SFWA has selected Nicola Griffith as the 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, recognizing her “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.” The award is named after author Damon Knight, SFWA’s founder and the organization’s 13th Grand Master.
Nicola Griffith, PhD, is a dual UK/US citizen and the author of nine novels, including Hild, Spear, and Ammonite. In addition to her fiction and nonfiction (New York Times, Guardian, Nature) she is known for her data-driven 2015 work on bias in the literary ecosystem; as founder and co-host, with Alice Wong, of #CripLit; and for her work on queering the Early Medieval. Awards include The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Society of Authors ADCI Literary Prize, two Washington State Book Awards, the Premio Italia, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Tiptree (Otherwise) awards, the Outstanding Mid-Career Authors Prize, and six Lambda Literary Awards. In 2024 she was inducted into the Museum of Popular Culture’s Science Fiction + Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Griffith lives with her wife, writer Kelley Eskridge, in Seattle, where she takes enormous delight in everything. This latest title, SFWA’s 41st Grand Master, is no exception:
“I am thunderstruck,” said Griffith, after receiving the news. “Amazed and moved and brimming with joy. I might never stop smiling.”
Widely acclaimed and bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler has known for years how much of a gift Griffith is to the literary community: “Ever since I first read Ammonite–back in 1993 when the world was young–I’ve made it my business to follow Griffith wherever she goes. And I have loved every place she’s taken me. She’s a writer who stuns. Incisive yet lyrical, pragmatic yet sexy, generous yet scary, always brilliant and, best of all, never ever boring. Every book she writes is one more bit of luck for us readers.”
SFWA President Kate Ristau agrees:
“It is SFWA’s honor to recognize and celebrate Nicola’s past achievements, while looking forward to her future triumphs. Her work continues to inspire and challenge me, and when asked to pick a Grand Master to lead us into our Diamond Year, I looked to Nicola for her stunning fiction, as well as her leadership and advocacy. She challenges us to reconsider the past and imagine a better, more inclusive future. She is the perfect Grand Master for our present moment, demonstrating through her life and work how to find one’s self, one’s purpose, and one’s community in complicated times, and to embrace those things joyfully and fully. 50 years after SFWA named its first Grand Master, we are thrilled to shine the spotlight on Nicola Griffith as our 41st.”
The award will be presented to Griffith during the 60th Annual Nebula Awards Conference, held June 5–8, 2025. She will join other legends of genre fiction who have been granted this title, including Peter S. Beagle, Connie Willis, Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Anne McCaffrey, Robin McKinley, and Joe Haldeman. For more details on the conference, including registration and the panels on which the new Grand Master will appear, visit events.sfwa.org.
[Based on a press release.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Considering her body of work, it is amazing that she hasn’t been named a Grand Master before. She probably isn’t that well known. But she should be. She is a marvelous, fantastic writer. “Hild” is an astonishingly good book, as are her others. I was on a panel once with her at the Nebula Award Conference, and found her to be brilliant.
Congratulations to Nicola Griffith on becoming a Grand Master.
Well done, SFWA!
Congratulations Dr. Griffith!
This is excellent news! As has already been said, Hild is a brilliant novel (as is the sequel Menewood) and Griffiths is just a fantastic writer in general. Huge congratulations to her!