Steph Swainston

Steph Swainston
Steph Swainston at Åcon in 2009.
Born	Stephanie Jane Swainston 1974 Bradford, Yorkshire, England, UK
Occupation	Novelist
Genre	Literary fantasy New Weird
Website
www.stephswainston.co.uk

Stephanie Jane "Steph" Swainston is a British literary fantasy/science fiction author, receiving critical acclaim (from China Miéville among others) for her first novel The Year of Our War (2004). The book won the 2005 Crawford Award and a nomination for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. The sequel No Present Like Time was published in 2005. Swainston's third book, The Modern World, is set in the same universe and was published in May 2007. Her fourth novel, Above the Snowline, was published in 2010.

In 2011, she announced she was quitting full-time writing to become a chemistry teacher although she has subsequently indicated that she is working on a fifth novel to be published in 2016 and has three more planned.

Born in Bradford in 1974, Swainston attended St. Joseph's College, Bradford, Girton College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Wales. A qualified archaeologist, she was employed on digs at the oldest recorded burial site in the UK, Paviland Cave, as well as at Hayonim Cave, Israel. Other jobs included working for an ethical company developing pharmaceuticals from cannabis, as an assistant in a zoo's veterinary lab and as a researcher for the Ministry of Defence.

Swainston's work in the Castle series so far has been set in the "Fourlands", which the author has described as a secret childhood paracosm, further influenced by aspects of her later adult life, including the competitive academic world. The novels centre on the life of the "Circle", an elite group of immortals created and sustained by the Emperor, a near god-like figure engaged in a prolonged conflict with insectoid creatures, apparently from another world. Told in the first person, the novels follow the life of Jant, a winged humanoid with a distinctly flawed personality. The Castle series is also marked by the existence of multiple worlds, including the fantastic, baroque "Shift".