Carmen Maria Machado Explained

Carmen Maria Machado
Birth Date:	3 July 1986
Birth Place:	Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation:	Writer
Language:	English
Education:	American University^[1] Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA)
Genre:	Science fiction, fantasy, horror
Subjects:	-->
Notableworks:	In the Dream House (2019)
Awards:	Folio Prize 2021 winner National Book Award finalist
Years Active:	2011–present

Carmen Maria Machado (born July 3, 1986) is an American short story author, essayist, and critic best known for Her Body and Other Parties, a 2017 short story collection, and her memoir In the Dream House, which was published in 2019 and won the 2021 Folio Prize.^[2] Machado is frequently published in The New Yorker, Granta, Lightspeed, and other publications. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award^[3] and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette. Her stories have been reprinted in Year's Best Weird Fiction^[4] , Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best Horror of the Year, The New Voices of Fantasy, and Best Women's Erotica.

Early life

Carmen Maria Machado was born July 3, 1986, in Allentown, Pennsylvania.^[5] Machado's paternal grandfather left Santa Clara, Cuba, for the United States when he was 18, gaining U.S. citizenship after serving in the Korean War. He then moved to D.C. and worked at the United States Patent Office, where he met Machado's grandmother, who came over to the U.S. from Austria after World War II.^[5]

Machado grew up in a very religious United Methodist household; this upbringing, she says, led to a sense of guilt about her queer sexuality for several years.^[6]

Education

She attended Parkland High School in South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania,^[7] and then American University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 2008.^[8]

She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and received fellowships and residencies from the Michener-Copernicus Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the CINTAS Foundation, the Speculative Literature Foundation, the University of Iowa, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.^[9] Machado also attended the Clarion Workshop, where she studied under author Ted Chiang and others.^[10]

Career

Machado worked in the Iowa Writers' Workshop for two years after receiving her MFA there. After a rejection from Starbucks in 2013, she took up work at Lush, a soap store, while she taught writing as an adjunct professor at Rosemont College and other schools in the area. She also did freelance writing while she lived in Pennsylvania.

Machado's short stories, essays, and criticism have been published in a number of magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, Tin House, Lightspeed, Guernica, AGNI, National Public Radio, Gulf Coast, Los Angeles Review of Books, Strange Horizons,^[11] and other publications. Her stories have also been reprinted in anthologies such as Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2017, Year's Best Weird Fiction, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, The Best Horror of the Year, and Best Women's Erotica. Machado's short story "Horror Story," originally published in Granta in 2015, details a lesbian couple's difficulty coping with a haunting in their new house.^{[12] [13]}

Machado's fiction has been called "strange and seductive", and it has been said that her "work doesn't just have form, it takes form."^[14] Her fiction has been a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette,^[15] the Shirley Jackson Award,^[16] the Franz Kafka Award in Magic Realism, the storySouth Million Writers Award, and the Calvino Prize from the Creative Writing Program at the University of Louisville. An analysis by io9 indicated that if not for the Sad Puppies ballot manipulation campaign, Machado would have been a finalist for the 2015 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.^[17] In 2018, she won the Bard Fiction Prize.^[18]

Her horror-inspired short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was published by Graywolf Press in 2017.^[19] It was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction,^[3] won the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award John Leonard Prize,^[20] and was shortlisted for the 2018 Dylan Thomas Prize.^[21] The collection has been optioned by FX and a television show is in development by Gina Welch.^[22]

As of 2018, she is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.^[23] Machado is a 2019 recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship.^[24] She was a Visiting associate professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Spring 2021.^[25]

Machado was guest editor of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 edition.^[26] Her sci-fi short stories have appeared in volumes including Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Latinx Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Matthew David Goodwin, with an introduction by Frederick Luis Aldama.^[27]

Her essay "Both Ways", about the 2009 film Jennifer's Body, is part of the anthology , published in October 2022.^[28]

Personal life

Machado is queer, and lived in Philadelphia with her wife Val Howlett. The two married in 2017 and maintained a non-monogamous relationship, living with their partner Marne Litfin in a throuple.^[29] Howlett described the relationships in March 2022, saying: "It's just really nice to not build your whole life around one single person. Everything from... the division of labor to how we have conflict to sharing joyful things. I just really love our lives." Machado and Howlett separated later that year.^[30]

Machado now lives in Brooklyn, New York City.^[31]

Awards and honors

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result	^[32] ^[33] ^[34]
2014	"The Husband Stitch"	Nebula Award	Novelette		^[35]
			Novelette		^[36]
2015		Otherwise Award	—		^[37]
	—	John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer	—		^[38]
2017	Her Body and Other Parties		Fiction		^[39]
		Kirkus Prize	Fiction
			Art Seidenbaum Award		^[40]
		National Book Award	Fiction
		National Book Critics Circle Award	John Leonard Prize
		Otherwise Award	—
			Collection
2018		Bard Fiction Prize	—
		Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize	Fiction		^[41]
		Crawford Award	—
		Dylan Thomas Prize	—
			Adult Debut
		Lambda Literary Award	Lesbian Fiction
		Locus Award	Collection		^[42]
		PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize	—
		Publishing Triangle Awards	Edmund White Award		^[43]
		NAIBA Book of the Year	Fiction		^[44]
		World Fantasy Award	Collection
2019	In the Dream House	Bisexual Book Award	Biography and Memoir		^[45]
		Goodreads Choice Award	Memoir & Autobiography		^[46]
2020		ALA Over the Rainbow Book List	—		^[47] ^[48]
		Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence	Nonfiction		^[49] ^[50]
		BookTube Prize	Nonfiction		^[51]
		Goldie Award	General Non-Fiction		^[52]
		Heartland Booksellers Award	Nonfiction		^[53]
		Lambda Literary Award	Nonfiction		^[54] ^[55]
		Publishing Triangle Awards	Judy Grahn Award		^[56]
		Reading Women Award	Nonfiction		^[57]
		Stonewall Book Award	Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award		^[58]
		William Saroyan International Prize for Writing	Nonfiction		^[59]
2021		PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction	—		^[60] ^[61]
		Rathbones Folio Prize	—		^[62] ^[63]

Machado was awarded the Richard Yates Short Story Prize in 2011^[64] and was named Writer on the Rise by Philadelphia in their Best of Philly awards list.^[65]

Bibliography

Books

• Book: Machado, C. M. . . The American Reader . 2013 . 2.
• Book: Machado, C. M. . . . 2017 . 9781555977887 . 1st paperback . 1–264 . 2.
• Book: Machado, C. M. . . . 2019 . 9781644450031 . hardcover . 1–247 . 2.
• Book: Machado, C. M. . The Low, Low Woods . . 2020 . 9781779504524 . hardcover . 1–160 . 2.
• Book: Machado, C. M. . A Brief and Fearful Star . . 2024 . 9781800811089 . 1st hardcover . 2. ^[66]

Short stories

• "The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror" (Granta)
• "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (Harper's Bazaar)
• "Mary When You Follow Her" (VQR)
• "Eight Bites" (Gulf Coast)
• "Blur" (Tin House)
• "The Husband Stitch" (Granta)
• "Horror Story" (Granta)
• "Inventory" (Strange Horizons)
• "Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead" (Lightspeed Magazine)
• "Especially Heinous" (The American Reader)
• "Mothers" (Interfictions)
• "The Book of the Dead" (BBC Radio 4)
• "Haunt" (Conjunctions)
• "A Cat, a Bride, a Servant" (Garage)
• "A Brief and Fearful Star" (Slate/Future Tense)
• "Relaxation Technique" (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)
• "Miss Laura's School for Esquire Men" (Tin House)
• "Vacation" (Wigleaf)
• "The Old Women Who Were Skinned" (Fairy Tale Review)
• "Descent" (Nightmare Magazine)
• "My Body, Herself" (Uncanny Magazine)
• "Observations About Eggs from the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa" (Lightspeed Magazine)

Comics

• The Low, Low Woods #1-6 (2019–2020)
  1. Bottomless (28 pages, 2019)
  2. Heaven on Earth (27 pages, 2020)
  3. The Fruiting Body (27 pages, 2020)
  4. Einstein on the Beach (26 pages, 2020)
  5. The Witch's Tale (27 pages, 2020)
  6. Bells to Rest, Lambs to Slaughter (27 pages, 2020)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Once rejected by Starbucks, writer-in-residence is a National Book Award finalist . Shepard . Louisa . November 2, 2017 . Penn Today . . November 12, 2019.
2. Web site: 2021-03-25. Machado wins 2021 Folio Prize. live. 2021-03-25. Books+Publishing. en-AU. https://web.archive.org/web/20210324225334/https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/03/25/184103/machado-wins-2021-rathbones-folio-prize/ . 2021-03-24 .
3. News: 2017 National Book Award finalists revealed. October 4, 2017. CBS News. 2017-10-04. en.
4. Web site: Year's Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 2. Undertow Publications. en-US. 2020-01-23.
5. "The metafictional, liminal, lyrical ways of writer Carmen Maria Machado" by Sabrina Vourvoulias, AL DÍA News, December 3, 2015.
6. Web site: 2016-02-03. Interview with Carmen Maria Machado. 2021-04-25. Solstice Literary Magazine. Carissa Halston. en-US.
7. https://inventaire.io/entity/wd:Q29559684 "Carmen Maria Machado"
8. Web site: 2020-02-11. Author Carmen Maria Machado on Her Time in DC and the Great Advice She Gives Young Writers Washingtonian (DC). Nora. McGreevy. 2021-03-18. Washingtonian. en-US.
9. Web site: Honors. Machado. Carmen Maria. 3 September 2023.
10. "Her Body and Other Parties: An Interview with Carmen Maria Machado" by Amandine Faucheux, NDR Magazine, May 2015.
11. http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/inventory/ Strange Horizons
12. Web site: Horror Story. Granta. 30 October 2015 . en-AU. 2019-04-12.
13. Book: Machado . Carmen Maria . Her Body and Other Parties . . 2017 . Minneapolis.
14. Web site: Sofia Samatar. Sofia. Samatar . Double Take: On Carmen Maria Machado. The Los Angeles Review of Books. April 26, 2015.
15. "2014 Nebula Awards Winners", Locus Magazine, June 6, 2015.
16. "2017 Shirley Jackson Award Winners", Shirley Jackson Awards website, accessed April 23, 2017.
17. Web site: This Is What The 2015 Hugo Ballot Should Have Been . Liptak. Andrew. io9. en. 23 August 2015. 4 September 2023.
18. Web site: Annual Bard Fiction Prize Is Awarded To Carmen Maria Machado Bard College Public Relations. Relations. Bard Public. www.bard.edu. en. 2020-02-07.
19. Web site: On Carmen Maria Machado's Body Horrors. The+Millions. 12 January 2018 . en-AU. 2019-04-12.
20. Web site: 2017 NBCC Awards Finalists Announced . . Maher . John . January 22, 2018 . January 23, 2018.
21. Web site: Dylan Thomas Prize 2018 shortlist announced. Books+Publishing. en-AU. 28 March 2018. 2019-02-04.
22. Web site: Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body And Other Parties Adaptation Snatched Up by FX. Jezebel. 16 October 2018 . Feb 21, 2020.
23. News: Carmen Maria Machado: Sitting Down with Penn's Writer–In–Residence. Lemieux. Elizabeth. March 2, 2018. 34th Street. Oct 31, 2018.
24. Web site: John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Carmen Maria Machado. en-US. 2020-02-07.
25. Web site: Carmen Maria Machado Iowa Writers' Workshop College of Liberal Arts & Sciences The University of Iowa . 2022-05-08 . writersworkshop.uiowa.edu.
26. Web site: Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019. Studios. Clockpunk. John Joseph Adams. en-US. 2020-01-23. 2020-02-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20200214093754/http://www.johnjosephadams.com/projects/best-american-science-fiction-and-fantasy-2019/. dead.
27. Book: Latinx rising : an anthology of Latinx science fiction and fantasy. Goodwin, Matthew David,, Aldama, Frederick Luis, 1969-. 2020 . 978-0-8142-7799-7. Columbus. 1157344767.
28. Book: It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror . 4 October 2022 . The Feminist Press at CUNY . 9781952177798 . Vallese . Joe . New York.
29. Web site: Carmen Maria Machado, Val Howlett and Marne Litfin Are Each Other's Editors . Goyanes . Rob . 17 March 2022 . Cultured.
30. Web site: Things I'm Bad At: Residencies . Machado . Carmen Maria . 19 July 2022 . Cup of Stars . Substack.
31. Web site: Biography. Machado. Carmen Maria. 3 September 2023.
32. Web site: Carmen Maria Machado Author LibraryThing . 2024-06-05 . LibraryThing.com . en.
33. Web site: Award Bibliography: Carmen Maria Machado . 2024-06-05 . www.isfdb.org.
34. Web site: sfadb : Carmen Maria Machado Awards . 2024-06-05 . www.sfadb.com.
35. Web site: Carmen Maria Machado . 2024-08-13 . The Nebula Awards . en-US.
36. Web site: 2016-10-31 . Granta Reads: Carmen Maria Machado’s ‘The Husband Stitch’ . 2024-08-13 . Granta . en-US.
37. Web site: The Husband Stitch . 2024-08-13 . National Centre for Writing NCW . en-US.
38. Web site: Schnelbach . Leah . 2017-10-04 . Her Body, Her Self: Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties . 2024-08-13 . Reactor . en-US.
39. Web site: Petski . Denise . 2018-10-15 . FX Developing ‘Her Body And Other Parties’ Anthology Based On Book From Gina Welch & Imagine TV . 2024-08-13 . Deadline . en-US.
40. Web site: The BKBF Interview: Carmen Maria Machado . 2024-08-13 . Brooklyn Book Festival . en-US.
41. Web site: Brooklyn Public Library Announces 2018 Literary Prize Winners . 2024-08-13 . Brooklyn Public Library . en.
42. Web site: Murnane . Kevin . The 2018 Locus Awards Highlight The Broad Range Of Science Fiction And Fantasy [Sale Price Update] ]. 2024-08-13 . Forbes . en.
43. Web site: The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction . 2024-08-13 . The Publishing Triangle . en-US.
44. Web site: NAIBA Books of the Year Award . 2024-08-13 . New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association.
45. Web site: 2020-06-22 . 2019 Bisexual Book Awards Winners . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20211206202250/https://locusmag.com/2020/06/2019-bisexual-book-awards-winners/ . 2021-12-06 . 2024-05-24 . . en-US.
46. Web site: Announcing the Goodreads Choice Winner in Best Memoir & Autobiography! . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20231104041350/https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-memoir-autobiography-books-2019 . 2023-11-04 . 2024-05-24 . Goodreads.
47. Web site: 2020-01-28 . 2020 Over the Rainbow Book List features 70 titles for adult readers . 2024-05-24 . . en.
48. Web site: 2020-03-15 . Over the Rainbow: 2020 . 2024-05-24 . Booklist.
49. Web site: October 1, 2019 . 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals Longlist . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20191002191024/https://locusmag.com/2019/10/2020-andrew-carnegie-medals-longlist/ . October 2, 2019 . November 12, 2019 . Locus Online.
50. Web site: Longlist Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence: Longlist 2020 . 2024-05-24 . . en.
51. Web site: 2020 Nonfiction . 2024-06-04 . 2024 BOOKTUBE PRIZE . en.
52. Web site: 2020-07-20 . 2020 Goldie Awards Winners . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240411013708/https://locusmag.com/2020/07/2020-goldie-awards-winners/ . 2024-04-11 . 2024-05-24 . . en-US.
53. Web site: 2020-09-08 . Awards: Heartland Booksellers Finalists . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220118132731/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=3819 . 2022-01-18 . 2024-05-24 . Shelf Awareness.
54. Web site: Aviles . Gwen . 2021-06-01 . Lambda Literary announces 25 winning books for annual Lammy Awards . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220320095220/https://www.nbcnews.com/select/nbc-out/best-lgbtq-books-lammy-awards-lambda-literary-ncna1215746 . 2022-03-20 . 2021-12-24 . . en.
55. Web site: 2020-06-01 . 32nd Annual Lambda Awards Winners . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240418163417/https://locusmag.com/2020/06/32nd-annual-lambda-awards-winners/ . 2024-04-18 . 2024-05-24 . . en-US.
56. Web site: 2020-05-04 . Awards: Triangle, Wolff Translator's Winners . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220921231546/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=3731 . 2022-09-21 . 2024-05-24 . Shelf Awareness.
57. Web site: Reading Women . 2020-11-18 . Announcing Reading Women's 2020 Nonfiction Award Shortlist . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230607112831/https://lithub.com/announcing-reading-womens-2020-nonfiction-award-shortlist/ . 2023-06-07 . 2024-05-24 . . en-US.
58. Web site: 2020-01-29 . 'How We Fight for Our Lives' and 'Cantoras' win 2020 Stonewall Adult Awards . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20231223043631/https://www.ala.org/news/2020/01/stonewall-book-awards-announced-literature-nonfiction . 2023-12-23 . 2024-05-24 . . en.
59. Web site: 2020-12-09 . Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Jennifer Croft awarded the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing by Stanford Libraries Libraries . 2024-06-04 . library.stanford.edu . en.
60. Web site: 2020-12-22 . Announcing the 2021 PEN America Literary Awards Longlists . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230628061701/https://pen.org/literary-awards/2021-pen-america-longlists/ . 2023-06-28 . 2024-05-24 . . en.
61. Web site: 2020-12-23 . PEN America Literary Awards Longlist . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220804110432/https://locusmag.com/2020/12/pen-america-literary-awards-longlist/ . 2022-08-04 . 2024-05-24 . . en-US.
62. News: Flood . Alison . March 24, 2021 . Carmen Maria Machado wins Rathbones Folio prize for queer abuse memoir . October 27, 2021 . The Guardian.
63. Web site: 2021-03-26 . Awards: NBCC and Rathbones Folio Winners; Dylan Thomas and Stella Shortlists . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230130004823/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=3951 . 2023-01-30 . 2024-05-24 . Shelf Awareness.
64. Web site: 2017-10-04 . Congratulations Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award finalist! . 2024-08-13 . Bull City Press . en-US.
65. Web site: 2018-07-30 . Best of Philly 2018: Media, Politics, and People . 2024-08-13 . Philadelphia Magazine . en-US.
66. Web site: 13 November 2023 . Carmen Maria Machado: Core of Darkness . 29 January 2024 . locusmag.org . Locus Publications . interview 2023.