Jeannette Ng

Jeannette Ng (Chinese: 吳志麗) is a British fantasy writer best known for their 2017 novel Under the Pendulum Sun, for which they won the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer at the 2018 British Fantasy Awards. She was also the winner of the 2019 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, shortly afterward renamed the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

Ng was born in Hong Kong, and used their 2019 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer acceptance speech to pay tribute to the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protestors.

She studied at Durham University, earning an MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. They currently live in Durham, England.

Career
Ng's 2017 debut novel Under the Pendulum Sun (published by Angry Robot) concerns a fantastical journey in gothic mid-19th century England, and was shortlisted for Starburst's 2017 Brave New Words award and the 2018 Robert Holdstock award for Best Fantasy Novel at the British Fantasy Awards. It was named by SYFY as one of the "10 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of 2017" and included in Adam Roberts' list of "The best science fiction and fantasy of 2017" in The Guardian and Jeff Somers' list of "50 of the Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy Debut Novels Ever Written."

Her story "How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic" is included in the anthology Not So Stories, published April 2018 by Abaddon Books, and was described by Starburst as "a tour de force of the author's talents." Other short stories of theirs have been published in Mythic Delirium and Shoreline of Infinity magazines.

Ng won the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer at the 2018 British Fantasy Awards for Under the Pendulum Sun, and was a 2018 finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, announced as part of the Hugo Awards.

In 2019, Ng won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. As part of her acceptance speech, she referred to the award's namesake John W. Campbell as "a fucking fascist," sparking debate in the science fiction and fantasy community. On 27 August, the editor of award sponsors Analog Science Fiction and Fact announced that the award would be renamed the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. For their acceptance speech, Ng was awarded the Hugo Award for "Best Related Work" in July 2020. On 31 July, Ng sent their 2020 Hugo for Best Related Work Acceptance Speech to YouTube. In this video acceptance speech, she said that "pulling down memorials to dead racists is not the erasing of history, it is how we make history". She also said that "Last time I gave a speech at WorldCon, it was literally hours after a huge march in Hong Kong, my most cyberpunk of cities. Since then, things have gotten worse." "The tactics used to marginalize us, the tear gas used against us, it is the same everywhere. And we defeat it in the same way. And so our coming together is more important than ever before. To write a future of joy and hope and change." "Now is the time. Now is always the time. Free Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Time."

Links

 * Website
 * Twitter
 * Medium