Lucy Sussex | |
|---|---|
 Lucy Sussex in 2013 | |
| Born | 1957 (age 67–68) Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | MA in Librarianship, and PhD in English Literature |
| Alma mater | Monash University,University of Wales |
| Years active | 1983- |
Lucy Sussex (born 1957 in New Zealand) is an author working in fantasy and science fiction, children's and teenage writing, non-fiction and true crime. She is also an editor, reviewer, academic and teacher, and currently resides in Melbourne, Australia.
She is often associated withfeminist science fiction, Australiana, the history of women's writing, and detective fiction.
Lucy Sussex was born in 1957 in Christchurch, New Zealand. She has lived in New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom and Australia, where she settled in 1971, and has spent the majority of her time since. She has a degree in English and an MA in Librarianship fromMonash University, and also a Ph.D. from theUniversity of Wales.[1]
She has been writing since the age of eleven. In 1979 she attended a Sydney-based Science Fiction Writers' Workshop, conducted byTerry Carr andGeorge Turner and soon after published her first short stories locally and overseas.[2]
Lucy Sussex's fiction has spanned a range of genres, including Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Crime and Detective fiction and been aimed at the children's, young adult and adult fiction markets. She has published six novels - the first appearing in 1995 - and over 30 short stories, which have been collected across three anthologies. Her first story to gain notice might be 1985'sThe Lipton Village Society, which involved the creation of an alternate world.
Sussex is strongly feminist. Victoriana styles and motifs recur in her work, as do dolls.The Scarlet Rider is a fictionalization of her search forMary Fortune.
Sussex works as a freelance editor and researcher and has published literary criticism and journalism. She is a Fellow at theFederation University Ballarat, andLa Trobe University.
She writes reviews - until 2013 forThe Age newspaper on a weekly basis, which involved reading 5-6 books per week.[3]
She has edited several anthologies, includingShe's Fantastical, the first collection of Australian women's speculative fiction, magical realism and fantasy to be published in that country.[4] The volume was short listed for the prestigiousWorld Fantasy Award in 1996.
She has also described herself as a 'literary archaeologist' having rediscovered and republished the work of nineteenth-century Australian crime writersMary Fortune andEllen Davitt. Fortune's full identity was uncovered through Sussex's scholarship, having been previously only known by pseudonyms for many decades.[5] Her Ph.D. thesis also focused on early women crime writers, the mothers of the genre.
Sussex has participated in numerous conventions and conferences, either as guest or panelist.
She has for many years maintained an active interest in encouraging emerging writers in the speculative fiction field, conducting a number of workshops, including at Aussiecon III, the 1999 World SF Convention in Melbourne. She was a teacher atClarion West, in Seattle in 2001 and atClarion South in 2004. She has regularly conducted workshops in her home city of Melbourne, of varying lengths and themes, most recently facilitating a Science Fiction Novel writing challenge in 2008–09.
In 2003 Sussex was awarded theChandler Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Australian Science Fiction", which recognised the scope of her achievements in the Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy fields as practitioner, academic and teacher.[6] She was awarded the Peter McNamara award in 2010.[7]
In 1989, she won her firstDitmar Award for short story "My Lady Tongue" about alesbian feminist community. She won three further Ditmars, for her novelThe Scarlet Rider (1997), novella "La Sentinelle" (2004), and short story "Absolute Uncertainty". "Merlusine" won theAurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story in 1998, and "La Sentinelle" won an Aurealis Award in 2003. In 2008 her short story "Mist and Murder" won aSir Julius Vogel Award.[8]
Blockbuster! Fergus Hume and the Mystery of a Hansom Cab won the History Publication Award in theVictorian Community History Awards in 2015. It was shortlisted for the 2017 Best Non Fiction prize in theNgaio Marsh Awards.[9]
She was a judge for the internationalJames Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1995,[10] and has subsequently judged the Age,[11] Victorian Premier's[12] and ASAL gold medal awards.[13]
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Parish and Mrs Brown | 1983 | DreamWorks: Strange New Stories ed.David King | ||
| The Lipton Village Society | 1985 | Strange Attractors ed.Damien Broderick | ||
| Montage | 1985 | Urban Fantasies ed. David King and Russell Blackford | ||
| My Lady Tongue | 1988 | Matilda at the Speed of Light ed. Damien Broderick | My Lady Tongue & Other Tales | |
| Merlusine | 1997 | The Horns of Elfland ed.Ellen Kushner,Delia Sherman andDonald G. Keller | ||
| Absolute Uncertainty | 2001 | "Absolute Uncertainty".F&SF.100 (4):136–160. April 2001. |
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