Nancy Kress | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kress in 2007 | |
| Born | Nancy Anne Koningisor (1948-01-20)January 20, 1948 (age 77) Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Pen name | Anna Kendall (for fantasy) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | SUNY Plattsburgh (MA) |
| Period | 1976–present |
| Genre | |
| Spouse |
|
| Website | |
| nancykress | |
Nancy Anne Kress (born January 20, 1948) is an Americanscience fiction writer.[1] She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of herHugo- andNebula-winning novellaBeggars in Spain (1991), which became a novel in 1993. She also won theNebula Award for Best Novella in 2013 forAfter the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall,[2] and in 2015 forYesterday's Kin. In addition to her novels, Kress has written numerous short stories and is a regular columnist forWriter's Digest. She is a regular atClarion Workshops.[3] During the winter of 2008/09, Nancy Kress was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at theUniversity of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies inLeipzig, Germany.[4]
Born Nancy Anne Koningisor inBuffalo, New York, she grew up inEast Aurora and attended college atSUNY Plattsburgh and graduated with an M.A. in English.[5] Before starting her writing career she taught elementary school and then college English. In 1973, she moved toRochester to marry Michael Joseph Kress. They had two sons, and divorced in 1984. At that time, she went to work atStanton and Hucko, anadvertising agency. She was married to Marcos Donnelly from 1988 to 1994.
In 1998, she married fellow authorCharles Sheffield, who died in 2002 of abrain tumor. Kress moved back toRochester, New York, to be near her grown children.[3] In 2009, she moved to Seattle.[6] In February 2011, she married authorJack Skillingstead.[7][8]
Kress tends to writehard science fiction, or technically realistic stories, often set in a fairlynear future. Her fiction often involvesgenetic engineering and, to a lesser degree,artificial intelligence. There are many invented technologies shared between her stories, including "genemod", to refer to genetic engineering, and "foamcast", a lightweight and sturdy building material that appears in many of her novels and short stories.
By conducting extensive research, she keeps her topics within the realm of possibility; however, as Kress clarified for oneLocus interviewer, with regards to her partner and fellow science fiction writer, "[Sheffield] pronounces itscience fiction, and I pronounce it sciencefiction."[8]
Kress also lovesballet, and has written stories around it.
