiction novel, first published in 1995. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Lambda Literary Award in 1996.- Plot introduction :...
  
  (1995)
• The Blue Place (1998)
• Stay
  Stay (novel)
  Stay is a crime novel by Nicola Griffith. It is a sequel to her 1998 novel The Blue Place, and continues the story of its protagonist, Aud Torvingen....
  
  (2002)
• Always (2007)

Anthologies

• Bending the Landscape: Fantasy (1997, with Stephen Pagel)
• Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction (1998, with Stephen Pagel)
• Bending the Landscape: Horror (2001, with Stephen Pagel)

Short fiction

• An Other Winter's Tale (1987)
• Mirrors and Burnstone (1988)
• The Other (1989)
• We Have Met the Alien (1990)
• The Voyage South (1990)
• Down the Path of the Sun (1990)
• Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese (1991)
• Wearing My Skin (1991)
• Touching Fire (1993)
• Yaguara (1994)
• A Troll Story (2000)
• With Her Body (2004, a collection containing Touching Fire, Songs of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese, and Yaguara)

External links

• Author's website
• NPR interview