My love to Richard Grant, who introduced me to George Crumb’s string quartet Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land, from which some of Waking the Moon’s chapter titles have been drawn; and who proved himself to be the very model of a modern New Man by taking care of our children and household in the years it took to write this book.
Finally, to all of my old D.C. friends from CUA, NASM, and the Hamline—thanks. You really made it all Divine.
A Biography of Elizabeth Hand
Elizabeth Hand (b. 1957) is the award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy titles such as Winterlong, Waking the Moon, Black Light, and Glimmering, as well as the thrillers Generation Loss and Available Dark. She is commonly regarded as one of the most poetic writers working in speculative fiction and horror today.
Hand was born in San Diego and grew up in Yonkers and Pound Ridge, New York. During the height of the Cold War, she was exposed to constant air raid drills and firehouse sirens, giving her early practice in thinking about the apocalypse. She attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where she received a BS in cultural anthropology.
Hand’s first love was writing, but many Broadway actors lived in her hometown of Pound Ridge, and by high school she was consumed with the theater. She wrote and acted in a number of plays in school and with a local troupe, The Hamlet Players. After college, writing stories became her primary interest, and the work of Angela Carter cemented that interest. Hand realized that she wanted to create new myths and retell old ones, using a heightened prose style.
Hand’s first break came in 1988 with the publication of Winterlong. In this novel, Hand explores the City of Trees, a post-apocalyptic Washington, DC. The story focuses on a psychically enhanced woman who can read dreams and her journey through the strange city with her courtesan twin brother. The book’s success led to two sequels: Aestival Tide and Icarus Descending. All three novels were nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Beginning with the James Tiptree, Jr. Award–winning Waking the Moon, Hand wrote a succession of books involving themes of apocalypse, ancient deities, and mysticism. Waking the Moon centers on the Benandanti, an ancient secret society in modern-day Washington, DC. that also appeared in Black Light, a New York Times Notable Book.
In 1998, Hand released her short story collection Last Summer at Mars Hill. The title story won the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award. Most recently, she has published two crime novels focusing on punk rock photographer Cass Neary—the Shirley Jackson Award–winning Generation Loss (2007) and Available Dark (2012).
When Hand isn’t writing stories of decadence and deities, she divides her time between the coast of Maine and London, with her partner, UK critic John Clute. She is a regular contributor to numerous publications, including the Washington Post and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Copyright
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.