LONG BIO

Award-winning writer and broadcaster Ellen Kushner has had a profound influence on every field she touches, weaving together multiple careers as a writer, radio host, teacher, performer and public speaker. 

Kushner’s first novel, Swordspoint, turned out to be the queer cult classic credited by some as the book that kicked off the “mannerpunk” (or  “Fantasy of Manners”) genre. She swore she’d never write another one, so followed that up with the mythic fantasy novel Thomas the Rhymer, which won the World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards, and became a Gollancz "Fantasy Masterwork” in 2015.  But she missed the world of Swordspoint, and returned to it in a way that minted a bonafide series: first with The Privilege of the Sword (winner of a Locus Award); then The Fall of the Kings (co-written with Delia Sherman) and, most recently, the collaborative prequel Tremontaine (Realm). She just finished another standalone novel (working title, City Year)—publication details forthcoming. 

While all this was going on, Kushner also had a lengthy career as a public radio host at WGBH in Boston, ultimately creating and hosting her own national series, Sound & Spirit—which Bill Moyers called “the best thing on public radio bar none,” and also caused her to be hailed as “She’s Elvis to hippie librarians!”  

In New York, Ellen got back in touch with her passion for performance: she adapted her children’s book, The Golden Dreydl: A Klezmer Nutcracker—which began as an album with Shirim Klezmer Orchestra—for the stage with Vital Theater, fulfilling a dream to step on stage when she played one of her own characters. She then narrated and co-produced her three Swordspoint novels as audiobooks for Audible, winning an Audie Award, an Earphones Award, and the 2013 Communicator Award for Swordspoint. 

She really does love to collaborate. She was one of original authors writing in Terri Windling’s Bordertown, a shared world that Locus described as “[a] dreamland of rock and roll glamour, punk elves, and alienation raised to high style.” Some 20 years later, she led the way for a mix of old school Bordertown writers and new blood with Holly Black as her co-editor: they put together Welcome to Bordertown, a collection of more than twenty interconnected poems, songs, and stories.

A celebrated doyenne in the fantasy field, Kushner’s work has been translated into many languages and she has taught writing at Clarion, Odyssey, and Hollins University. When the University of Glasgow launched their Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic in 2020, she gave the keynote speech, speaking on the history of fantastic literature and the influence on Scots folklore in her novel Thomas the Rhymer. She was also featured in the British Library's major exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination that ran from 2023-2024, where her manuscript of Thomas the Rhymer was displayed.  

When she’s in demand as a speaker at conferences both at home and abroad, Ellen can be found at home in New York City with her wife, author and educator Delia Sherman—not to mention their steadily growing collection of theater and airplane ticket stubs.