N. K. Jemisin was born in Iowa City but raised in Mobile, Alabama and New York City, thanks to a divorce between her educator mother and artist father (Noah Jemisin). Uprooted in two places, her childhood anchor was fiction; she spent hours per week at the library, and published her own handwritten “books” with cardboard covers and yarn binding.
Despite writing since childhood, she considered her love of story-crafting to be just a hobby until her early thirties. After attending the Viable Paradise writing workshop, she began seeking publication in earnest. Although she acquired an agent in 2005, her first novel (THE KILLING MOON, eventually published in 2012) did not initially sell. Instead she rewrote an old “hobbyist” novel — which sold at auction and became THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS (2010). In 2016, her novel THE FIFTH SEASON (2015) won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making Jemisin the first black person to have won in this category. In 2017 she won again for THE OBELISK GATE (2016). In all, her short fiction and novels have been nominated for (or won) awards more than 20 times, including the Nebula, the World Fantasy Award, the Locus, the Gemmell, the Tiptree, and many others.
Jemisin’s speculative themes include resistance to oppression, the inseverability of the liminal, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up. She has been an advocate for speculative fiction as political resistance, and since 2015 has championed literary genre as a New York Times Book reviewer. She lives in Brooklyn.