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Catherynne M. Valente

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For the Italian singer, see Caterina Valente.
Catherynne M. Valente
Born (1979-05-05) May 5, 1979 (age 45)
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Occupation
Alma materUC San Diego
University of Edinburgh
GenrePostmodern, fantasy, mythpunk
Notable awardsJames Tiptree Jr. (2006)
Million Writers Award (2007)
Rhysling Award (2007)
Mythopoeic Award (2008)
Andre Norton Award (2009)
Locus Award (2014)
Website
catherynnemvalente.com

Catherynne Morgan Valente[1] (born May 5, 1979) is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Jr. Award, Andre Norton Award, and Mythopoeic Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, and numerous "Year's Best" volumes. Her critical work has appeared in the International Journal of the Humanities as well as other essay collections.

Career

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Valente's 2009 book Palimpsest won the Lambda Award for LGBT Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror. Her two-volume series The Orphan's Tales won the 2008 Mythopoeic Award, and its first volume, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, won the 2006 James Tiptree Jr. Award and was nominated for the 2007 World Fantasy Award. In 2012, Valente won three Locus Awards: Best Novelette (White Lines on a Green Field), Best Novella (Silently and Very Fast) and Best YA Novel (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making).

In 2011, her children's novel The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making debuted at #8 on The New York Times Best Seller list. Its sequel, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, featured at #5 on Time's Best Fiction of 2012 list.

In 2009, she donated her archive to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Collection in the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.[2]

She is a regular panelist on the podcast SF Squeecast.[3]

Multimedia and mythpunk

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Valente tours with singer/songwriter S. J. Tucker, who has composed albums based on Valente's work. The pair perform reading concerts featuring dancers, aerial artists, art auctions featuring jewelry and paintings based on the novels, and other performances.[4]

Valente is active in the crowdfunding movement of online artists, and her novel The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making was the first[citation needed] online, crowdfunded book to win a major literary award before traditional publication.[5][6][7]

In a 2006 blog post, Valente coined the term mythpunk as a joke for describing her own and other works of challenging folklore-based fantasy.[8] Valente and other critics and writers have discussed mythpunk as a subgenre of mythic fiction that starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodernist literary techniques.[9]

Selected works

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Novels

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Novellas

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The Orphan's Tales
Main article: The Orphan's Tales
A Dirge for Prester John

Published by Night Shade Books:

Fairyland
Main article: Fairyland (series)

Published by Feiwel & Friends:

  • Prequel: The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While[14] (2011)
  • The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011) started out in 2009 as a crowdfunded middle-grade online novel (originally, a fictional children's book in Palimpsest).[15]
  • The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (2012)
  • The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (2013)
  • The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (2015)
  • The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (2016)

Fiction collections

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  • This Is My Letter to the World: The Omikuji Project, Cycle One (2010)
  • Ventriloquism (2010)
  • Myths of Origin, Omnibus collection containing The Labyrinth, Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams, The Grass-Cutting Sword, and Under in the Mere (2011)
  • The Melancholy of Mechagirl (2013)
  • The Bread We Eat in Dreams (2013)
  • The Future Is Blue (2018)

Poetry collections

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  • Music of a Proto-Suicide (2004)
  • Apocrypha (2005)
  • Oracles: A Pilgrimage (2006)
  • The Descent of Inanna (2006)
  • A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects (May 2008)

Short fiction

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  • "The Oracle Alone" Music of a Proto-Suicide (2004)
  • "Ghosts of Gunkanjima" Papaveria Press (2005)
  • "The Maiden-Tree" Cabinet des Fees (2005)
  • "Bones Like Black Sugar" Fantasy Magazine (2005)
  • "Psalm of the Second Body" PEN Book of Voices (2005)
  • "Ascent Is Not Allowed" The Minotaur in Pamplona (2005)
  • "Thread: A Triptych" Lone Star Stories (2006)
  • "Urchins, While Swimming" Clarkesworld Magazine (2006)
  • "Milk and Apples" Electric Velocipede (2006)
  • "Temnaya and the House of Books" Mythic (2006)
  • "A Grey and Soundless Tide" Salon Fantastique (2006)
  • "A Dirge For Prester John" Interfictions (2007)
  • "The Ballad of the Sinister Mr. Mouth" Lone Star Stories (2007)
  • "La Serenissima" Endicott Studio (2007)
  • "The Proslogium of the Great Lakes" Farrago's Wainscot (2007)
  • "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica" Clarkesworld Magazine (2008)
  • "Tales of Beaty and Strangeness: City of Blind Delights" Clockwork Phoenix (2008)
  • "The Hanged Man" Farrago's Wainscot (2008)
  • "An Anthology of Urban Fantasy: Palimpsest" Paper Cities, ed. Ekaterina Sedia (2008)
  • "The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World" Spectra Pulse (2008)
  • "Golubash, or, Wine-War-Blood-Elegy" Federations (2009)
  • "The Secret History of Mirrors" Clockwork Phoenix 2 (2009)
  • "A Book of Villainous Tales:A Delicate Architecture" Troll's Eye View (2009)
  • "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew" Clarkesworld Magazine (2009)
  • "The Anachronist's Cookbook" Steampunk Tales (2009)
  • "A Between Books Anthology: Proverbs of Hell" The Stories in Between (2010)
  • "The Days of Flaming Motorcycles" Dark Faith (2010)
  • "Secretario" Weird Tales (2010)
  • "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time" Clarkesworld Magazine (2010)
  • "How to Become a Mars Overlord" Lightspeed (2010)
  • "15 Panels Depicting the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai" Haunted Legends (2010)
  • "In the Future When All's Well" Teeth (2011)
  • "A Voice Like a Hole" Welcome to Bordertown (2011)
  • "The Wolves of Brooklyn" Fantasy Magazine (2011)
  • "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While" Tor.com (2011)
  • "White Lines on a Green Field" Subterranean Magazine (2011)

Nonfiction

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  • Introduction to Jane Eyre (Illustrated) (2007)
  • "Regeneration X" in Chicks Dig Time Lords (2010)
  • Indistinguishable from Magic (2014)

Anthologies edited

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Awards

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Year Work (if applicable) Award Ref
2006 The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden (vol. 1) James Tiptree Jr. Award [16]
2007 World Fantasy Award Nominee (Best Novel) [17]
"Urchins, While Swimming storySouth Million Writers Award [18]
2008 "The Seven Devils of Central California" Rhysling Award (long poem category)
The Orphan's Tales (series) Mythopoeic Award (adult literature) [19]
2009 "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica" World Fantasy Award Nominee (nominee, Best Short Story) [20]
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland Andre Norton Award [21]
2010 CultureGeek Readers' Choice Award (Best Web Fiction of the 21st Century) [22]
Palimpsest Hugo Award for Best Novel (nominee) [23]
Locus Award (nominee) [23]
Lambda Literary Award [23]
2012 SF Squeecast (with Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, and Elizabeth Bear) Hugo Award for Best Fancast [24]
"Fade to White" Nebula Award for Best Novelette (nominee) [25]
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland[26] Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book
"Silently and Very Fast" Locus Award for Best Novella
2014 The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book [27]
2016 "The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction [28]
2017 The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire [29]
The Future Is Blue Theodore Sturgeon Award [30]
2019 Space Opera Hugo Award for Best Novel (nominee)
2022 The Past Is Red Hugo Award for Best Novella (nominee) [31]
2022 "L'Esprit de L'Escalier" Hugo Award for Best Novelette (nominee) [31]
2022 "The Sin of America" Hugo Award for Best Short Story (nominee) [31]

References

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  1. ^ "Catherynne M. Valente: Weird Hybrids". Locus. Vol. 69, no. 2 / 625. February 3, 2013. Archived from the original on November 9, 2017.
  2. ^ Thomas, Lynne M. (March 20, 2009). "Hugos, Catherynne Valente Archives, and CLIR Reports". Confessions of a Curator. Archived from the original on November 13, 2012. Retrieved March 21, 2009.
  3. ^ "List of regular contributors". SF Squeecast blog. Archived from the original on August 19, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
  4. ^ "Two Artists, Many Stripes, One Voice: An Interview With S.j. Tucker & Catherynne M. Valente". The Interstitial Arts Foundation. March 31, 2011. Archived from the original on March 30, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  5. ^ "2010 Nebula Awards". The Locus Index to SF Awards. 2010. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  6. ^ "Nebula Awards Results". Science Fiction Awards Watch. May 15, 2010. Archived from the original on May 25, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  7. ^ "The Big Idea: Catherynne M. Valente". Whatever: All Cake and Hand Grenades. May 12, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  8. ^ "A Rose in Twelve Names". Rules for Anchorites. March 28, 2006. Archived from the original on May 6, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  9. ^ Vanderhooft, JoSelle (January 24, 2011). "Mythpunk: An Interview with Catherynne M. Valente". Archived from the original on February 19, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
  10. ^ The Glass Town Game. Kirkus Reviews.
  11. ^ "The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M Valente". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
  12. ^ Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente. Booklist Online.
  13. ^ "Announcing Speak Easy, a New Novella by Catherynne M. Valente". Subterranean Press. January 4, 2015. Archived from the original on April 11, 2015. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  14. ^ Valente, Catherynne M. (July 27, 2011). "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland – For a Little While by Catherynne M. Valente". Tor.com. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  15. ^ Valente, Catherynne M. "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making – About This Book". Archived from the original on March 1, 2012. Retrieved June 16, 2009.
  16. ^ "2006 Winners". tiptree.org. Archived from the original on September 29, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  17. ^ World Fantasy Convention (2010). "Award Winners and Nominees". Archived from the original on December 1, 2010. Retrieved February 4, 2011.
  18. ^ "storySouth Million Writers Award". www.storysouth.com. Archived from the original on March 22, 2013. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  19. ^ "Mythopoeic Awards - 2008 - Mythopoeic Society". Mythopoeic Society. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  20. ^ "World Fantasy Awards -- Complete Listing". www.worldfantasy.org. Archived from the original on October 15, 2013. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  21. ^ "sfadb: Andre Norton Award 2010". www.sfadb.com. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  22. ^ "Nebula Awards Interview: Catherynne M. Valente - SFWA". SFWA. December 20, 2010. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  23. ^ a b c "sfadb : Catherynne M. Valente Awards". www.sfadb.com. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  24. ^ The Hugo Awards: 2012 Hugo Award Winners September 2, 2012, Accessed September 3, 2012
  25. ^ "Congratulations to the 2012 Nebula Award Winners". Tor.com. May 18, 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  26. ^ "2012 Locus Award Winners". Locus Online News. June 16, 2012. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  27. ^ "Locus Young Adult Award". Worlds without End. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  28. ^ "Valente Wins Eugie Award". Locus. September 6, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
  29. ^ "Locus Young Adult Award". Worlds without End. Archived from the original on January 8, 2018. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
  30. ^ "2017 Campbell and Sturgeon Award Winners". Solaris. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
  31. ^ a b c "2022 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. April 7, 2022. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
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