Nisi Shawl’s 2008 collection Filter House co-won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and their short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Strange Horizons and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. They have given speeches at Duke and Stanford universities and at Spelman and Smith colleges, and have been a Guest of Honor for WisCon and the Science Fiction Research Association; in August they’ll be GOH for Armadillocon 2017.
Shawl is the coauthor of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach. They co-edited Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler and Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany. Currently they’re immersed in guest editing Fantastic Stories of the Imagination’s special POC Take Over issue, and since its inception in 2011 they were Reviews Editor for feminist literary quarterly Cascadia Subduction Zone.
In 1999 Shawl helped found the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit supporting the presence of people of color in the fantastic genres. They continue to serve on the CBS Steering Committee, and they also serve on the board of directors of the Clarion West Writing Workshop. They live in Seattle, taking daily walks with her mother June and her cat Minnie at the pace of an entitled feline.