Elizabeth Bear

Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky (born September 22, 1971) is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Tideline," and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Shoggoths in Bloom." She is one of only five writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (the others being C. J. Cherryh, Orson Scott Card, Spider Robinson, and Ted Chiang).

Life and career

Bear is of Ukrainian and Swedish ancestry; some of her late ancestors claim to be of Viking heritage.

A native of Hartford, Connecticut, she has been a media industry professional, a stablehand, a fluff-page reporter, a maintainer of microbiology procedure manuals for a 1,000-bed inner-city hospital, a typesetter and layout editor, a traffic manager for an import-export business, and "the girl who makes the donuts at The Whole Donut at three A.M."