Brenda Clough


Brenda W. Clough is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2002 for her novella May Be Some Time.

Background and personal life

Born Brenda Wang on November 13, 1955, in Washington, D.C., she is the child of Chinese immigrants. In a 2014 interview, she related that "for the first five years of my life I spoke only Chinese. I am told that I started kindergarten without a word of English. I can remember nothing of this, and now only speak Chinese at, you guessed it, a five-year-old level."
She is a self-described "State Department brat" who spent a large amount of her childhood and teenage years living in Europe and Asia due to her father's career. According to her website, "as a girl" she attended the American School of Vientiane in Laos. She later attended Carnegie Mellon University.
She lives with her husband, Larry Clough, in Portland, Oregon.

Career

Starting with her first published novel in 1984, Clough’s works have covered a range of subgenres including, high fantasy, contemporary stories of people with extrasensory perception, time travel stories set in Antarctica, novels set in the Victorian era—including a 12-book historical fiction series following up on Wilkie Collins' 1860 The [Woman in White (novel)|The Woman in White]—and alternate histories of China from the Bronze Age to steampunk.
Clough taught science fiction and fantasy writing workshops at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland and at the Baltimore Science Fiction Society
She is a member of the Book View Café writer's cooperative.

Novels

Averidan series

  • The Crystal Crown, DAW, New York, 1984.
  • The Dragon of Mishbil, DAW, New York, 1985.
  • The Realm Beneath, DAW, New York, 1986.
  • The Name of the Sun, DAW, New York, 1988.

Suburban Gods series

The Thrilling Adventures of the Most Dangerous Woman in Europe

  • Marian Halcombe, 2018. Book View Cafe.
  • The King of the Book, 2021 Book View Cafe.
  • The Jaguaar Queen of Copal, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The Earl in the Shadows, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The True Prince of Vaurantania, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The River Horse Tsar, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The Nautilus Knight, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The Compass of Truth, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The Pirate Princess, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The Single Musketeer, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • The Cobra Marked King, 2021. Book View Cafe.
  • Servants of the Empress, 2024. Book View Cafe.

Other novels

  • An Impossumble Summer, Walker and Company, New York, 1992.
  • Revise the World, Book View Cafe, 2009.
  • Speak to Our Desires, Book View Cafe, 2011.
  • The River Twice, Book View Cafe, 2019.
  • Meet Myself There, Book View Cafe, 2019.
  • The Fog of Time, Book View Cafe, 2019.

Short stories

  • "Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog", Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, 1988 ]
  • "The Indecorous Rescue of Clarinda Merwin", Aboriginal SF, Mar/Apr 1989
  • "Provisional Solution", Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three, 1990
  • "La Vita Nuova", Carmen Miranda's Ghost Is Haunting Space Station Three, 1990
  • "In the Good Old Summer Time", Newer York, 1991
  • "Mastermind of Oz", Amazing, April 1993
  • "The Bottomless Pit", Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Winter 1994
  • "Handing on the Goggles", Superheroes, 1995
  • "The Product of the Extremes", How to Save the World 1995
  • "To Serve a Prince", Science Fiction Age, Nov. 1995
  • "The Birth Day", The Sandman: Book of Dreams, HarperPrism, 1996
  • "Grow Your Own", Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, 2000
  • "Times Fifty", Christianity Today, October 1, 2001
  • "May Be Some Time", Analog, April 2001
  • "Tiptoe, On a Fence Post", Analog, July–August 2002
  • "Escape Hatch", Paradox, Autumn 2003
  • "How the Bells Came from Yang to Hubei", The First Heroes, Tor 2004

Non-fiction

  • "Prairie Oysters in Hell: Interpretations of Isherwood in Dramatic Media", The Reston Review, first quarter 1992 ]
  • "The Theory and Practice of Titles", SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1995 ]
  • "Why I live in Washington, DC", SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1997
  • "Swindlers, Sharks & Scams: Writer Beware!", SFWA Bulletin, series starting in Vol 32, Issue 3, Winter 1998
  • Jo Clayton's Online Lifeline, 1999 ]
  • "Inside Worldcon: the Writers Tour", SFWA Bulletin, Spring 2003
  • "Pride and Preservation, or Finding a Home for Your Papers", SFWA Bulletin, Winter 2004