Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson
Nalo Hopkinson in 2007
Born	1960 (age 50–51) Kingston, Jamaica
Occupation	Writer, editor
Language	English
Nationality	Jamaican
Education	Master of Arts
Alma mater	Seton Hill University
Genres	Science fiction, fantasy
Notable work(s)	Brown Girl in the Ring The Salt Roads Skin Folk
Notable award(s)	Aurora Award, Gaylactic Spectrum Award, John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Locus Award, Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, World Fantasy Award
nalohopkinson.com

Nalo Hopkinson (born 1960) is a Jamaican science fiction and fantasy writer and editor who lives in Canada. Her novels (Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, The New Moon's Arms) and short stories such as those in her collection Skin Folk often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling.

Hopkinson has edited two fiction anthologies (Whispers From the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction and Mojo: Conjure Stories). She was the co-editor with Uppinder Mehan for the anthology So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, and with Geoff Ryman for Tesseracts 9.

Hopkinson defended George Elliott Clarke's novel Whylah Falls on the CBC's Canada Reads 2002. She was the curator of Six Impossible Things, an audio series of Canadian fantastical fiction on CBC Radio One.

Early life and education

Hopkinson was born in 1960 in Kingston, Jamaica to Freda and Muhammed Abdur-Rahman Slade Hopkinson, a Guyanese poet and actor. She grew up in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guyana. She was also briefly in the United States during her childhood while her father attended Yale University.^[1]

Hopkinson has a Masters of Arts degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, where she studied with science fiction writer James Morrow as her mentor and instructor.

Career

Hopkinson teaches writing at various programs around the world. She has been a writer-in-residence at Clarion East, Clarion West and Clarion South. She is one of the founding members of the Carl Brandon Society and serves on the board.^[2]
Hopkinson also designs fabrics based on historical photos and illustrations.^[3]

Awards

Hopkinson is the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer^[4] and the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for Emerging Writers.

Brown Girl in the Ring was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1998, and received the Locus Award for Best New Writer. In 2008 it was a finalist in Canada Reads, produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Midnight Robber was shortlisted for the James R. Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award in 2000^[5] and nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2001.^[6]

Skin Folk received the World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic in 2003.

The Salt Roads received the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for positive exploration of queer issues in speculative fiction for 2004, presented at the 2005 Gaylaxicon.

In 2008, The New Moon's Arms received the Aurora Award (Canada's reader-voted award for science fiction and fantasy)^[7] and the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic,^[8] making her the first author to receive the Sunburst Award twice. This book was also nominated for the 2007 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

Works

Novels and anthologies

• Brown Girl in the Ring (1998)
• Midnight Robber (2000)
• Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000, ed.)
• Skin Folk (2001)
• Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003, ed.)
• The Salt Roads (2003)
• So Long Been Dreaming (2004, ed.)
• The New Moon's Arms (2007)

Short fiction (first publications only)

• Slow Cold Chick in anthology Northern Frights 5 (1998)
• A Habit of Waste in anthology Women of Other Worlds: Excursions through Science Fiction and Feminism (1999)
• Precious in anthology Silver Birch, Blood Moon (1999)
• The Glass Bottle Trick in anthology Whispers From the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000)
• Greedy Choke Puppy and Ganger (Ball Lightning) in anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction From the African Diaspora
• Midnight Robber (excerpt from novel) reprinted in Young Bloods: Stories from Exile 1972-2001 (2001)
• Delicious Monster in anthology Queer Fear II (2002)
• Shift in journal Conjunctions: the New Wave Fabulists.
• Herbal in The Bakkanthology
• Whose Upward Flight I Love reprinted in African Voices
• The Smile on the Face in anthology Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks (2004)

See also

• Works by Nalo Hopkinson

References

1. ^ http://www.bookrags.com/biography/nalo-hopkinson-dlb/
2. ^ Gaylaxicon 2006. "Additional Author Guest". http://gaylaxicon.gaylacticnetwork.org/2006/Guests.php. Retrieved 22 March 2011. 
3. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/01/nalo-hopkinsons-other-world.html
4. ^ John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Writertopia, retrieved 21 June 2011
5. ^ http://tiptree.org/award/2000-winner/2000-short-list
6. ^ http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2001-hugo-awards/
7. ^ http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/wordpress/?page_id=28
8. ^ http://www.sunburstaward.org/2008_Winners.html

Further reading

• "Making the Impossible Possible: An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson" in Alondra Nelson, ed. Afrofuturism: A Special Issue of Social Text. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822365456.

External links

• Official website
• Nalo Hopkinson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Bibliographies

• Bibliography on Scifan.com
• Biography, bibliography, & appreciation by G. E. Rutledge

Interviews

• Interview on SFFWorld.com
• Interview on Locus
• "Nalo Hopkinson uses SF to probe the inner and outer worlds of alienation" by David Soyka on SciFi.com (2001)
• A Conversation With Nalo Hopkinson on the SF Site

Persondata
Name	Hopkinson, Nalo
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1960
Place of birth	Kingston, Jamaica
Date of death
Place of death