Nicola Griffith Explained

Nicola Griffith
Birth Date:	1960 9, df=yes
Birth Place:	Yorkshire, England
Citizenship:	United Kingdom and United States
Period:	1987–present
Genre:	Fiction

Nicola Griffith (; born 30 September 1960) is a British-American^[1] novelist, essayist, and teacher. She has won the Washington State Book Award (twice), Nebula Award, James Tiptree, Jr. Award, World Fantasy Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and six Lambda Literary Awards. In 2024 she was^[2] inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Early life

Griffith was born 30 September 1960 in Leeds, to Margaret and Eric Griffith.^[3]

Griffith's earliest surviving literary efforts include an illustrated booklet she was encouraged to create to prevent her from making trouble among her fellow nursery school students. At age eleven she won a BBC student poetry prize and read aloud her winning work for radio broadcast.

Her early reading included the works of such novelists as Henry Treece^[4] and Rosemary Sutcliff;^{[5] [6]} fantastic fiction including the works of E.E. Smith, Frank Herbert, and J.R.R. Tolkien; nonfiction and history — Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a particular favorite.

By the late 1980s, Griffith had begun experiencing symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), though her illness remained undiagnosed. She was diagnosed with MS in March 1993.

While studying at Michigan State University, Griffith met and fell in love with fellow writer Kelley Eskridge. On 4 September 1993, Griffith and Eskridge announced their commitment ceremony in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,^[7] perhaps the first same-sex commitment announcement the paper had published. Griffith and Eskridge were legally married 4 September 2013.

Griffith wanted citizenship so she could remain in the country with her wife, but because she was a lesbian, she couldn't receive citizenship through marriage, and all other pathways were closed.^[8] After much effort, Griffith received permission to live and work in the United States based on her "importance as a writer of lesbian/science fiction," making her the first out lesbian to receive a National Interest Waiver. Her immigration resulted in a new law, and she is now a dual US/UK citizen.^[9]

In 2017, after completing her thesis, entitled "Norming the Queer: Narrative Empathy via Focalized Heterotopia," Griffith received her PhD by publication from the University of East Anglia.^[10]

In late 1987 Griffith made her first professional fiction sale: "Mirrors and Burnstone" to Interzone. Her debut novel, Ammonite, received several offers from publishers, including St. Martin's Press, Avon Press, and Del Rey Books. Griffith has since published nine full-length novels, a memoir, and numerous short stories and novellas.

In 2015, Griffith "founded the Literary Prize Data working group whose purpose initially was to assemble data on literary prizes in order to get a picture of how gender bias operates within the trade publishing ecosystem."^[11]

In 2015 she began #CripLit, an online community for disabled writers."

Awards and honors

Year	Title	Award/Honor	Result	Ref.
1993	Ammonite	BSFA Award	Shortlist	^[12]
			Winner	^[13] ^[14]
		Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Science Fiction/Fantasy	Winner	^[15]
	Touching Fire		Longlist	^[16]
1994	Ammonite	Arthur C. Clarke Award	Shortlist	^[17]
		Locus Award for First Novel	Shortlist	^[18]
1995	"Yaguara"	Nebula Award for Best Novella	Nominee	^[19]
1996	Slow River	Nebula Award for Best Novel	Winner	^[20]
		Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy	Finalist	^[21]
1998	Bending the Landscape	Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy	Winner	^[22]
1999	The Blue Place	Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Novel	Nominee	^[23]
		Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Mystery	Winner	^[24]
	Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction	Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Other Work	Winner
		Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy	Winner
2000	Slow River	Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame	Winner	^[25]
2002	Bending the Landscape: Horror	Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Other Work	Winner	^[26]
		Lambda Literary Award for Anthology	Finalist	^[27]
		Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy	Finalist
2003	Stay	Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction	Finalist	^[28]
2005	With Her Body	Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Other Work	Finalist	^[29]
		Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy	Finalist	^[30]
2008	And Now We Are Going to Have a Party	Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography	Winner	^[31] ^[32]
2010	"It Takes Two"	Hugo Award for Best Novelette	Finalist	^[33]
2013	Hild	Bisexual Book Award for Bisexual Fiction	Shortlist	^[34]
			Honor	^[35] ^[36]
		Nebula Award for Best Novel	Finalist	^[37]
2014		John W. Campbell Memorial Award	Shortlist	^[38]
		Washington State Book Award	Winner	^[39]
2018	So Lucky	Over the Rainbow Booklist	Top 10	^[40]
2019	So Lucky	Tournament of Books	Shortlist	^[41]
2019	So Lucky	Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award	Shortlist	^[42]
2023	Spear	Ursula K. Le Guin Prize	Shortlist	^[43]

Publications

Fiction

• Ammonite, Del Rey, (1992)
• Slow River, Ballantine Books, (1995)
• So Lucky, MCD x FSG Originals, (2018)
• Spear, Tordotcom, (2022)

Aud Torvingen series

• The Blue Place, William Morrow, (1998)
• Stay, Black Lizard, (2002)
• Always, Riverhead Books, (2007)

The Hild Sequence series

• Hild, Picador, (2013)
• Menewood, MCD, (2023)

Nonfiction

• And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer's Early Life, Payseur & Schmidt (2007)

Anthologies

• Bending the Landscape: Fantasy, Overlook Books, (1997, with Stephen Pagel)
• Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction, Overlook Books, (1998, with Stephen Pagel)
• Bending the Landscape: Horror, Overlook Books, (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, Aqueduct Press (2004, a collection containing Touching Fire, Songs of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese, and Yaguara)
• It Takes Two (2009)
• Cold Wind, Tor Books, (2014)^[44]
• Glimmer, Dia Art Foundation, (2018)

Critical studies and reviews of Griffith's work

• Holland, Cecelia . Cecelia Holland . Dec 2013 . Locus Looks at Books: Divers Hands . . 635 . 22. Review of Hild.

External links

• Official website
  • The story behind Hild – Online essay by Nicola Griffith : Freed by Constraint at Upcoming4.me
• 30 years ago : a love story in photos by Nicola Griffith, 2018

Notes and References

1. Web site: Griffith. Nicola. 27 February 2013. I am now an American citizen. 25 February 2022. Nicola Griffith.
2. https://www.mopop.org/sffhof-2024-inductees
3. Griffith, Nicola (2007). And Now We Are Going to Have a Party, Volume 1: Limb of Satan. Seattle: Payseur & Schmidt.
4. http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2011/04/if-you-like-aud-books-you-might-like.html "If you like the Aud books you might like …,"
5. https://medium.com/p/ee665c4caa31 "The Makers of Britain"
6. Web site: van de Kruisweg. Ruud. 1994. Interview from HOLLAND SF. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20080515170742/http://www.nicolagriffith.com/holland.html. 15 May 2008. 25 February 2022. Nicola Griffith.
7. News: . 19 September 1993. Commitment - Griffith-Eskridge. L3. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ajc_commitment.
8. Web site: Griffith. Nicola. 13 October 2008. Virgin birth (yes, really). 25 February 2022. Nicola Griffith. en.
9. Web site: Nicola Griffith. 25 February 2022. Angela Ruskin University. en.
10. Web site: Griffith. Nicola. 4 July 2017. The story of my PhD, Part 1: Opportunity. 25 February 2022. Nicola Griffith. en.
11. Web site: 24 February 2014. About. 25 February 2022. Nicola Griffith. en.
12. Web site: 1993 Award Winners & Nominees. 25 February 2022. Worlds Without End. en.
13. Web site: Lothian. Alexis. 1 January 2020. Jeanne Gomoll Retires from Motherboard « Otherwise Award. 25 February 2022. Otherwise Award. en-US.
14. Web site: Notkin. Debbie. 1993 Otherwise Award « Otherwise Award. 25 February 2022. Otherwise Award. 13 April 2017 . en-US.
15. Web site: 14 July 1993. 5th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
16. Web site: Notkin. Debbie. 1993 Long List « Otherwise Award. 25 February 2022. Otherwise Award. 12 March 2010 . en-US.
17. Web site: Arthur C. Clarke Award 1994. 25 February 2022. science fiction awards database.
18. Web site: Locus Awards 1994. 25 February 2022. science fiction awards database.
19. Web site: 1995 Nebula Awards®. 25 February 2022. Nebula Awards.
20. Web site: 1996 Nebula Awards®. 25 February 2022. Nebula Awards.
21. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 15 July 1996. 8th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
22. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 15 July 1998. 10th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
23. Web site: 1999 Awards . 27 February 2022 . Gaylactic Spectrum Awards . en-US.
24. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 15 July 1999. 11th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
25. Web site: 2000 Awards . 27 February 2022 . Gaylactic Spectrum Awards . en-US.
26. Web site: 2002 Awards . 27 February 2022 . Gaylactic Spectrum Awards . en-US.
27. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 10 July 2002. 14th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
28. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 10 July 2003. 15th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
29. Web site: 2005 Awards . 27 February 2022 . Gaylactic Spectrum Awards . en-US.
30. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 9 July 2005. 17th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
31. Web site: Gonzalez Cerna. Antonio. 30 April 2007. 20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 25 February 2022. Lambda Literary. en.
32. Web site: 5 June 2008. 2008 Lambda Award Winners Announced. 25 February 2022. McNally Robinson Booksellers. en.
33. Web site: 5 September 2010. 2010 Hugo Awards Winners. 25 February 2022. Locus Online. en-US.
34. Web site: 4 June 2014. 2013 Bisexual Book Awards Winners. 25 February 2022. Locus Online. en-US.
35. Web site: Notkin. Debbie. 31 October 2014. The 2013 Tiptree Award winner has been selected! « Otherwise Award. 25 February 2022. Otherwise Award. en-US.
36. Web site: Notkin. Debbie. 2013 Honor List « Otherwise Award. 25 February 2022. Otherwise Award. 31 October 2014 . en-US.
37. Web site: 2013 Nebula Awards®. 25 February 2022. Nebula Awards.
38. Web site: 19 May 2014. 2013 John W. Campbell Memorial Award Finalists. 25 February 2022. Locus Online. en-US.
39. Web site: 13 October 2014. Griffith Wins Washington State Book Award. 25 February 2022. Locus Online. en-US.
40. Web site: Jarnagin. Briana. 30 January 2019. 2019 Over the Rainbow List released, over 100 fiction and non-fiction titles. 25 February 2022. News and Press Center. en.
41. Web site: 14 December 2018. 2019 Tournament of Books Shortlist. 25 February 2022. Locus Online. en-US.
42. Web site: 2019 Shortlist. 25 February 2022. Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. en.
43. Web site: The 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. 12 July 2023. The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust. en.
44. Web site: 16 April 2014 . Cold Wind .