Drumroll, please…
We are proud to announce that our celebrity judge for Fiction Fantastic 2019 is World Fantasy Award-winning author Fonda Lee! Fonda Lee will judge the final round of judging in each category and join us for our Fiction Fantastic event on Friday, May 17.
Who Is Fonda Lee? Fonda Lee writes science fiction and fantasy for adults and teens. She is the author of Jade City (Orbit), which won the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, was nominated for the Nebula Award and the Locus Award, and was named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Barnes & Noble, Syfy Wire, and others. Fonda’s young adult science fiction novels Zeroboxer (Flux), Exo, and Cross Fire (Scholastic), have garnered numerous accolades including being named Junior Library Guild Selection, Andre Norton Award finalist, Oregon Book Award finalist, Oregon Spirit Book Award winner, and YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. In 2018, Fonda gained the distinction of winning the Aurora Award, Canada’s national science fiction and fantasy award, twice in the same year for Best Novel and Best Young Adult Novel. Born and raised in Calgary, Canada, she currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
When did Fonda Lee start writing? Fonda wrote her first novel, about a dragon on a quest for a magic pendant, in fifth grade during the long bus ride to and from school each day. Many years later, she cast her high school classmates as characters in her second novel, a pulpy superhero saga co-written with a friend by passing a graphing calculator back and forth during biology class. Fortunately, both of these experiments are lost to the world forever.
Find her online at www.fondalee.com and on Twitter@fondajlee.