Becky Chambers (author)

Chambers worked in theater management and as a freelance writer before self publishing her first novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, in 2014 after successfully raising funds on Kickstarter.[2] The novel received critical acclaim and a Kitschies nomination, becoming the first self-published novel to do so.[3] This prompted the novel to be picked up and re-published by Hodder & Stoughton and Harper Voyager.[4] The novel was the first book in the Wayfarer series, which so far includes two sequels, A Closed and Common Orbit, in 2016 and Record of a Spaceborn Few, in 2018. The series won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Series. She published a novella, To Be Taught, if Fortunate, in August 2019, with a story un-connected to the Wayfarers books. In July 2018 it was announced that she signed a two-book deal with Tor Books,[5] with the first book, A Psalm for the Wild-Built,[6] due to be published in May 2021.

Her Wayfarers series novels take place in a fictional universe, governed by the Galactic Commons to which humans are relative newcomers. She has been lauded for the strong world-building in the series, including multiple unique alien races.[7] She has been noted for the complex and likeable characters who drive the story.[8] Her work has been alternatively criticized and praised for the deliberate, character-driven pacing and lack of the propulsive plots typical of other space opera novels.[9][10]

Chambers was born in 1985 in Southern California and grew up outside Los Angeles.[1] She moved to San Francisco to study theater arts at the University of San Francisco.[1] She has lived in Iceland and Scotland before returning to California, where she currently resides with her wife.[11][1]