Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet.[ She is best known for the fantasy novel Among Others, which won the Hugo Award and Nebula Award in 2012, and Tooth and Claw, a Victorian-era novel with dragons which won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. Other works by Walton include the Small Change series, in which she blends alternate history with the cozy mystery genre, comprising Farthing, Ha'penny and Half a Crown. Her fantasy novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award, and her alternate history My Real Children received the 2015 Otherwise Award.
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Walton is also known for her non-fiction, including book reviews and SF commentary in the magazine Tor.com. A collection of her articles were published in What Makes This Book So Great (2014), which won the Locus Award for Best Non-Fiction.
Background
Walton was born in 1964 in Aberdare, a town in the Cynon Valley of Wales.[ Jo Walton's Among Others: 'It's a mythologisation of part of my life' at the Guardian; by David Barnett; published 2 October 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2013]
Walton speaks Welsh language: "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 game publications, such as Pyramid, mostly in collaboration with her husband at the time, Ken Walton, co-founder of the Cakebread & Walton games company.
Walton's 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 King Arthur Britain and the Táin Bó Cúailnge's Ireland. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002. 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 alternative 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,[ Announcement of Quills nominees at The Beat , 2 June 2007] the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel,[ John W. Campbell Memorial Award Finalists . Retrieved 4 June 2007] and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. A sequel, Ha'penny, was published in October 2007, 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)[ 20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards accessed 25 April 2013.]
In April 2007, Howard V. Hendrix stated that professional writers should never release their writings online for free, as this made them equivalent to Strikebreaker.[ Hendrix's "webscabs" post on LiveJournal , April 2007] 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 an online column for Tor Books, mostly retrospective reviews of older books.[ Jo Walton Reads at Tor.com] A collection of these blog posts were published in What Makes This Book So Great (2014). She also wrote a series of articles revisiting the Hugo award nominees for each year from 1953 to 2000, which were later collected as An Informal History of the Hugos (2018).
Her book, Among Others (2012), won several awards, including both the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Nebula Award for Best Novel.[ the Thessaly trilogy (2015–16), a science fiction/fantasy series involving the Greek Gods and a re-imagining of Plato's Republic;]
In February 2018, Walton was the Literary/Fan Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker at the 36th annual Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium.
In November 2022, Walton released her original audio drama Heart's Home, based on a Welsh folk tale, with Odyssey Theatre as part of The Other Path podcast.
Awards
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| Related Work | 2019 | An Informal History of the Hugos | |
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| 2015 | My Real Children | |
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| 2002 | Jo Walton | |
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| 2017 | Necessity | |
| SF Novel | 2007 | Farthing | |
| Collection | 2019 | Starlings | |
| Nonfiction | 2015 | What Makes This Book So Great | |
| 2019 | An Informal History of the Hugos | |
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| 2012 | Among Others | |
| 2017 | Thessaly trilogy | |
| 2020 | Lent | |
| 2022 | Or What You Will | |
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| 2012 | Among Others | |
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| 2009 | Half a Crown | |
| 2016 | The Just City | |
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| 2012 | Among Others | |
| 2015 | My Real Children | |
Personal life
Walton moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, after her first novel was published. She is married to Emmet A. O'Brien.
Bibliography
Novels
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Tooth and Claw (November 2003, Tor Books, )
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Lifelode (February 2009, NESFA Press,
[Printed, according to the Salt Lake County library catalog, http://www.slcolibrary.org/ , "in a limited hardcover edition of 800 copies"] )
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Among Others (January 2011, Tor Books )
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My Real Children (May 2014, Tor Books, )
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Lent (May 2019, Tor Books, )
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Or What You Will (July 2020, Tor Books, )
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Everybody's Perfect (forthcoming)
[ March Subsidiary Deals]
Sulien series
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The King's Peace (2000, Tor Books)
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The King's Name (December 2001, Tor Books, )
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The Prize in the Game (December 2002, Tor Books, )
Small Change trilogy
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Farthing (August 2006, Tor Books, )
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Ha'penny (October 2007, Tor Books, )
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Half a Crown (August 2008, Tor Books, )
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"Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" (short story) (July 2010, Tor Books) (included in Starlings)
Thessaly trilogy
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The Just City (January 2015, Tor Books, )
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The Philosopher Kings (June 2015, Tor Books, )
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Necessity (July 2016, Tor Books, )
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Thessaly, the Complete Trilogy (September 2017, Tor Books, )
Other works
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GURPS Celtic Myth (with Ken Walton; 1995, roleplaying supplement)
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The End of the World in Duxford (1997), a poem inspired by Larry Niven's short story "Inconstant Moon"
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Muses and Lurkers (2001, poetry chapbook, edited by Eleanor Evans)
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Realms of Sorcery (with Ken Walton) (2001, roleplaying supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play)
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Sybils and Spaceships, poetry chapbook (2009, NESFA Press)
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What Makes This Book So Great, collected essays and book reviews (2014, Tor Books, )
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Starlings, short story and poetry collection (2018, Tachyon Publications)
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An Informal History of the Hugos, collected essays and book reviews (2018, Tor Books)
Short stories
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"Sleeper" (2014, Tor.com) (included in "Starlings")
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"Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" (2009, Tor.com) (included in "Starlings")
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"The Jump Rope Rhyme" (2017, Tor.com)
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"A Burden Shared" (2017, Tor.com) (included in "Starlings")
Critical studies, reviews and biography
External links
