Rachel Swirsky
Encyclopedia
Rachel Swirsky is an award-winning literary, speculative fiction
and fantasy
writer, poet, and editor living in California. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from 2008 to 2010.
She has been published in such literary publications as PANK, the Konundrum Engine Literary Review, and the New Haven Review
. Her speculative fiction work has appeared in numerous markets including Tor.com, Subterranean Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
, Fantasy Magazine
, Interzone
, Realms of Fantasy
, and Weird Tales
, and collected in a variety of year's best anthologies, including Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction, Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, Jonathan Strahan's Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and Jeff & Ann VanderMeer's Best American Fantasy.
Her novella "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window" won the 2010 Nebula Award
. "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window" was also a nominee in the Best Novella category for a 2011 Hugo Award
and in the Novella category of the 2011 World Fantasy Award
.
In addition to her fiction, Swirsky writes critical essays, reviews, and other non-fiction.
Swirsky has donated her writing to a number of charity anthologies. Her story "Heat Engine" appeared in Last Bird, Drink Head, a flash fiction anthology supporting the ProLiteracy charity, along with work by Peter Straub
, Caitlin R. Kiernan
, Hal Duncan
, Ellen Kushner
, and others. In September 2010, she contributed a story to the online chapbook story collection Clash of the Geeks, presented by Subterranean Press
, along with other authors, including Wil Wheaton
, Patrick Rothfuss
, John Scalzi
, Catherynne M. Valente
, and others, in exchange for donations to the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America.
, the Locus Award
, the StorySouth
Million Writers Award, and the Tiptree Award.
Her poem "The Oracle on River Street" won third place for the Rhysling Award and was reprinted in the 2008 Rhysling nthology. Other work has also been long-listed for the StorySouth Million Writers Award, the BSFA Award
, and the Tiptree Award.
Her work has also been listed on the annual Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading List.
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
writer, poet, and editor living in California. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from 2008 to 2010.
She has been published in such literary publications as PANK, the Konundrum Engine Literary Review, and the New Haven Review
New Haven Review
The New Haven Review is a not-for-profit quarterly literary journal founded in August 2007 and located in New Haven, Connecticut. It was created to resuscitate the art of the book review and draw attention to Greater New Haven-area writers...
. Her speculative fiction work has appeared in numerous markets including Tor.com, Subterranean Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Beneath Ceaseless Skies is a fantasy adventure online magazine published in the United States by Firkin Press.-History:Beneath Ceaseless Skies first issue was released on October 9, 2008 featuring stories by Chris Willrich and David D. Levine. It was the runner-up for the 2008 Million Writers Award...
, Fantasy Magazine
Fantasy Magazine
Fantasy Magazine is a U.S.-based online fantasy and science fiction magazine. It was launched as a print edition at the 2005 World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. It continued in this format for six more issues, but in mid-October 2007, it moved online, with daily content, and spun off...
, Interzone
Interzone (magazine)
Interzone is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction magazine. Published since 1982, Interzone is the eighth longest-running science fiction magazine in history and the longest-running British SF magazine...
, Realms of Fantasy
Realms of Fantasy
Realms of Fantasy is a professional bimonthly fantasy speculative fiction magazine published by Damnation Books, which specializes in fantasy, nonfiction, and art. The magazine publishes short stories by some of the genre's most popular and most prominent authors...
, and Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
, and collected in a variety of year's best anthologies, including Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction, Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, Jonathan Strahan's Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and Jeff & Ann VanderMeer's Best American Fantasy.
Her novella "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window" won the 2010 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 Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window" was also a nominee in the Best Novella category for a 2011 Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and in the Novella category of the 2011 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...
.
Biography
Swirsky was born in California. A graduate of the University of California Santa Cruz and the Iowa Writers Workshop, Swirsky taught undergraduate science fiction and fantasy writing while a teaching assistant at The University of Iowa. In 2005, she attended the Clarion West writers workshop.In addition to her fiction, Swirsky writes critical essays, reviews, and other non-fiction.
Swirsky has donated her writing to a number of charity anthologies. Her story "Heat Engine" appeared in Last Bird, Drink Head, a flash fiction anthology supporting the ProLiteracy charity, along with work by Peter Straub
Peter Straub
Peter Francis Straub is an American author and poet, most famous for his work in the horror genre. His horror fiction has received numerous literary honors such as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award, placing him among the most-honored horror authors in...
, Caitlin R. Kiernan
Caitlin R. Kiernan
Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan is the author of many science fiction and dark fantasy works, including seven novels, many comic books, more than one hundred published short stories, novellas, and vignettes, and numerous scientific papers.- Overview :Born in Dublin, Ireland, she moved to the United States...
, Hal Duncan
Hal Duncan
Hal Duncan is a Scottish science fiction and fantasy writer who published two novels, one novella, three poetry collections and several short stories.His works have been listed in the New Weird genre but he denies that such genre was even known to him at the time...
, Ellen Kushner
Ellen Kushner
Ellen Kushner is an American writer of fantasy novels, who for many years was the host of the radio program Sound & Spirit, produced by WGBH in Boston and distributed by Public Radio International.- Background and personal life :...
, and others. In September 2010, she contributed a story to the online chapbook story collection Clash of the Geeks, presented by Subterranean Press
Subterranean Press
Subterranean Press is a small press publisher in Michigan. Subterranean is best known for publishing genre fiction, primarily horror, suspense and dark mystery, fantasy, and science fiction...
, along with other authors, including Wil Wheaton
Wil Wheaton
Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers...
, Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick James Rothfuss is an American fantasy writer and college lecturer. He is the author of the projected three-volume series The Kingkiller Chronicle.- Biography :...
, John Scalzi
John Scalzi
John Michael Scalzi II is an American author and online writer, and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Hugo Award-nominated science fiction novel Old Man's War, released by Tor Books in January 2005, and for his blog , at which he has written...
, Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente , is a Tiptree–, Andre Norton–, and Mythopoeic Award–winning novelist, poet, and literary critic. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the World Fantasy Award–winning anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous Year's Best volumes...
, and others, in exchange for donations to the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America.
Awards and critical reception
In addition to winning the Nebula, Swirsky's work has been nominated for awards and received other critical attention. Her novella "A Memory of Wind" was a finalist for the 2009 Nebula Awards ballot. Her novelette "Eros, Philia, Agape," was nominated for the Hugo, as well as the Theodore Sturgeon AwardTheodore Sturgeon Award
The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is given each year for the best science fiction short story of the year and is the short fiction counterpart of the Campbell award , published in English....
, the Locus Award
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
, the StorySouth
StorySouth
storySouth is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best short stories published each year in online magazines or...
Million Writers Award, and the Tiptree Award.
Her poem "The Oracle on River Street" won third place for the Rhysling Award and was reprinted in the 2008 Rhysling nthology. Other work has also been long-listed for the StorySouth Million Writers Award, the BSFA Award
BSFA award
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association to honor works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members...
, and the Tiptree Award.
Her work has also been listed on the annual Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading List.
Collections
- How the World Became Quiet and Myths of the Past, Present, and Future, Subterranean PressSubterranean PressSubterranean Press is a small press publisher in Michigan. Subterranean is best known for publishing genre fiction, primarily horror, suspense and dark mystery, fantasy, and science fiction...
, Planned 2012
- Through the Drowsy Dark: Short Fiction & Poetry, Aqueduct PressAqueduct PressAqueduct Press is a publisher based in Seattle, Washington, United States which publishes material which features a feminist viewpoint.-History:...
, 2010, ISBN 978-1933500386
Edited works
- People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy, Prime BooksPrime BooksEdited by two-time Hugo-nominee and 2006 World Fantasy-winner Sean Wallace, Prime Books is an award-winning independent publishing house, specializing in a mix of literary/commercial anthologies, collections, novels, and two magazines: Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed Magazine. Some of its...
, 2010, ISBN 978-1607012382
Selected short stories
- "Defiled Imagination," PANK Magazine, October 2010
- "The Monster's Million Faces," Tor.com, Sept 8, 2010
- "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window," Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2010
- "A Memory of Wind," Tor.com, Nov 3 2009
- "Eros, Philia, Agape," Tor.com, Mar 3 2009 (reprinted in Jonathan Strahan's Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 4 and in Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2010)
- "Marrying the Sun," Fantasy Magazine, June 30, 2008 (reprinted in Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 3)
- "How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth," Electric Velocipede, issue 13 (reprinted in audio at Escape PodEscape podAn escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose...
, Sep 20 2008 and in Jeff & Ann VanderMeer's Best American Fantasy 2)
- "A Monkey Will Never Be Rid of Its Black Hands," Subterranean Magazine, Winter 2008
- "Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind," Subterranean Magazine, Spring 2007
- "The Debt of the Innocent," Glorifying TerrorismGlorifying TerrorismGlorifying Terrorism is a 2007 science fiction anthology edited by Farah Mendlesohn, which was compiled in direct response to the Terrorism Act 2006...
, 2007
- "Heartstrung," in Interzone 210 (reprinted in audio at PseudopodPseudopodPseudopods or pseudopodia are temporary projections of eukaryotic cells. Cells that possess this faculty are generally referred to as amoeboids. Pseudopodia extend and contract by the reversible assembly of actin subunits into microfilaments...
, Mar 28 2008; reprinted in Rich Horton's Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2008)
- "A Letter Never Sent," in Konundrum Engine Literary Review
- "Scene from a Dystopia," in Subterranean Magazine #4, 2006
Selected poetry
- "Mundane," IdeomancerIdeomancerIdeomancer is a Canadian online speculative fiction magazine whose contents include science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, horror, flash fiction and speculative poetry, along with reviews and interviews. The first issue debuted in 1999, and in 2002 the magazine was "rebooted" with new numbering...
, 2010
- "Evening in Pompeii," Ideomancer, 2010
- "String Theory," Ideomancer, September 2009
- "Remembering the World," Electric Velocipede #15-16, Winter 2008
- "The Passionate Oven," Helix #8 (reprinted in Transcriptase)
- "Pro-Life Patter," Diet Soap #2 (originally printed on Alas, a Blog)
- "Terrible Lizards," Diet Soap #1, online edition, February 2008
- "Invitation to Emerald," Lone Star Stories, December 2007
- "A Season with the Geese," Abyss&Apex, third quarter 2007 (reprinted in The Best of Abyss & Apex, Volume One)
- "The Oracle on River Street," Goblin Fruit, Summer 2007