N. K. Jemisin

Nora K. Jemisin (born September 19, 1972) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer who has also worked as a counseling psychologist. Her fiction explores a wide variety of themes, including cultural conflict and oppression. She has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award. As of her August 2018 win, the three books of her Broken Earth series have made her the only author to have won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years.

In 2009 and 2010, Jemisin's short story "Non-Zero Probabilities" was a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo Best Short Story Awards, respectively. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first volume in her Inheritance Trilogy, was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award, and short-listed for the James Tiptree Jr. Award. In 2011, it was nominated for the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award, winning the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms also won the Sense of Gender Awards in 2011. It was followed by two further novels in the same trilogy – The Broken Kingdoms in 2010 and The Kingdom of Gods in 2011.

In 2016, Jemisin's novel The Fifth Season won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making her the first African-American writer to win a Hugo award in that category. Its sequels, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Jemisin was born in Iowa City, Iowa, and grew up in New York City and Mobile, Alabama. She lived in Massachusetts for ten years and then moved to New York City. Jemisin attended Tulane University from 1990 to 1994, where she received a B.S. in psychology. She went on to study counseling and earn her Master of Education from the University of Maryland.

A graduate of the 2002 Viable Paradise writing workshop, Jemisin has published short stories and novels. Jemisin was a member of the Boston-area writing group BRAWLers, and is a member of Altered Fluid, a speculative fiction critique group.

During her delivery of the Guest of Honour speech at the 2013 Continuum in Australia, Jemisin pointed out that 10% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) membership voted for alt-right writer Theodore Beale (also known as Vox Day) in his bid for the SFWA presidential position. She went on to call Beale "a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole" and noted that silence about these issues was the same as enabling them. Beale responded by calling her an "educated but ignorant savage". A link to his comments was tweeted on the SFWA Authors Twitter feed, and Beale was subsequently expelled from the organization.

She was a co-Guest of Honor of the 2014 WisCon science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin. At that time, GQ described her as having "a day job as a counseling psychologist." She was the Author Guest of Honor at Arisia 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts.

In January 2016, Jemisin started writing "Otherworldly", a bimonthly column for The New York Times. In May 2016, Jemisin mounted a Patreon campaign which raised sufficient funding to allow her to quit her job as a counseling psychologist and focus full-time on her writing. In the following year, Bustle called Jemisin "the sci-fi writer every woman needs to be reading".

Jemisin lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

She is first cousin once removed to stand-up comic and television host W. Kamau Bell.

Won

• Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, Best Fantasy Novel 2010 (The Broken Kingdoms)
• Locus Award, Best First Novel 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• Sense of Gender Award, 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, Best Fantasy Novel 2012 (The Shadowed Sun)
• Hugo Award, Best Novel 2016 (The Fifth Season)
• Hugo Award, Best Novel 2017 (The Obelisk Gate)
• Nebula Award, Best Novel 2018 (The Stone Sky)
• Locus Award, Best Fantasy 2018 (The Stone Sky)
• Hugo Award, Best Novel 2018 (The Stone Sky)
• American Library Association's Alex Award, 2019 (How Long 'til Black Future Month?)

Nominated

• Recommended Reading Shortlist for the Parallax Award, Carl Brandon Society 2006 ("Cloud Dragon Skies")
• Hugo Award, Best Short Story 2010 ("Non-Zero Probabilities")
• Nebula Award, Best Short Story 2010 ("Non-Zero Probabilities")
• James Tiptree Jr. Award, Best Novel 2010 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• Nebula Award, Best Novel 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• Hugo Award, Best Novel 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• World Fantasy Award, Best Novel 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• David Gemmell Morningstar Award, Best Fantasy Newcomer 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• IAFA William L. Crawford Award, 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• Prix Imaginales, Best Foreign Novel 2011 (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
• Nebula Award, Best Novel 2012 (The Kingdom of Gods)
• Nebula Award, Best Novel 2013 (The Killing Moon)
• World Fantasy Award, Best Novel 2013 (The Killing Moon)
• Nebula Award, Best Novel 2015 (The Fifth Season)
• World Fantasy Award, Best Novel 2016 (The Fifth Season)
• Locus Award, Best Novel 2016 (The Fifth Season)
• Nebula Award, Best Novel 2016 (The Obelisk Gate)
• Hugo Award, Best Short Story 2017 ("The City Born Great")
• World Fantasy, Novel (The Obelisk Gate)

Novels

• The City We Became (March 24, 2020)

Inheritance Trilogy

• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010)
• The Broken Kingdoms (2010)
• The Kingdom of Gods (2011)

A novella entitled The Awakened Kingdom set as a sequel to the Inheritance Trilogy was released along with an omnibus of the trilogy on December 9, 2014.

A triptych entitled Shades in Shadow was released on July 28, 2015. It contained three short stories, including a prequel to the trilogy.

Dreamblood Duology

• The Killing Moon (2012)
• The Shadowed Sun (2012)

Broken Earth series

• The Fifth Season (August 2015)
• The Obelisk Gate (August 2016)
• The Stone Sky (August 2017)

Short stories

• "L'Alchimista", published in Scattered, Covered, Smothered, Two Cranes Press, 2004. Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 18th collection. Also available as an Escape Pod episode
• "Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows", Ideomancer, 2004.
• "Cloud Dragon Skies", Strange Horizons, 2005. Also an Escape Pod episode
• "Red Riding-Hood's Child", Fishnet, 2005.
• "The You Train", Strange Horizons, 2007.
• "Bittersweet", Abyss & Apex Magazine, 2007.
• "The Narcomancer", Helix, reprinted in Transcriptase, 2007.
• "The Brides of Heaven", Helix, reprinted in Transcriptase, 2007.
• "Playing Nice With God's Bowling Ball", Baen's Universe, 2008.
• "The Dancer's War", published in Like Twin Stars: Bisexual Erotic Stories, Circlet Press, 2009.
• "Non-Zero Probabilities", Clarkesworld Magazine, 2009.
• "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints in the City Beneath the Still Waters", Postscripts, 2010.
• "On the Banks of the River Lex", Clarkesworld Magazine, 11/2010
• "The Effluent Engine", published in Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, Torquere Press, 2011
• "The Trojan Girl", Weird Tales, 2011
• "Valedictorian", published in After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, Hyperion Book CH, 2012

Short story collections

• How Long 'til Black Future Month? (November 2018)

Nonfiction

• Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture (co-written with Stephen H. Segal, Genevieve Valentine, Zaki Hasan, and Eric San Juan, 2011)

Comics

• Far Sector #1-Ongoing (with Jamal Campbell, DC Comics, 2019)