Naomi Kritzer was born in North Carolina and lived in Indiana and Texas before age five. She grew up in Madison, WI, and lived in London for a year at […]

Isabel J. Kim was born in Morristown, NJ. She moved shortly after to Korea, and then immediately after that to California. She continued to spend time between Santa Barbara and […]

Ray Nayler was born in Quebec and spoke French before he spoke English. The son of a hardware engineer, Nayler grew up in Fremont, California. “As a kid, I once […]

Martha Wells grew up in Texas, reading science fiction and fantasy from a young age, getting books at her local library. In her teens, she was writing Star Wars and […]

John Chu was born in Taiwan and moved to the US at age six. He grew up in the Buffalo, NY area, but has moved around since then. “Sometimes, I […]

Suzanne Palmerwas born just outside Boston, MA. She lived in a town called Sudbury, which she says was “mostly famous for Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, the Little Red Schoolhouse that Mary’s […]

J.M. Sidorova was born and grew up in an apartment building in Moscow. Her family did a four-year stint in Singapore for her father’s work, then in West Germany. She […]

Before you ever heard of her, Rebecca Roanhorse was already on her way to glory. In 2018, she showed up in Pittsburgh for the Annual Nebula Awards Conference, nominated for […]

James Sallis was born in Helena, AR, a town near the Mississippi River, just a bit southwest of Memphis. He grew up there with his older brother John. “Fell asleep […]

Writing fiction ranging from light fantasy to hard SF, Michael Swanwick has been earning award nominations since his 1980 novelettes landed on Locus lists and Nebula Awards ballots: “The Feast […]

Nicola Griffith was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. She moved to Luton when she was a few months old, where she made her first media appearance as “Baby rescued […]

Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales. He earned degrees in astronomy from Newcastle University in England and a PhD from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He […]

Simon Stålenhag is perhaps best known as a writer and artist who seamlessly blends the real with the imaginary through resonant, striking imagery. Stålenhag was born in Stockholm, the youngest […]

Joey Eschrich was born in Connecticut and lived in a town called Manchester until age nine, when his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. After high school, he went to Arizona […]

K.A. Teryna was born in two places at once, one of which is beyond the Arctic Circle. When she was two years old, she convinced her kindergarten group that she […]

R.T. Ester was born in Nigeria and “had a somewhat sheltered childhood while I was there but got to attend boarding school for three years starting around age nine.” Before […]

Rich Larson was born in Galmi. Even as a small child in Niger—before he could write—he would tell his sisters stories; or sometimes, he would tell stories to himself. Years […]

If you read Clarkesworld, or for that matter, any of the major science fiction and fantasy magazines, you’ve probably heard of Ken Liu. In our 2020 Clarkesworld interview, we noted […]

Martin Cahill was born in Boston and moved to New York at a young age. “Unfortunately, this means I cannot legally talk about sports while in the confines of the […]

Thomas Ha was born and raised in Honolulu. Growing up, his family had various small shops, and Ha would occasionally do odd jobs for some of them. “I counted and […]

Brenda Cooper was born in Encino, CA, and grew up in Hidden Hills. “I’m a classic California ‘Valley Girl’ who moved south to Orange County at ten. Then I spent […]

Fran Wilde was born in Philadelphia, PA. She spent many summers traveling back and forth from Philadelphia to Hopkinsville, KY. She began to read and write early on, and storytelling […]

Allison King grew up in New Jersey and spent many summers in Taiwan, where she’d visit her cousin. “At first, we role-played some of our favorite stories, such as playing […]

Annalee Newitz was born in Santa Monica, CA, and grew up in Irvine. Their parents were both English teachers—their mother was from the south and began her teaching career in […]

Elizabeth Bear was born in Hartford, CT. Her family did a brief stint in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont when she was an infant, but she mainly grew up in […]

Matthew Kressel was born on Long Island and grew up in Massapequa, where he stayed until leaving for college. “Massapequa seems to end up in the national news every few […]

Jane Espenson grew up in Ames, Iowa. At roughly thirteen-years-old she read an article about how M*A*S*H producers read submitted scripts—it was a description of the normal process of hiring […]

David Barr Kirtley was born in Philadelphia but his earliest memories are of Katonah, in northern Westchester, where he lived through high school. On his site, his parents are described […]

Ai Jiang was born in Fujian, China, and moved to Canada with her family at age four. As a child, she briefly lived in Chinatown in downtown Toronto, then moved […]

Natalia Theodoridou was born and grew up in northern Greece. He graduated with a BA in Theatre from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, then moved to the UK to earn […]