Mary Robinette Kowal


Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author and puppeteer.

Life and career

Mary Robinette Harrison was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, attended William G. Enloe High School, and studied at East Carolina University. She graduated with a degree in Art Education with a minor in theater, and began work as a professional puppeteer in 1989. She has performed for the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Productions, and her own production company, Other Hand Productions. She also worked in Iceland on the children's television show LazyTown for two seasons. She was recently accepted as a participant in a Sesame Puppetry Workshop.
Kowal served as art director for Shimmer Magazine and in 2010 was named art director for Weird Tales. She served as secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for two years, was elected to the position of SFWA Vice President in 2010, and was elected SFWA President in 2019. In 2008, her second year of eligibility, she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Kowal's work as an author includes "For Solo Cello, op. 12," which made the preliminary ballot for the 2007 Nebula Awards. Her fiction has also appeared in Talebones Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Apex Digest, among other venues. Her debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Two of her short fiction works have been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story: "Evil Robot Monkey" in 2009 and "For Want of a Nail," which won the award in 2011. Her novelette, The Lady Astronaut of Mars was ineligible for the 2013 Hugo Awards because it had only been released as part of an audiobook, but was later published in text format and went on to win the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. The Calculating Stars, the first novel in her Lady Astronaut of Mars series, won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 2018 Sidewise Award for Alternate History.
In 2009, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
After appearing several times as a guest star in the podcast, Writing Excuses, she became a full-time cast member at the start of their sixth season in 2011.
Kowal is also a voice actor, having recorded audiobook versions of books written by authors such as John Scalzi, Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow and Kage Baker.
In July 2018, after criticism that many authors who were Hugo award finalists at the August 2018 World Science Fiction Convention had not been selected to participate on that year's Worldcon panels, Kowal took over as Programming chair and rapidly "repaired and replaced" many Programming sessions, working with a large and diverse team to do so.
Kowal has served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America since 2019.

Awards and nominations

Glamourist Histories series