Nghi Vo (born December 4, 1981) is an American author of short stories, novellas, and novels. Vo's fantasy novella '' The Empress of Salt and Fortune'' has received acclaim and won the

Hugo Award for Best Novella The Hugo Award for Best Novella is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novella award is available for works of fiction of between ...

and the IAFA

Crawford Award :::''See also'' Crawford Medal The IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (short: Crawford award) is a literary award given to a writer whose first fantasy book was published during the preceding 18 months. It's one of several awards presented by ...

Biography

Vo was born in

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria ...

, where she lived until attending college at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

. Vo now lives in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

on the shores of

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

. She defines her sexuality as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

. Vo’s first published short story was "Gift of Flight" in 2007, after which she published a number of short stories in various media. In 2020 Vo published the novella '' The Empress of Salt and Fortune'', which won the

and the 2021 IAFA

. The book was also a finalist for the

Locus Locus (plural loci) is Latin for "place". It may refer to: Entertainment * Locus (comics), a Marvel Comics mutant villainess, a member of the Mutant Liberation Front * ''Locus'' (magazine), science fiction and fantasy magazine ** ''Locus Award' ...

and the

Ignyte Award The Ignyte Awards are an annual literary award for the best science fiction, fantasy, and horror works and achievements of the previous year. Established in 2020 by writers L. D. Lewis and Suzan Palumbo as an off-shoot of '' FIYAH Literary Maga ...

. It was followed by ''When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain''. The novellas are part of ''The Singing Hills Cycle'', with three more novellas having been acquired for

Tor.com ''Tor.com'' is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction. From 20 ...

. Since the deal, ''Into the Riverlands'' has also been published and ''Mammoths at the Gates'' will be released in 2023. The novellas can be read in any order. Her debut novel, ''The Chosen and the Beautiful'', was published in 2021. The novel is a queer fantasy adaptation of ''

The Great Gatsby ''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts First-person narrative, first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious mil ...

'' which reimagines the character of Jordan Baker as the adopted Vietnamese daughter of a wealthy, white American couple''.'' Vo's second novel, ''Siren Queen'', an urban fantasy set in pre-

Code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

Hollywood, was released in May 2022.

Bibliography

Novellas

* '' The Empress of Salt and Fortune'' (2020) * ''

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain ''When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain'' is a 2020 fantasy novella by Nghi Vo. It is the second novella in the ''Singing Hills Cycle'', serving as a standalone sequel to '' The Empress of Salt and Fortune''. Plot Cleric Chih and their guide S ...

'' (2020) * ''

Into the Riverlands ''Into the Riverlands'' is a 2022 fantasy novella by Nghi Vo. It is the third published entry in the ''Singing Hills Cycle''. Each novella can serve as an entry point to the series or as a standalone tale. The novella explores questions of auth ...

'' (2022) * ''Mammoths at the Gates'' (2023) * ''The Brides of High Hill'' (2024)

Novels

* ''The Chosen and the Beautiful'' (2021) * ''Siren Queen'' (2022)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vo, Nghi 1981 births Living people 21st-century American women writers American fantasy writers 21st-century American short story writers American women short story writers Writers from Peoria, Illinois Hugo Award-winning writers Queer women American LGBT novelists LGBT people from Illinois American queer writers 21st-century American LGBT people Women science fiction and fantasy writers