Sarah Pinsker

Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is a nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, and her debut novel A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novel while her story "Our Lady of the Open Road" won the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. Her novelette "Two Truths and a Lie" received both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. Her fiction has also won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award and been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards.

Life

Pinsker was born in New York and lived in several places of the United States including Illinois and Texas. When she was 14, her family settled in Toronto, Canada. She returned to the US to attend Goucher College where she studied history.
In addition to writing fiction she is a singer-songwriter with the band Stalking Horses and has had multiple albums released through independent labels. She also volunteers as director at large for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and hosts the Baltimore Science Fiction Society's Dangerous Voices Variety Hour reading series.

Writing

Pinsker says her writing is heavily influenced by the science fiction and literary fiction which filled her parents' home, adding she is one of the rare authors who read "short stories as much as novels" when she was young. Among her early influences as an author were the works of Ursula K. Le Guin and Kate Wilhelm. Later influences on her fiction include Octavia Butler, Karen Joy Fowler, Kij Johnson, and Kelly Link.
Pinsker started out publishing her short fiction in magazines such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, the Journal of Unlikely Cartography, and Fireside. Anthologies containing her stories include Long Hidden, How to Live on Other Planets, Queers Destroy Science Fiction, and Whose Future Is It?. Among the collections of the "year's best" stories which include her stories are The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2, Year's Best Weird Fiction Vol 2, Year's Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2015, The Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction and The Year's Best Military and Adventure Fiction 2015.
In 2019, her debut novel A Song for a New Day was published. The novel follows the life of a musician in a future where pandemics and terrorism makes public events such as concerts illegal. In 2020, it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 2019.
Pinsker's fiction has been called "thoughtful, subtle", "creepy" and "dreamlike". Speaking of her fiction, Pinsker says "It is a good time to be someone who has something to say about a group or a personal experience that hasn't been touched on before. Science fiction looks at the world through a slightly different lens, so it's fun to put that lens onto new experiences."

Awards

Year	Work	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
2013	"In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind"	Nebula Award	Novelette
2014	"In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind"	Theodore Sturgeon Award	—	Won
2014	"A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide"	Nebula Award	Short Story
2015	"Our Lady of the Open Road"	Nebula Award	Novelette	Won
2016	"Our Lady of the Open Road"	Theodore Sturgeon Award	—
2016	"Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea"	Nebula Award	Novelette
2017	And Then There Were (N-One)	Nebula Award	Novella
2017	"Wind Will Rove"	Nebula Award	Novelette
2018	"And Then There Were (N-One)"	Eugie Award	—
2018	"And Then There Were (N-One)"	Hugo Award	Novella
2018	"And Then There Were (N-One)"	Locus Award	Novella
2018	"And Then There Were (N-One)"	Theodore Sturgeon Award	—
2018	"The Court Magician"	Nebula Award	Short Story
2018	"Wind Will Rove"	Hugo Award	Novelette
2018	"Wind Will Rove"	Locus Award	Novelette
2019	"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye"	Nebula Award	Novelette
2019	"The Court Magician"	Hugo Award	Short Story
2019	"The Court Magician"	Locus Award	Short Story
2019	"The Court Magician"	World Fantasy Award	Short Fiction
2019	A Song for a New Day	Nebula Award	Novel	Won
2020	"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye"	Hugo Award	Novelette
2020	"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye"	Locus Award	Novelette
2020	"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye"	World Fantasy Award	Short Fiction
2020	A Song for a New Day	Compton Crook Award	—
2020	A Song for a New Day	Locus Award	First Novel
2020	Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea	Locus Award	Collection
2020	Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea	Philip K. Dick Award	—	Won
2020	Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea	World Fantasy Award	Collection
2020	"Two Truths and a Lie"	Bram Stoker Award	Long Fiction
2020	"Two Truths and a Lie"	Nebula Award	Novelette	Won
2021	"Two Truths and a Lie"	Hugo Award	Novelette	Won
2021	"Two Truths and a Lie"	Locus Award	Novelette
2021	"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather"	Nebula Award	Short Story	Won
2022	We Are Satellites	Locus Award	Science Fiction Novel
2022	"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather"	Eugie Award	—	Won
2022	"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather"	Hugo Award	Short Story	Won
2022	"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather"	Locus Award	Short Story	Won
2022	"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather"	World Fantasy Award	Short Fiction
2023	"Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea"	Seiun Award	Translated Short Story	Won
2024	Lost Places	Locus Award	Collection
2024	"One Man's Treasure"	Hugo Award	Novelette
2024	"One Man's Treasure"	Locus Award	Novelette
2024	"There's a Door to the Land of the Dead in the Land of the Dead"	Locus Award	Short Story
2025	Haunt Sweet Home	Locus Award	Novella
2025	Signs of Life	Hugo Award	Novelette

Novels

Chapbooks

Collections

Short fiction

Note:

Year	Title	First published	Reprinted/collected	Notes
2012	Queen for a Day
2012	Smashing Bottles
2012	Broken Stones
2012	Twenty Ways the Desert Could Kill You
2012
2013
2013	In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind
2013	Join Our Team of Time Travel Professionals
2013
2014	Monsters, Beneath the Bed and Otherwise
2014
2014	They Sent Runners Out
2014
2014	Headlong
2014	There Will Be One Vacant Chair
2014	How a Map Works
2014
2014
2014	No Lonely Seafarer
2014	Notes to My Past and/or Alternate Selves
2015	Beauty & the Baby Beast
2015	Songs in the Key of You
2015	When the Circus Lights Down
2015	Last Thursday at Supervillain Supply Depot
2015	Remembery Day
2015	Today's Smarthouse in Love
2015	Our Lady of the Open Road			Novelette
2015	In the Dawns Between Hours
2015	Pay Attention
2015	And We Were Left Darkling
2015	What Wags the World
2016	Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea
2016
2016	Left the Century to Sit Unmoved
2016	Clearance
2016	Down Beneath the Bridge Yet Unbuilt
2016	Talking to Dead People
2016	Under One Roof
2016
2017
2017	And Then There Were (N-One)
2017
2017	Wind Will Rove
2017	Remember This for Me
2018
2018	Do As I Do, Sing As I Sing
2018	I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise
2018	Escape from Caring Seasons
2018	Lost and Found
2019	That Our Flag Was Still There
2019
2019	Everything is Closed Today
2019
2020	La Mer Donne
2020	Bigger Fish
2020	Notice
2020	Two Truths and a Lie
2020	Tru Luv
2021	Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather
2021

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;Bibliography notes