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Nicola Griffith

Goodreads Author

Born

in Leeds, Yorkshire, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.nicolagriffith.com/

Twitter

nicolaz

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery & Thrillers

Influences

Brilliantly written poetic sagas honed by time and performance.

Member Since

April 2008

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/nicolaz

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Nicola Griffith has won the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Prize, the Society of Authors' ADCI Literary Prize, the Washington State Book Award (twice), the Nebula Award, the Otherwise/James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, the World Fantasy Award, Premio Italia, Lambda Literary Award (6 times), and others. She is also the co-editor of the Bending the Landscape series of anthologies. Her newest novels are Hild and So Lucky. Her Aud Torvingen novels are soonn to be rereleased in new editions. She lives in Seattle with her wife, writer Kelley Eskridge, where she's working on the sequel to Hild, Menewood.

Series:
* Aud Torvingen ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

What is the strangest fact about Hild's times that you uncovered in your research? (Or perhaps just your favorite piece of lore?)

Nicola Griffith That by one estimate women in early 7th-C Britain spent 65% of their time on the production of textiles. Think about: that's more than childcare and f…moreThat by one estimate women in early 7th-C Britain spent 65% of their time on the production of textiles. Think about: that's more than childcare and food preparation put together! It completely changed my approach to the book.

Verbs like weave and sow and harvest and rett and scutch and beat and spin and dye, not to mention comb and sew and shear and cut and clean and full took over my world. And made me reimagine the cultural institutions of the time. I mean, if you're spending two-thirds of your life on something, it will be woven into every aspect of your community. (It changed my metaphors, too...)

If you want to know more, see this blog post:
http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2012/06...

Or read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Clothing-Anglo-...(less)

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38 likes · like
4 comments

I absolutely loved your book _Hild_. Thanks so much for writing it! You depict a fairly open attitude to homosexual relations. In your research for the book, did you come across any evidence on attitudes to homosexuality, or was this part of what you "made up"?

Nicola Griffith Thank you!

Hild isn't lesbian/homosexual. She's bisexual. I doubt they had such terms back then, though. I've seen no evidence that who you did or did …moreThank you!

Hild isn't lesbian/homosexual. She's bisexual. I doubt they had such terms back then, though. I've seen no evidence that who you did or did not have sex with defined how women thought of themselves.

Actually, there's no evidence for anything, sexually, in early seventh-century northern Britain. Nothing. No material culture and no text.

I'm guessing that Roman Christians, being Pauline to the core, would have disapproved. Indeed, Breguswith says as much in the book: be careful around the priests. But that was as much about having sex with anyone as having sex with women. Monks and priests like Bede (if we go purely by written evidence) thought women were more holy if they didn't have sex at all; being a virgin was better than being married, for example.

The way I see it, at the time, before widespread conversion to Roman Christianity, no one much cared who you did and didn't have sex with. Sex wasn't a moral issue. All royal women before the founding of nunneries (I think--though I'm wary of the words 'always' and 'never' in any context, never mind a time we know so little about) got married, and that if they then wanted to have sex with other women no one would much care as long as they were discreet. After all, the point of marriage was alliance, household management, and the provision of heirs. Married girls loving other married girls wouldn't have any impact on any of these points.

I talk about that a bit here: http://gemaecca.blogspot.com/2008/08/...

There again, there's this incident from Ireland from the 8th century that makes sex between women sound rather jolly and uncomplicated:
http://gemaecca.blogspot.com/2008/08/...

Make of that what you will...(less)

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Combine Editions
Nicola Griffith’s books

Average rating: 3.92 · 43,729 ratings · 6,828 reviews · 50 distinct works • Similar authors

	Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1) 3.85 avg rating — 12,629 ratings — published 2013 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Spear 4.06 avg rating — 8,639 ratings — published 2022 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ammonite 3.90 avg rating — 7,028 ratings — published 1992 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Slow River 3.85 avg rating — 4,164 ratings — published 1995 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Blue Place (Aud Torvingen #1) 3.90 avg rating — 2,337 ratings — published 1998 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	So Lucky 3.64 avg rating — 1,828 ratings — published 2018 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Menewood (The Hild Sequence #2) 4.48 avg rating — 1,356 ratings — published 2023 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Stay (Aud Torvingen #2) 4.07 avg rating — 1,430 ratings — published 1999 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Always (Aud Torvingen #3) 3.99 avg rating — 975 ratings — published 2007 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cold Wind 3.62 avg rating — 555 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Nicola Griffith…

1207 posts
Nicola Griffith's Blog

Another Screwfly Solution, and other snippets

It’s been a while since I did a snippets post. So for this sunny August Monday here in Seattle, some fun facts.

Flying flesh-eating maggots

First, for those who are familiar with the work of Alice Sheldon (aka James tiptree, Jr, aka Raccoona Sheldon), specifically “The Screwfly Solution,” I woke to a little frisson, a shiver down the spine at the news that the New World Screwfly is advancing rapidl

Series by Nicola Griffith

The Hild Sequence (2 books)
by

Nicola Griffith (Goodreads Author)

3.91 avg rating — 13,985 ratings

Aud Torvingen (3 books)
by

Nicola Griffith (Goodreads Author)

3.97 avg rating — 4,742 ratings

Bending the Landscape (3 books)
by

Nicola Griffith (Goodreads Author) (Editor / Contributor),

Stephen Pagel (Editor / Contributor),

J.K. Potter (Artist),

Kraig Blackwelder (Contributor),

Carrie Richerson (Contributor),

Ellen Klages (Contributor),

Gary Bowen (Contributor),

Brian A. Hopkins (Contributor),

more…
3.68 avg rating — 563 ratings

If you love the fantasy genre, this is the season for you! Some of the biggest books out this fall promise to be epics full of magic, adventure,...

Nicola is Currently Reading

Nicola Griffith is currently reading

Why Lyrics Last: Evolution, Cognition, and Shakespeare's Sonnets

by Brian Boyd

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Nicola Griffith said: " Just started this. So far: fascinating. Verse as information pattern-making and -breaking, designed for ease of cognitive consumption and retention. Haven't even got to Shakespeare yet... ...more "

May 07, 2012 03:11PM · see review

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Nicola’s Recent Updates

Nicola Griffith wrote a new blog post Another Screwfly Solution, and other snippets It’s been a while since I did a snippets post. So for this sunny August Monday here in Seattle, some fun facts. Flying flesh-eating maggotsFirst, for Read more of this blog post »
Aug 26, 2025 01:16AM · like
Nicola Griffith made a comment on Three Books, Seven Parts, 38 Chapters… " K.S. wrote: "Saying "epic" or "powerful" doesn't feel quite worthy of what I'm looking at and reading, even though that's exactly what this feels like ...more "
Sep 15, 2023 10:49AM · see blog post

More of Nicola's books…

Quotes by Nicola Griffith (?)

“Dogs own space and cats own time.”
― Nicola Griffith, Hild

tags: behavior, cats, dogs

42 likes

“She liked time at the edges of things -- the edge of the crowd, the edge of the pool, the edge of the wood -- where all must pass but none quite belonged.”
― Nicola Griffith, Hild

18 likes

“Writing a balanced, beautiful novel, where plot and character and
setting and pacing and narrative structure and imagery and, above all,
story work in harmony and true proportion, is fucking *hard*."
--Nicola Griffith,
www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929...”
― Nicola Griffith

11 likes

See all Nicola Griffith's quotes »

Polls

Random Sci-Fi for August

Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

10 votes, 21.3%

Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

7 votes, 14.9%

Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith

7 votes, 14.9%

Farthing , by Jo Walton

7 votes, 14.9%

Earth, by David Brin

5 votes, 10.6%

In the Company of Others, by Julie E. Czerneda

5 votes, 10.6%

Hunter's Run, by George R.R. Martin

4 votes, 8.5%

Queen City Jazz, by Kathleen Ann Goonan

1 vote, 2.1%

Rocannon's World, by Ursula K. Le Guin

1 vote, 2.1%

Turok's Gift, by Bernard Goldstein

0 votes, 0.0%

47 total votes

8 comments

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