Windup Girl (Bacigalupi) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—August 6, 1972
• Raised—Paonia, Colorado, USA
• Education—Oberlin College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Paonia, Colorado


Paolo Tadini Bacigalupi is an American science fiction and fantasy writer.

He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, Theodore Sturgeon, and Michael L. Printz awards, and was nominated for the National Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction, and the environmental journal High Country News. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Salon.com and High Country News, and have been syndicated in newspapers including the Idaho Statesman, Albuquerque Journal, and Salt Lake Tribune. He was a webmaster for High Country News starting in 2003.

His short fiction has been collected in Pump Six and Other Stories (2008). His debut novel The Windup Girl (2009) won the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 2010. It was also named by Time as one of the Top 10 Books of 2009. Ship Breaker (2010) was awarded the Michael L. Printz Award for best young adult novel and was nominated for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

The Windup Girl, along with many of his short stories, explores the effects of bioengineering and a world in which fossil fuels are no longer viable. Bioengineering has ravaged the world with food-borne plagues, produced tailored organisms as mimics to both cats and humans, and replaced today's fossil-fuel reliant engines with megodonts (an elephant-like beast), which convert food energy into work. Energy storage is accomplished through the use of high-capacity springs, as well as simply transporting food to feed either megodonts or human labourers. His writing deals with the ethics and possible ramifications of genetic engineering and western dominance, as well as the nature of humanity and a world in which, despite drastic changes, people remain essentially the same.

Awards
2006: Theodore Sturgeon Award for "The Calorie Man" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2005)
2009: Locus Award for Best Collection, for Pump Six and Other Stories (2008)
2009: Locus Award for Best Novelette, for "Pump Six"
2010: Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel for The Windup Girl
2010: Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Windup Girl (tied with China Mieville's The City & the City)
2010: John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel for The Windup Girl
2010: Locus Award for Best First Novel for The Windup Girl
2010: Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Windup Girl
2011: Michael L. Printz Award for Best Young Adult Novel for Ship Breaker
2012: Seiun Award for The Best Translated Novel for The Windup Girl
2013: Seiun Award for The Best Translated Short Story for "Pocketful of Dharma"
(Author Bio brom Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/10/2014.)