Nalo Hopkinson Named the 37th SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master

Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson has been named the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA) for her contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award recognizes “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.” Hopkinson joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as C. J. Cherryh, Peter S. Beagle, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 56th Annual Nebula Conference and Awards Ceremony, held online the weekend of June 4–6, 2021.

Hopkinson’s first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, was published as the winner of the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest in 1998 and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1999. She has published five additional novels, including the Andre Norton Award–winning Sister Mine, and three collections of her short fiction.

Hopkinson has also proven herself an adept editor, guest-editing an issue of Lightspeed Magazine and editing five anthologies, including Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction and So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy. Hopkinson has also won the British Fantasy Award, the Aurora Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and the Sunburst Award. She has taught at Clarion East, Clarion West, and Clarion South and is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.

SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal adds:

I have loved Nalo Hopkinson’s work since 1999 when I discovered her through the short story “Precious” in a Datlow/Windling anthology Silver Birch, Blood Moon. Each new piece continues to delight me and stretch me as a reader and makes me bolder as a writer.

Naming Nalo as Grand Master recognizes not only her phenomenal writing but also her work as an educator who has shaped so many of the rising stars of modern SFF.

Kowal, LeVar Burton, and many more sff authors and editors tell why the honor is deserved in this SFWA video:

9 thoughts on “Nalo Hopkinson Named the 37th SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master

  1. Absolutely deserved.

    One of the things that always strikes me about “Brown Girl in the Ring” is that she manages to deal with so many intersectional effects and causes of oppression and marginalization. It’s not just about race. It’s not just about gender. It’s not just about class. It’s about how all of these factors have combined effects.

  2. Excellent choice!

    Although the fact that Hopkinson has been around long enough to now be a Grand Master makes me feel my years even more.

  3. Gosh, this is going to make it harder for me to keep describing her as “underrated”. 😀

    Great choice! Congrats to Nalo!

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