Nalo Hopkinson (born 20 December 1960) is a Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor. Her novels – Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), The Salt Roads (2003), The New Moon's Arms (2007) – and short stories such as those in her collection Skin Folk (2001) often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling.

Hopkinson has edited two fiction anthologies: Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction and Mojo: Conjure Stories. She was the co-editor with Uppinder Mehan of the 2004 anthology So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, and with Geoff Ryman co-edited Tesseracts 9.

Hopkinson defended George Elliott Clarke's novel Whylah Falls on the CBC's Canada Reads 2002. She was the curator of Six Impossible Things, an audio series of Canadian fantastical fiction on CBC Radio One.

As of 2021, she lives and teaches in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2020, Hopkinson was named the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master, in recognition of "lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy". She grew up in Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada. She was raised in a literary environment; her mother was a library technician and her father a Guyanese poet, playwright and actor who also taught English and Latin. By virtue of this upbringing, Hopkinson had access to writers such as Derek Walcott during her formative years, and could read Kurt Vonnegut's works by the age of six. she was also known to have read the works of Shakespeare around the time she was reading Homer. Though she lived briefly in Connecticut in the U.S. during her father's tenure at Yale University, Hopkinson has said that the culture shock from her move to Toronto from Guyana at the age of 16 was something "to which [she's] still not fully reconciled". She lived in Toronto from 1977 to 2011, before moving to Riverside, California, where she works as Professor of Creative Writing at University of California, Riverside.

Hopkinson has a Master of Arts degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, where she studied with her mentor and instructor, science fiction writer James Morrow. She has learning disabilities.

Career

Before working as a professor, Hopkinson held jobs in libraries, worked as a government culture research officer, and held the position of grants officer at the Toronto Arts Council.

As an author, Hopkinson often uses themes of Caribbean folklore, Afro-Caribbean culture, and feminism.

Hopkinson's favorite writers include Samuel R. Delany, Tobias Buckell, and Charles R. Saunders. Hopkinson designs fabrics based on historical photos and illustrations.

alt=Nalo Hopkinson speaking at a podium|thumb|Hopkinson at the [[Hugo Award ceremony in 2017]]

Awards and recognition

Hopkinson was the recipient of the 1999 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for Emerging Writers.

Brown Girl in the Ring was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1998, and received the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

Midnight Robber was shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award in 2000 and nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2001.

Skin Folk received the World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award in 2003.

The Salt Roads received the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for positive exploration of queer issues in speculative fiction for 2004, presented at the 2005 Gaylaxicon. It was also nominated for the 2004 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

In 2008, The New Moon's Arms received the Aurora Award and the Sunburst Award, making her the first author to receive the Sunburst Award twice. This book was also nominated for the 2007 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

In 2016, Hopkinson received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University. In 2020, she was named the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In 2022, her Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story was awarded the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

Works

Novels

  • Brown Girl in the Ring (1998)
  • Midnight Robber (2000)
  • The Salt Roads (2003)
  • The New Moon's Arms (2007)
  • The Chaos (2012) (Young adult fiction)
  • Sister Mine (2013)
  • Blackheart Man (2024)

Collections

  • Skin Folk (2001)
  • Report From Planet Midnight (2012) (short stories, interview and speech)
  • Falling in Love With Hominids (2015)

Anthologies

  • Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000)
  • Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003)
  • So Long Been Dreaming (2004)
  • Tesseracts Nine with Geoff Ryman (2005)

Short fiction (first publications only)

  • "Slow Cold Chick" in anthology Northern Frights 5 (1998)
  • "A Habit of Waste" in anthology Women of Other Worlds: Excursions through Science Fiction and Feminism (1999)
  • "Precious" in anthology Silver Birch, Blood Moon (1999)
  • "The Glass Bottle Trick" in anthology Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000)
  • "Greedy Choke Puppy" and "Ganger (Ball Lightning)" in anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
  • "Midnight Robber" (excerpt from novel) reprinted in Young Bloods: Stories from Exile 1972–2001 (2001)
  • "Delicious Monster" in anthology Queer Fear II (2002)
  • "Shift" in journal Conjunctions: the New Wave Fabulists.
  • "Herbal" in The Bakkanthology
  • "Whose Upward Flight I Love" reprinted in African Voices
  • "The Smile on the Face" in anthology Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks (2004)
  • "Snow Day" in New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby (2019).
  • "Clap Back" (2021)

Comic book series

  • The Sandman Universe: House of Whispers (DC/Vertigo) (2018–2020)

See also

  • Works by Nalo Hopkinson
  • Nalo Hopkinson papers at the Special Collections and University Archives of University of California, Riverside

References

Further reading

  • "Making the Impossible Possible: An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson" in Alondra Nelson, ed. Afrofuturism: A Special Issue of Social Text. Duke University Press. .
  • Nalo Hopkinson at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction