Charlie Jane Anders


Charlie Jane Anders is an American writer specializing in speculative fiction. She has written several novels as well as shorter fiction. Her novels, including as All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, received critical acclaim and won major literary awards including the Nebula Award for Best Novel and Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. All three novels in her young adult trilogy Unstoppable have won the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book.
Anders's fiction has received numerous literary awards, including the Crawford Award, Hugo Award, Lambda Literary Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award, and Theodore Sturgeon Award.

Early life, education and career

Anders was born in a small farm town near Storrs, Connecticut on July 24, 1969 and grew up in nearby Mansfield. She studied English and Asian Literature at the University of Cambridge, and studied in China before moving to San Francisco in the early 2000s. Anders co-founded Other magazine, the "magazine of pop culture and politics for the new outcasts", with Annalee Newitz, and served as publisher during the magazine's run from 2002 to 2007. In 2006, she was a co-founding editor of the science fiction blog io9, a position she left in April 2016 to focus on novel writing.

Literary career

Anders has had science fiction published in Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Flurb. Additional literary work has been published in McSweeney's and Zyzzyva. Anders's work has appeared in Salon, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Mother Jones, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She has had stories and essays in anthologies such as Sex For America: Politically Inspired Erotica, The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, and That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation.
Her first novel, Choir Boy, appeared in 2005 from Soft Skull Press; a young adult story about a boy transitioning gender in order to sing. In 2014, Tor Books acquired two novels from Anders. All the Birds in the Sky was published in 2016 and The City in the Middle of the Night was published 2019.
In August 2025, her most recent novel Lessons in Magic and Disaster was published.

''Unstoppable'' trilogy

acquired Unstoppable, a young adult trilogy from Anders in 2017. The first novel, Victories Greater Than Death, was published in 2021, and the second, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, in 2022. The third novel, Promises Stronger Than Darkness, was published in 2023.

Other work

In addition to her work as an author and publisher, Anders is a longtime event organizer. She organized a "ballerina pie fight" in 2005 for Other magazine; co-organized the Cross-Gender Caravan, a national transgender and genderqueer author tour; and a Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl in San Francisco. She emcees "Writers with Drinks", an award-winning San Francisco-based monthly reading series begun in 2001 that features authors from a wide range of genres and has been noted for its "free-associative author introductions".
She has been a juror for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and for the Lambda Literary Award. She formerly published the satirical website godhatesfigs.com which was featured by The Sunday Times as website of the week.
A television adaptation of Anders' Six Months, Three Days was being prepared for NBC in 2013, with the script written by Eric Garcia.
In March 2018, with her partner and co-host Annalee Newitz, Anders launched the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, which "explor the meaning of science fiction, and how it's relevant to real-life science and society." The podcast won the Hugo Award for Best Fancast in 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Anders co-created the Marvel Comics character Shela Sexton, also known as Escapade, a trans mutant super hero. The character debuted in Marvel's Voices: Pride #1 in June 2022.

Awards and honors

Literary awards

YearWorkAwardCategoryResultRef.
2006Choir BoyEdmund White Award—
2006Choir BoyLambda Literary AwardTransgender LiteratureWon
2011"Six Months, Three Days"Nebula AwardNovelette
2012"Six Months, Three Days"Hugo AwardNoveletteWon
2012"Six Months, Three Days"Theodore Sturgeon Award—
2016All the Birds in the SkyNebula AwardNovelWon
2016All the Birds in the SkyTime Magazine Top Ten Novels of 2016—
2017All the Birds in the SkyCrawford Award—Won
2017All the Birds in the SkyHugo AwardNovel
2017All the Birds in the SkyLocus AwardFantasy NovelWon
2017"Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue"James Tiptree Jr. Award—
2018"Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue"Locus AwardShort Story
2018"Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue"Theodore Sturgeon Award—Won
2018Six Months, Three Days, Five OthersLocus AwardCollection
2020All the Birds in the SkyTime Magazine 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time—
2020"The Bookstore at the End of America"Locus AwardShort StoryWon
2020The City in the Middle of the NightArthur C. Clarke Award—
2020The City in the Middle of the NightHugo AwardNovel
2020The City in the Middle of the NightLocus AwardScience Fiction NovelWon
2021All the Birds in the SkySeiun AwardTranslated Novel
2021"If You Take My Meaning"Locus AwardNovelette
2021"If You Take My Meaning"Theodore Sturgeon Award—
2021Victories Greater Than DeathAndre Norton Award—
2022Even Greater MistakesLocus AwardCollectionWon
2022Never Say You Can’t SurviveHugo AwardRelated WorkWon
2022Never Say You Can’t SurviveWorld Fantasy AwardSpecial-Professional
2022Victories Greater Than DeathLocus AwardYoung Adult BookWon
2022Victories Greater Than DeathLodestar Award—
2023Dreams Bigger Than HeartbreakLocus AwardYoung Adult BookWon
2023Dreams Bigger Than HeartbreakLodestar Award—
2024Promises Stronger Than DarknessLocus AwardYoung Adult BookWon
2024Promises Stronger Than DarknessLodestar Award—
2024A Soul in the WorldLocus AwardShort Story

Fancasts

Novels

  • ''Unstoppable''

Short story collections

Short fiction

Non-fiction

*