Ted Chiang


Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards. His short story, "Story of Your Life", was the basis of the film Arrival. He is also artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame.

Early life and career

Chiang was born in 1967 in Port Jefferson, New York. Both of his parents were born in China and immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Chinese Communist Revolution before immigrating to the United States. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan. He graduated from Brown University with a computer science degree. He had been submitting stories to magazines since high school and after attending the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1989 he sold his first story, "The Tower of Babylon" to the Omni science magazine.
, he was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.
Chiang was an instructor at the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.

Reception

Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... has a magnetic effect on the reader". Chiang has commented on "metacognition, or thinking about one’s own thinking" being something most humans, but neither animals nor current AI, are capable of. He has also commented on the lack of competition or regulation on some major tech companies.

Awards

Chiang has published seventeen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019 and has won numerous science fiction awards for his works: a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon" ; the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992; a Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for "Story of Your Life" ; a Sidewise Award for "Seventy-Two Letters" ; a Nebula Award, Locus Award, and Hugo Award for his novelette "Hell Is the Absence of God" ; a Nebula and Hugo Award for his novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" ; a British Science Fiction Association Award, a Locus Award, and the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Exhalation" ; and a Hugo Award and Locus Award for his novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects".
Chiang turned down a Hugo nomination for his short story "Liking What You See: A Documentary" in 2003, on the grounds that the story was rushed due to editorial pressure and did not turn out as he had really wanted.
In 2013, his collection of translated stories Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes won the German Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best foreign science fiction.
YearOrganizationAward title, categoryWorkResultRefs
1991Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaNebula Award for Best Novelette"Tower of Babylon"
1991World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novelette"Tower of Babylon"
1992World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novelette"Understand"
1999James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award CouncilJames Tiptree Jr. Award"Story of Your Life"
1999World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novella"Story of Your Life"
2000Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaNebula Award for Best Novella"Story of Your Life"
2001World Fantasy ConventionWorld Fantasy Award for Best Novella"Seventy-Two Letters"
2001World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novella"Seventy-Two Letters"
2002World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novelette"Hell Is the Absence of God"
2003Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaNebula Award for Best Novelette"Hell Is the Absence of God"
2003James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award CouncilJames Tiptree Jr. Award"Liking What You See: A Documentary"
2008British Science Fiction AssociationBSFA Award,
Best Short Fiction		"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"
2008Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaNebula Award for Best Novelette"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"
2008World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novelette"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"
2009British Science Fiction AssociationBSFA Award,
Best Short Fiction		"Exhalation"
2009World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Short Story"Exhalation"
2011Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaNebula Award for Best Novella"The Lifecycle of Software Objects"
2011World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novella"The Lifecycle of Software Objects"
2014World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novelette"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling"
2017World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long FormArrival
2019Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaNebula Award for Best Novella"Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom"
2020World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novella"Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom"
2020World Science Fiction SocietyHugo Award for Best Novelette"Omphalos"

Republication

His novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" was also published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. "The Great Silence" was included in The Best American Short Stories anthology for 2016, which is a rare honor for stories and authors that fall under the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.

Works

Short stories

The screenwriter Eric Heisserer adapted Chiang's story "Story of Your Life" into the 2016 film Arrival. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.

Personal life

Chiang lives in Washington with his partner, Marcia Glover.