Jo Walton
Encyclopedia
Jo Walton is a Welsh
-Canadian
fantasy
and science fiction
writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award
for her novel Tooth and Claw
in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny
was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award
. Her novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award.
of Wales. She went to Park School in Aberdare, then Aberdare Girls’ Grammar School. She lived for a year in Cardiff and went to Howell's School Llandaff
, then finished her education at Oswestry School
in Shropshire
, and at the University of Lancaster. She lived in London for two years, lived in Lancaster until 1997, then moved to Swansea
, where she lived until moving to Canada in 2002.
Walton speaks Welsh
, saying "it's the second language of my family of origin, my grandmother was a well known Welsh scholar and translator, I studied it in school from five to sixteen, I have a ten year old's fluency on grammar and vocab but no problem whatsoever with pronunciation".
publications, such as Pyramid
, mostly in collaboration with her husband at the time, Ken Walton. Walton was also active in online science fiction fandom
, especially in the Usenet
groups rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. Her poem "The Lurkers Support Me in E-Mail" is widely quoted on it and in other online arguments, often without her name attached.
Her first three novels, The King's Peace
(2000), The King's Name (2001), and The Prize in the Game (2002) were all fantasy and set in the same world, which is based on Arthurian Britain and the Táin Bó Cúailnge
's Ireland
. Her next novel, Tooth and Claw
(2003) was intended as a novel Anthony Trollope
could have written, but about dragons rather than humans.
Farthing
was her first science fiction
novel, placing the genre of the "cozy" mystery firmly inside an alternate history in which the United Kingdom
made peace with Adolf Hitler
before the involvement of the United States
in World War II
. It was nominated for a Nebula Award
, a Quill Award
, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
. A sequel, Ha'penny
, was published in October 2007 by Tor Books
, with the final book in the trilogy, Half a Crown
, published in September 2008. Ha'penny won the 2008 Prometheus Award
(jointly with Harry Turtledove
's novel The Gladiator) and has been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award
.
In April 2007, Howard V. Hendrix
stated that professional writers should never release their writings online for free, as this made them equivalent to scabs
. Walton responded to this by declaring 23 April as International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
, a day in which writers who disagreed with Hendrix could release their stories online en masse. In 2008 Walton celebrated this day by posting several chapters of an unfinished sequel to Tooth and Claw, Those Who Favor Fire.
In 2008, Walton began writing a column for Tor.com
, mostly retrospective reviews of older books.
, after her first novel was published and is now a Canadian citizen
She is married to Ireland-born Dr. Emmet A. O'Brien. She has one child, a son named Alexander.
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
-Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
for her novel Tooth and Claw
Tooth and Claw (novel)
Tooth and Claw is a fantasy novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in 2003. It won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2004.-Plot summary:...
in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny
Ha'penny (novel)
Ha'penny is a science fiction novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in October, 2007.-Plot summary:The book is mystery thriller set inside an alternate history in which the United Kingdom made peace with Adolf Hitler in 1941....
was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
. Her novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award.
Background
Walton was born in Aberdare, in the Cynon ValleyCynon Valley
The Cynon Valley , is a famous former coal mining valley within the South Wales Valleys of Wales. The Cynon Valley lies between the other mining Valley of Rhondda and the iron industrial Valley of the Merthyr Valley. Its main towns are Aberdare located North of the Valley and Mountain Ash located...
of Wales. She went to Park School in Aberdare, then Aberdare Girls’ Grammar School. She lived for a year in Cardiff and went to Howell's School Llandaff
Howell's School Llandaff
Howell’s School Llandaff is an independent school in Llandaff, Cardiff. The school teaches girls from the age of 3 years up to 18, and contains a nursery, junior, senior school and a sixth form college...
, then finished her education at Oswestry School
Oswestry School
Oswestry School is a co-educational independent school, located in the town of Oswestry, Shropshire, England. Founded in 1407 by David Holbache and his wife Guinevere Holbache, it is the second oldest non-denominational school in England....
in Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
, and at the University of Lancaster. She lived in London for two years, lived in Lancaster until 1997, then moved to Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
, where she lived until moving to Canada in 2002.
Walton speaks Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, saying "it's the second language of my family of origin, my grandmother was a well known Welsh scholar and translator, I studied it in school from five to sixteen, I have a ten year old's fluency on grammar and vocab but no problem whatsoever with pronunciation".
Writing career
Walton has been writing since she was 13, but her first novel was not published until 2000. Before that, she had been published in a number of role-playing gameRole-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
publications, such as Pyramid
Pyramid (magazine)
Pyramid is a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, though it has been published on the Internet since March...
, mostly in collaboration with her husband at the time, Ken Walton. Walton was also active in online science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
, especially in the Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
groups rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. Her poem "The Lurkers Support Me in E-Mail" is widely quoted on it and in other online arguments, often without her name attached.
Her first three novels, The King's Peace
The King's Peace (novel)
The King's Peace is a fantasy novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in October 2000. The first of Walton's published novels, it is also the first of three "Sulien" novels. It was followed in 2001 by a sequel, The King's Name, and in 2002 by a prequel, The Prize in the Game...
(2000), The King's Name (2001), and The Prize in the Game (2002) were all fantasy and set in the same world, which is based on Arthurian Britain and the Táin Bó Cúailnge
Táin Bó Cúailnge
is a legendary tale from early Irish literature, often considered an epic, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse. It tells of a war against Ulster by the Connacht queen Medb and her husband Ailill, who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge, opposed only by the teenage...
's Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. Her next novel, Tooth and Claw
Tooth and Claw (novel)
Tooth and Claw is a fantasy novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in 2003. It won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2004.-Plot summary:...
(2003) was intended as a novel Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
could have written, but about dragons rather than humans.
Farthing
Farthing (novel)
Farthing is an alternate history novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in August, 2006. A sequel, Ha'penny, was released in October 2007 by Tor Books. A third novel in the series, Half a Crown, was released in September 2008, also from Tor.-Background:The novel is set in the 1949...
was her first science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel, placing the genre of the "cozy" mystery firmly inside an alternate history in which the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
made peace with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
before the involvement of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was nominated for a Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
, a Quill Award
Quill Awards
The Quill Award was an American literary award that ran for three years in 2005-07. It was a "consumer-driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy." The Quills Foundation, the organization behind the Quill Award, was supported by a number of notable media corporations,...
, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
Sidewise Award for Alternate History
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with...
. A sequel, Ha'penny
Ha'penny (novel)
Ha'penny is a science fiction novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in October, 2007.-Plot summary:The book is mystery thriller set inside an alternate history in which the United Kingdom made peace with Adolf Hitler in 1941....
, was published in October 2007 by Tor Books
Tor Books
Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...
, with the final book in the trilogy, Half a Crown
Half a Crown (novel)
Half a Crown is a science fiction novel written by Jo Walton published by Tor Books in September, 2008. The first "Small Change" novel, Farthing, was released in August 2006...
, published in September 2008. Ha'penny won the 2008 Prometheus Award
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
(jointly with Harry Turtledove
Harry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.- Life :...
's novel The Gladiator) and has been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
.
In April 2007, Howard V. Hendrix
Howard V. Hendrix
Howard Vincent Hendrix is an American scholar and science fiction writer. He was born in Cincinnati. He is a cousin of blues musician Mike Tetrault. He is author of the novels Lightpaths and Standing Wave, Better Angels, Empty Cities of the Full Moon, The Labyrinth Key, and Spears of God...
stated that professional writers should never release their writings online for free, as this made them equivalent to scabs
Strikebreaker
A strikebreaker is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who are not employed by the company prior to the trade union dispute, but rather hired prior to or during the strike to keep the organisation running...
. Walton responded to this by declaring 23 April as International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is a commemoration declared by author Jo Walton, held on April 23 and first celebrated in 2007, in response to remarks made by Howard V. Hendrix stating that he was opposed "to the increasing presence in our organization [the Science Fiction and Fantasy...
, a day in which writers who disagreed with Hendrix could release their stories online en masse. In 2008 Walton celebrated this day by posting several chapters of an unfinished sequel to Tooth and Claw, Those Who Favor Fire.
In 2008, Walton began writing a column for Tor.com
Tor Books
Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...
, mostly retrospective reviews of older books.
Personal life
Walton moved to Montreal, QuebecQuebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, after her first novel was published and is now a Canadian citizen
She is married to Ireland-born Dr. Emmet A. O'Brien. She has one child, a son named Alexander.
Novels
- The King's PeaceThe King's Peace (novel)The King's Peace is a fantasy novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in October 2000. The first of Walton's published novels, it is also the first of three "Sulien" novels. It was followed in 2001 by a sequel, The King's Name, and in 2002 by a prequel, The Prize in the Game...
(October 2000, Tor BooksTor BooksTor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...
, ISBN 0-312-87229-1) - The King's NameThe King's Name (novel)The King's Name is a fantasy novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in October 2001. It was Walton's second novel and a sequel to her first, The King's Peace...
(December 2001, Tor Books, ISBN 0-312-87653-X) - The Prize in the GameThe Prize in the Game (novel)The Prize in the Game is Jo Walton's third novel, published by Tor Books in December 2002. The novel is a prequel to Walton's first two novels, The King's Peace and The King's Name; its main characters appear as minor or off-stage characters in those books...
(December 2002, Tor Books, ISBN 0-7653-0263-2) - Tooth and ClawTooth and Claw (novel)Tooth and Claw is a fantasy novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in 2003. It won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2004.-Plot summary:...
(November 2003, Tor Books, ISBN 0-7653-0264-0) - FarthingFarthing (novel)Farthing is an alternate history novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in August, 2006. A sequel, Ha'penny, was released in October 2007 by Tor Books. A third novel in the series, Half a Crown, was released in September 2008, also from Tor.-Background:The novel is set in the 1949...
(August 2006, Tor Books, ISBN 0-7653-1421-5) - Ha'pennyHa'penny (novel)Ha'penny is a science fiction novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books in October, 2007.-Plot summary:The book is mystery thriller set inside an alternate history in which the United Kingdom made peace with Adolf Hitler in 1941....
(October 2007, Tor Books, ISBN 0-7653-1853-9) - Half a CrownHalf a Crown (novel)Half a Crown is a science fiction novel written by Jo Walton published by Tor Books in September, 2008. The first "Small Change" novel, Farthing, was released in August 2006...
(August 2008, Tor Books) - Lifelode (February 2009, NESFA PressNESFA PressNESFA Press is the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Association, Inc. The NESFA Press primarily produces three types of books:...
, printed, according to the Salt Lake County library catalog, http://www.slcolibrary.org/, "in a limited hardcover edition of 800 copies", ISBN 1-886778-82-5) - Among Others (January 2011, Tor Books), ISBN 978-0-7653-2153-4
Other works
- GURPSGURPSThe Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting...
Celtic Myth (with Ken Walton) (1995, roleplaying supplement) - Muses and Lurkers (2001, poetry chapbook, edited by Eleanor Evans)
- Realms of Sorcery (with Ken Walton) (2002, roleplaying supplement)
- Sybils and Spaceships poetry chapbook (2009, NESFA Press)
External links
- Jo Walton's Webpage
- Jo Walton's LiveJournal
- Jo Walton's page at Tor.com, with links to her reviews
- "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction", short story