Jo Walton


Jo Walton 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 and Nebula Awards 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 Tiptree Award.
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, 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. She went to Park School in Aberdare, then Aberdare Girls' Grammar School. She lived for a year in Cardiff, went to Howell's School, Llandaff and finished her education at Oswestry School in Shropshire and at the Lancaster University. She lived in London for two years and lived in Lancaster until 1997. She then moved to Swansea, where she lived until she moved to Canada in 2002.
Walton speaks Welsh: "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 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.
Walton's first three novels, The King's Peace, The King's Name and The Prize in the Game, were all fantasy and set in the same world, which is based on Arthurian 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, 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, 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, with the final book in the trilogy, Half a Crown, published in September 2008. Ha'penny won the 2008 Prometheus Award 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 an online column for Tor.com, mostly retrospective reviews of older books. A collection of these blog posts were published in What Makes This Book So Great. 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.
Her book, Among Others, won several awards, including both the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Nebula Award for Best Novel. Her recent works include the alternate history My Real Children, which won the Tiptree Award; the Thessaly trilogy, a science fiction/fantasy series involving the Greek Gods and a re-imagining of Plato's Republic; and the historical fantasy Lent, set in Renaissance Italy. Her 2020 novel Or What You Will is a metafictional novel about immortality and creativity, featuring an ageing fantasy novelist writing a book set in Renaissance Florence.
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

AwardCategoryYearWorkResult
British Fantasy AwardFantasy Novel2012Among OthersWon
BSFA AwardNonfiction2021"Books In Which No Bad Things Happen"Nomitated
Hugo AwardNovel2012Among OthersWon
Hugo AwardRelated Work2019An Informal History of the HugosNomitated
James Tiptree Jr. Award–2010LifelodeNomitated
James Tiptree Jr. Award–2015My Real ChildrenWon
John W. Campbell AwardNew Writer2001Jo WaltonNomitated
John W. Campbell AwardNew Writer2002Jo WaltonWon
John W. Campbell Memorial AwardSF Novel2007FarthingNomitated
Lambda Literary AwardSF, Fantasy & Horror2008Ha'pennyNomitated
Locus AwardFantasy Novel2012Among OthersNomitated
Locus AwardFantasy Novel2017NecessityNomitated
Locus AwardSF Novel2007FarthingNomitated
Locus AwardCollection2019StarlingsNomitated
Locus AwardNonfiction2015What Makes This Book So GreatWon
Locus AwardNonfiction2019An Informal History of the HugosNomitated
Mythopoeic AwardAdult Literature2010LifelodeWon
Mythopoeic AwardAdult Literature2012Among OthersNomitated
Mythopoeic AwardAdult Literature2017Thessaly trilogyNomitated
Mythopoeic AwardAdult Literature2020LentNomitated
Mythopoeic AwardAdult Literature2022Or What You WillWon
Nebula AwardNovel2007FarthingNomitated
Nebula AwardNovel2012Among OthersWon
Prometheus AwardNovel2008Ha'pennyWon
Prometheus AwardNovel2009Half a CrownNomitated
Prometheus AwardNovel2016The Just CityNomitated
Skylark Award–2017Jo WaltonWon
World Fantasy AwardNovel2004Tooth and ClawWon
World Fantasy AwardNovel2012Among OthersNomitated
World Fantasy AwardNovel2015My Real ChildrenNomitated

Personal life

Walton moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, after her first novel was published. She is married to Emmet A. O'Brien. She has one child.

Novels

  • Tooth and Claw
  • Lifelode
  • Among Others
  • My Real Children
  • Lent
  • Or What You Will
  • ''Everybody's Perfect''

    ''Sulien'' series

  • The King's Peace
  • The King's Name
  • ''The Prize in the Game''

    ''Small Change'' trilogy

  • Farthing
  • Ha'penny
  • Half a Crown
  • "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction"

    ''Thessaly'' trilogy

  • The Just City
  • The Philosopher Kings
  • Necessity
  • ''Thessaly, the Complete Trilogy''

    Other works

  • GURPS Celtic Myth
  • The End of the World in Duxford, a poem inspired by Larry Niven's short story "Inconstant Moon"
  • Muses and Lurkers
  • Realms of Sorcery
  • Sybils and Spaceships, poetry chapbook
  • What Makes This Book So Great, collected essays and book reviews
  • Starlings, short story and poetry collection
  • An Informal History of the Hugos, collected essays and book reviews

    Short stories

  • "Sleeper"
  • "The Jump Rope Rhyme"
  • "A Burden Shared"

    Critical studies, reviews and biography

  • "Story behind Ha'Penny by Jo Walton", from ''Story Behind the Book: Volume 1''