Called “a major fabulist, a marvelous magical realist, one of the strongest, most complex, most consistently feminist voices in fiction” by Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller played a prominent role in science fiction’s new-wave movement. The first of her acclaimed short stories “This Thing Called Love” appeared in Future Science Fiction, #28 (December 1955). Emshwiller’s numerous short stories have been collected in Joy in Our Cause (1974), Verging on the Pertinent (1989), The Start of The End of It All and Other Stories (1990), Report to the Men’s Club (2002), I LIVE WITH YOU (2005), In The Time of War and Other Stories of Conflict (2011), and The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller Vol. 1 (2011) and 2 (2016). Her modest, in comparison, novel output includes Carmen Dog (1988), Ledoyt (1995), Leaping Man Hill (1999) The Mount (2002), Mister Boots (2005), and THE SECRET CITY (2007).

Given the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, Emshwiller also won the 2002 and 2005 Nebula Award for Best Short Story (“Creature” and “I Live With You”). She was awarded the World Fantasy for The Start Of The End Of It All and the Philip K. Dick for The Mount.

She was married to artist and experimental filmmaker Ed Emshwiller. They had three children. Their daughter Susan produced several screenplays, most notably co-writing the movie Pollock, produced and directed In the Land of Milk and Money (2004), and has written several acclaimed short stories and novels. Son Peter was managing editor for The Twilight Zone Magazine and Night Cry from 1985 to 1989 and wrote the Nebula Award-nominated science fiction novel The Host (1991).