| Nancy Kress | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kress in 2007 | |
| Born | Nancy Anne Koningisor (1948-01-20) January 20, 1948 (age 76) Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Pen name | Anna Kendall (for fantasy) |
| Occupation | Fiction writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | SUNY Plattsburgh (MA) |
| Period | 1976–present |
| Genre | Science fiction
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| Spouse |
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| Website | |
| nancykress | |
Nancy Anne Kress (born January 20, 1948) is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella Beggars in Spain (1991), which became a novel in 1993. She also won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2013 for After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, and in 2015 for Yesterday's Kin. In addition to her novels, Kress has written numerous short stories and is a regular columnist for Writer's Digest. She is a regular at Clarion Workshops. During the winter of 2008/09, Nancy Kress was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
Biography
Born Nancy Anne Koningisor in Buffalo, New York, she grew up in East Aurora and attended college at SUNY Plattsburgh and graduated with an M.A. in English. Before starting her writing career she taught elementary school and then college English. In 1973, she moved to Rochester to marry Michael Joseph Kress. They had two sons, and divorced in 1984. At that time, she went to work at Stanton and Hucko, an advertising agency. She was married to Marcos Donnelly from 1988 to 1994.
In 1998, she married fellow author Charles Sheffield, who died in 2002 of a brain tumor. Kress moved back to Rochester, New York, to be near her grown children. In 2009, she moved to Seattle. In February 2011, she married author Jack Skillingstead.
Work
Kress tends to write hard science fiction, or technically realistic stories, often set in a fairly near future. Her fiction often involves genetic engineering and, to a lesser degree, artificial intelligence. There are many invented technologies shared between her stories, including "genemod", to refer to genetic engineering, and "foamcast", a lightweight and sturdy building material that appears in many of her novels and short stories.
By conducting extensive research, she keeps her topics within the realm of possibility; however, as Kress clarified for one Locus interviewer, with regards to her partner and fellow science fiction writer, " pronounces it science fiction, and I pronounce it science fiction."
Kress also loves ballet, and has written stories around it.
Awards
- Nebula Award
- Best Short Story winner (1986): "Out of All Them Bright Stars", F&SF March 1985
- Best Novella (1991): Beggars in Spain (Axolotl Press / Pulphouse Feb. 1991) / Asimov's April 1991
- Best Novelette (1998): "The Flowers of Aulit Prison", Asimov's Oct./Nov. 1996
- Best Novella (2007): "Fountain of Age", Asimov's July 2007
- Best Novella (2012): "After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall", Tachyon Publications
- Best Novella (2014): "Yesterday's Kin", Tachyon Publications
- Hugo Award
- Best Novella (1992): Beggars in Spain (Axolotl Press / Pulphouse Feb. 1991) / Asimov's April 1991
- Best Novella (2009): "The Erdmann Nexus", Asimov's Oct./Nov. 2008
- John W. Campbell Memorial Award
- Best Novel (2003): Probability Space, (Tor Sep. 2002)
- Theodore Sturgeon Award
- Best Short Science Fiction (1997): "The Flowers of Aulit Prison", Asimov's Oct./Nov. 1996
Bibliography
Main article: Nancy Kress bibliographyReferences
- ^ Clute, John (29 June 2015). "Kress, Nancy". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- "2012 Nebula Award Winners". Locus Online. 18 May 2013. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- ^ "Nancy Kress Home Page". Nancy Kress. 2005. Archived from the original on 2008-05-16. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- "The Picador Guest Professorship for Literature". American Studies: Leipzig. 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- A Conversation With Nancy Kress, retrieved 11 October 2015
- David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (2010). Year's Best SF15. Eos Books. p. 119.
- Kress, Nancy (11 February 2011). "Las Vegas". Nancy's Blog. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- ^ Evens, Arthur (2010). The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Wesleyan University Press. p. 580.
External links
- Official website
- Blog – inactive since February 2013
- Nancy Kress at Library of Congress, with 32 library catalog records
- Nancy Kress at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Bibliography at FantasticFiction
- Fiction by Kress at Free Speculative Fiction Online
Interviews
- 1993 interview at ConFuse
- 1996 interview
- 2000 interview at Fictionwise
- 2001 interview excerpts in Locus Magazine
- 2007 interview at Writer Unboxed
- 2008 interview at Dark Roasted Blend
- 2008 interview at Futurismic
- 2008 interview at Feminist SF – The Blog!
- 2010 interview excerpts in Locus Magazine
- 2016 interview excerpts in Locus Magazine
- 2016 interview in Lightspeed, focusing on the release of The Best of Nancy Kress
- Anna Kendall at LC Authorities, with 1 record
- 1948 births
- Living people
- American science fiction writers
- Hugo Award–winning writers
- Nebula Award winners
- Writers from Buffalo, New York
- Writers of books about writing fiction
- Science fiction academics
- State University of New York at Plattsburgh alumni
- American women science fiction and fantasy writers
- American women novelists
- 20th-century American novelists
- 21st-century American novelists
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American women writers
- Asimov's Science Fiction people
- Novelists from New York (state)