Monica Byrne | |
---|---|
Born | Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. | July 13, 1981
Occupation | Author, playwright |
Education | Wellesley College (BA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS) Clarion Workshop |
Period | 2010–present |
Genre | Science fiction |
Notable works | The Girl in the Road |
Notable awards | James Tiptree, Jr. Award |
Website | |
monicabyrne |
Monica Byrne (born July 13, 1981) is an American playwright and science fiction author. She is best known for her drama What Every Girl Should Know and her debut novel The Girl in the Road , [1] which won the 2015 James Tiptree, Jr. Award and was nominated for the Locus and Kitschies awards. [2]
Monica Byrne was born on July 13, 1981, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The youngest of five children, she grew up in the college town of Annville, where her father was a lecturer at Lebanon Valley College. [3] Her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer when Monica was seven, and died when Monica was 20. [3]
She attended the Our Lady of the Valley Catholic School for girls in neighboring Lebanon. [3] She earned a B.A. in biochemistry and religion at Wellesley College and an M.S. in geochemistry at MIT. [4] [5] Wanting to become an astronaut and go to Mars, she became an intern at NASA. [3] [6] However, instead of pursuing a scientific career, she decided to become a writer. [7]
In 2008, she attended the Clarion Workshop with Neil Gaiman. [5] She began writing fiction and plays. In 2011, she was artist-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center and Elsewhere Collective. [8] From 2012 to 2017, she was the playwright-in-residence at Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, in Durham, North Carolina. [9] Her plays have been performed in other theaters as well. [10]
Her drama What Every Girl Should Know, about girls at a Catholic girls school around 1914 who worship birth control and women's rights activist Margaret Sanger, was performed in Durham, Berkeley, [11] [12] and New York. [10] [13] The title of the play is drawn from the name of Sanger's sex education column in the New York Call , published in 1912 and 1913. [11] [14] Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle remarked that "Byrne's often clever, provocative script isn't fully fleshed out" and "the swift pacing doesn't make up for how thinly Byrne has developed her story or characters". [11] Pat Craig of the San Jose Mercury News praised the "often lighthearted banter and genuine humor that makes the piece float and deliver some powerful messages without sounding the least like proselytizing". [12]
Her first novel, The Girl in the Road (2014), is set in a future where India and Africa have become economic superpowers. It interleaves the stories of Meena, a young woman crossing the Arabian Sea westward from Mumbai to Djibouti on a floating power-generating bridge, and Mariama, a little girl riding a truck eastward across the African continent from Mauritania to Djibouti. [15] [16] The Wall Street Journal praised it as "a new sensation, a real achievement", [15] whereas Jason Heller of NPR called it a "frustrating patchwork," albeit concluding "...it doesn't make The Girl in the Road's dizzying journey less than worthwhile." [17]
Her second novel, The Actual Star (2021), takes place across three timelines − in the year 1012, in a declining Mayan kingdom; in 2012, following a young woman exploring her Belizean heritage; and in 3012, where a utopian genderless society has been established after climatic ruin destroyed much of the world. [18] The novel was well received by critics − the New Scientist review called it a "stone-cold masterpiece", praising the pacing, characters, and societies. [19] The Tor.com review called it "one of the most effective examples of worldbuilding you’re likely to see on a page this year", deeming it an "epic, visceral novel" that "bristles with ambition". [20]
Byrne considers Norman Rush, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Ursula K. Le Guin as inspiration for her work. [5]
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Called the "King of Horror", his books have sold more than 350 million copies as of 2006, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections. His debut, Carrie, was published in 1974, and was followed by 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand and The Dead Zone. Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas, was his first major departure from the horror genre. The novellas provided the basis for the films Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption. King has published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and has cowritten works with other authors, notably his friend Peter Straub and sons Joe Hill and Owen King.
Tamora Pierce is an American writer of fantasy fiction for teenagers, known best for stories featuring young heroines. She made a name for herself with her first book series, The Song of the Lioness (1983–1988), which followed the main character Alanna through the trials and triumphs of training as a knight.
Nalo Hopkinson 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.
Shelley Jackson is an American writer and artist known for her cross-genre experimental works. These include her hyperfiction Patchwork Girl (1995) and her first novel, Half Life (2006).
Margaret Peterson Haddix is an American writer known best for the two children's series, Shadow Children (1998–2006) and The Missing (2008–2015). She also wrote the tenth volume in the multiple-author series The 39 Clues.
Holly Black is an American writer and editor best known for her children's and young adult fiction. Her most recent work is the New York Times bestselling young adult Folk of the Air series. She is also well known for The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and her debut trilogy of young adult novels officially called the Modern Faerie Tales. Black has won an Eisner Award, a Lodestar Award, a Nebula Award, and a Newbery Honor.
Nnedimma Nkemdili "Nnedi" Okorafor is a Nigerian American writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults. She is best known for her Binti Series and her novels Who Fears Death, Zahrah the Windseeker, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, Lagoon and Remote Control. She has also written for comics and film.
Catherynne M. Valente is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Andre Norton, and Mythopoeic Fantasy awards. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous "Year's Best" volumes. Her critical work has appeared in the International Journal of the Humanities as well as in numerous essay collections.
Charlaine Harris Schulz is an American author who specializes in mysteries. She is best known for her book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was adapted as the TV series True Blood. The television show was a critical and financial success for HBO, running seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014.
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a personal memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.
Charlie Jane Anders is an American writer. She has written several novels as well as shorter fiction, published magazines and websites, and hosted podcasts. In 2005, she received the Lambda Literary Award for work in the transgender category, and in 2009, the Emperor Norton Award. Her 2011 novelette Six Months, Three Days won the 2012 Hugo and was a finalist for the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. Her 2016 novel All the Birds in the Sky was listed No. 5 on Time magazine's "Top 10 Novels" of 2016, won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2017 Crawford Award, and the 2017 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel; it was also a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Genevieve Valentine is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her first novel, Mechanique: A tale of the Circus Tresaulti, won the Crawford Award for a first fantasy novel, and was shortlisted for the Nebula.
The Girl in the Road is a 2014 science fiction novel by Monica Byrne. It tracks two stories in parallel: one of a primary protagonist, Meena, as she crosses a floating energy-harvesting bridge that spans the Arabian Sea from India to Djibouti some time in the 2060s, and another of the youth and young adulthood of Mariama, who travels several decades earlier from Western Africa to Ethiopia.
Ancillary Mercy is a science fiction novel by the American writer Ann Leckie, published in October 2015. It is the final novel in Leckie's "Imperial Radch" space opera trilogy, which began with Ancillary Justice (2013) and was followed by Ancillary Sword (2014).
Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is a nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, and her debut novel A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novel while her story Our Lady of the Open Road won 2016 award for Best Novelette. Her novelette "Two Truths and a Lie" received both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. Her fiction has also won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards.
Alix E. Harrow is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award, and in 2019 she won a Hugo Award for her story "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies". She has published under the name Alix Heintzman.
Gwendolyn Kiste is a Pennsylvania based horror and speculative fiction writer. She writes short stories and novels. She won the 2018 Bram Stoker Award for her novel The Rust Maidens and the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction for Reluctant Mortals.
Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American editor, novelist and poet working in the horror genre.
Bethany C. Morrow is an American author. She writes speculative fiction for adult and young adult audiences and is the author of Mem (2018), A Song Below Water (2020), So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (2021), and the editor of YA anthology Take the Mic (2019).
The Actual Star is a 2021 speculative fiction novel by Monica Byrne. The story takes place across three timelines, with a narrative rooted in Mayan folklore and cosmology. Byrne researched the book for seven years before publishing it.
{{cite web}}
: |last=
has generic name (help)