Jo Walton

Jo Walton (born December 1, 1964) is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She has won many awards.

Background 
Walton was born in Aberdare, 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 and went to Howell's School Llandaff. She finished her education at Oswestry School in Shropshire, and at the University of Lancaster. She lived in London for two years. Then she lived in Lancaster until 1997. She moved to Swansea, where she lived until moving to Canada in 2002.

Walton speaks Welsh.

Writing career 
Walton has been writing since she was 13. Her first novel was published in 2000.  Before that, she had been published in a number of role-playing game publications, such as Pyramid. She often wrote with her husband at the time, Ken Walton. 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.

Her first three novels, The King's Peace (2000), The King's Name (2001), and The Prize in the Game (2002) were all fantasy. They happen in a world  based on Arthurian Britain and the Táin Bó Cúailnge's Ireland. Her next novel, Tooth and Claw (2003) was about dragons, but in the style of Anthony Trollope.

Farthing was her first science fiction novel. It was a mystery and an alternate history in which the United Kingdom made peace with Adolf Hitler before the United States entered 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 by Tor Books, with the final book in the trilogy, Half a Crown, published in September 2008. Ha'penny won the 2008 Prometheus Award (jointly with Harry Turtledove's novel The Gladiator) 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. He claimed doing this made the writer a scab. Walton responded to this by declaring 23 April as International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. Writers who disagreed with Hendrix could release their stories online all at once. In 2008 Walton celebrated this day by posting several chapters of an unfinished sequel to Tooth and Claw called Those Who Favor Fire.

In 2008, Walton began writing a column for Tor.com, mostly reviews of older books.

Personal life
Walton moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, after her first novel was published. She is married to Dr. Emmet A. O'Brien. She has one child. Her son, Alexander, was born in 1990.

Walton's writing

Novels 
 Tooth and Claw (November 2003, Tor Books, ) Won the World Fantasy Award.
 Lifelode (February 2009, NESFA Press, )
 Among Others (January 2011, Tor Books), ; Nebula Award for Best Novel 2011, Hugo Award for Best Novel 2012, World Fantasy Award nominee
 My Real Children (May 2014, Tor Books), ; Tiptree Award 2014, World Fantasy Award nominee, Aurora Award nominee
Lent (May 2019, Tor Books), 

Sulien series
 
The King's Name (December 2001, Tor Books, )
The Prize in the Game (December 2002, Tor Books, )
Small Change trilogy
Farthing (August 2006, Tor Books, )
Ha'penny (October 2007, Tor Books, )
Half a Crown (August 2008, Tor Books, )
Thessaly trilogy
The Just City (January 2015, Tor Books), 
The Philosopher Kings (June 2015, Tor Books), 
Necessity (July 2016, Tor Books)

Other works 
 GURPS Celtic Myth (with Ken Walton) (1995, addition to a roleplaying game)
 Muses and Lurkers (2001, poetry chapbook, edited by Eleanor Evans)
 Realms of Sorcery (with Ken Walton) (2002, addition to a roleplaying game)
 Sybils and Spaceships, poetry chapbook (2009, NESFA Press)
 What Makes This Book So Great,  collected essays and book reviews (2014, Tor Books) . Review by Paul Di Filippo
Starlings, short story and poetry collection (2018, Tachyon Publications)
An Informal History of the Hugos collected essays and book reviews (2018, Tor Books)

Short Stories 
 "Sleeper" (2014, Tor.com)
 "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" (2009, Tor.com)
 "The Jump Rope Rhyme" (2017, Tor.com)
 "A Burden Shared" (2017, Tor.com)

Essays 
 "Story behind "Ha'Penny" by Jo Walton" (2013), from "Story Behind the Book : Volume 1"

Writing about Walton's work
The King's Peace

Awards 
She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award for her novel Tooth and Claw in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award. Her novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award. Her novel Among Others won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and is one of only seven novels to have been nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and World Fantasy Award.

References

Other websites

 Jo Walton's LiveJournal (deleted 10 April 2017; see Walton's note at )
 Jo Walton's home page
 Jo Walton's page at Tor.com, with links to her reviews
 Searchable Index of Jo Walton's Tor.com posts

 

1964 births
Canadian novelists
Living people
Hugo Award winning writers
Welsh writers
Canadian science fiction writers
British science fiction writers
Bloggers