Arthur C. Clarke was born on December 16, 1917 in Minehead, England and died on March 19, 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Clarke won the Hugo and Nebula Awards three times each. Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise both won for best novel (and also both won the British SF Association Award). His novella “A Meeting with Medusa” won the Nebula in 1973 and the short story “The Star” won the Hugo in 1956. He also won the…
John T. Sladek was born on December 15, 1937 and died on March 10, 2000. John Sladek won the British SF Association Award in 1984 for his novel Tik-Tok, which was also nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Ditmar Award. His novel Roderick was nominated for the Seiun Award, the Ditmar Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. His essay “Four Reasons for Reading Thomas M. Disch” was nominated for the William Atheling, Jr. Award for…
Sarah Zettel was born on December 14, 1966. Sarah Zettel’s novel Reclamation was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1997 and two years later her novel Playing God was nominated for the James Tiptree Jr Memorial Award. In 2010 her story “The Persistence of Souls” was nominated for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Zettel sold “The Temptation of Harringay” to E.J. Gold for publication in the January 1995 issue of Galaxy, the penultimate issue of the most…
Emma Bull was born on December 13, 1954. Bull’s novel Bone Dance was nominated for the Hugo, the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and the Philip K. Dick Awards. Her novel War for the Oaks was nominated for the Compton Crook Stephen Tall Memorial, the Geffen, the Mythopoeic, and the William L. Crawford – IAFA Fantasy Awards. She received a second Nebula nomination for the story “Silver of Gold,” a second Mythopoeic nomination for The Princess and the Lord of Night…
Josepha Sherman was born on December 12, 1946 and died on August 23, 2012. Sherman’s debut novel The Shining Falcon won the Compton Crook Stephen Tall Memorial Award in 1990. Sherman collaborated with Mercedes Lackey, Laura Anne Gilman, Susan Shwartz,and Mike Resnick. She co-edited the non-fiction folklore collection Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts with Toni Weisskopf. “River’s Friend” saw print in issue #178 of Dragon under editor Roger E. Moore and fiction editor Barbara G. Young in February 1992. As with so many…
M. (Mary) Rickert was born on December 11, 1959. In 2007, Rickert won two World Fantasy Awards, for her collection Map of Dreams and for the short story “Journey Into the Kingdom.” She won the 2012 Shirley Jackson Award for “The Corpse Painter’s Masterpiece.” Map of Dreams also received the William L. Crawford – IAFA Fantasy Award for best first fantasy novel. Rickert has also published using her full name. Rickert originally published “The Super Hero Saves the World” in…
Janny Wurts was born on December 10, 1953 and is married to speculative fiction artist Don Maitz. Wurts is both an author and artist, publishing her own fiction and novels as well as three novels in collaboration with Raymond E. Feist. Her collection That Way Lies Camelot was nominated for the British Fantasy Award in 1995. She also won three Chesley Awards for her artwork. In 1993, she won in the color art, unpublished category for The Wizard of Owls….
Sarah Smith was born on December 9, 1947. Although Smith is best known for writing historical mysteries set in Boston, she has also dabbled in speculative fiction, writing the hypertext novel King of Space and more traditional SF novels The Knowledge of Water and The Other Side of the Dark. She won the Agatha Award and the Massachusetts Book Award for The Other Side of the Dark. Smith wrote “And Every Pebble a Soldier” for the 2015 anthology Deco Punk:…
Albert E. Cowdrey was born on December 8, 1933. In 2002, Cowdrey’s short story “Queen for a Day” won the World Fantasy Award. His novella “The Overseer” was also nominated for the World Fantasy Award. He received a Nebula Nomination in 2006 for the novella “The Tribes of Bella” and in 2009 his story “Poison Victory” was nominated for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. He has on occasion published using the pseudonym Chet Arthur. Cowdrey sold “Immortal Forms” to…
Leigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 and died on March 18, 1978. Leigh Brackett was the first woman ever to appear on a Hugo ballot when she was nominated for her novel The Long Tomorrow in 1956, and was nominated for two Retro Hugo Awards in 2016. Her collection Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. In 1978 she received a Forry Award from LASFS, and she was named the recipient…