Kij Johnson


Kij Johnson
  • Associate Professor

Contact Info

Phone:
Wescoe Hall, Room 3021

Biography

Kij Johnson is a writer of speculative and experimental short fiction and novels. She has won the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, as well as the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire and others. In 2013, she gave the inaugural Tolkien Lecture at Oxford University; since then she has been a guest of honor at conferences and conventions in Sweden, France, Iceland, and the United States.

Before entering academia, she worked in New York publishing (Tor Books), comic books and graphic novels (Dark Horse Comics), RPGs and TCGs (Dark Horse Wizards of the Coast/TSR), and technical writing/user communications (Microsoft, RealNetworks).

She has taught creative writing workshops and seminars as a guest writer for gaming conventions, at six-week, two-week, weekend, and one-day residential workshops; and as a writer in residence for Furman College.

Research

Experimental and formalist fiction, OuLiPo, proto-science fiction and early fantasy, animal and it narratives, women's travel writing, Icelandic history, and whatever I am researching for a new story or book

Teaching

Fiction writing, writing of speculative fiction, novel structure, slipstream, fantasy, science fiction, experimental forms, animal narratives, and other topics

Selected Publications

The American Tour. Easthampton: Small Beer Press, in contract.

Second short story collection. Easthampton: Small Beer Press, in contract.

Retour à n’dau [Return to N’dau]. Saint Mammès: Le Bélial, 2020. French.

The Man Who Bridged the Mist. The Man Who Bridged the Mist. Rockville: ARC Manor, 2012. Translated into French and Italian.

The River Bank. Easthampton: Small Beer Press, 2017.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe. New York: Tor Books, 2016. Translated into French, Italian, Hungarian, Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, and Farsi.

At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories. Easthampton: Small Beer Press, 2012. Story collections in translation: Japanese, German, Turkish, and Spanish.

Las Chicas Míthicas/Myth Girls. Medellín: Proyecto Liquído, 2010.

Fudoki. New York: Tor Books, 2003.

The Fox Woman. New York: Tor Books, 2000. Translated into German and Hungarian.

Dragon’s Honor. With Greg Cox. New York: Pocket Books, 1996. Print. Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation. Translated into German.

50+ short stories and experimental works, many of them reprinted or translated multiple times.

Awards & Honors

Selected Awards

Hugo Award.

Winner: 2012. Six-time finalist.

Nebula Award.

Three-time winner: 2010,2011, 2012. Six-time finalist.

World Fantasy Award.

Three-time winner: 2009, 2017, 2019. Seven-time finalist.

Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.

Winner, Foreign Short Fiction: 2017).

William L. Crawford Fantasy Award.

Winner: 1999.

Selected Honors

Guest of Honor, Utopiales, Nantes (France), 2018.

Guest of Honor, Swecon/Fantastika 2018, Stockholm (Sweden), 2018.

Guest of Honor, NecronomiCon, Providence RI, 2017.

Author, “One Campus, One Book,” University of Alaska Southeast-Juneau, 2013–2014.

Author Guest of Honor, International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando FL, 2013.

Inaugural Tolkien Lecturer, Pembroke College, Oxford University, Oxford (UK), 2013.

Author Guest of Honor, Fractal’11. Medellín (Colombia), 2011.

Author Guest of Honor, Science Fiction Research Association Annual Conference, Las Vegas NV, 2005.

Author Guest of Honor, 2002 GenCon Game Fair, Milwaukee WI, 2002.