American writer
Kelley Eskridge (born 21 September 1960)[1] is an American writer of fiction, non-fiction and screenplays. Her work is generally regarded as speculative fiction and is associated with the more literary edge of the category, as well as with the category of slipstream fiction.
Early life and education
Eskridge was born in Florida on 21 September 1960. She attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Northwestern University, and the University of South Florida where she earned a B.A. degree in Theatre Performance.[2]
Career
Eskridge attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1988 where she met her future wife, English novelist Nicola Griffith. Eskridge has published short fiction and essays since 1990. Her story "And Salome Danced" received the $11,000 Astraea Prize and was nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award in 1995,[3] and her story "Alien Jane" was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story, also in 1995.[4] Alien Jane also received a TV adaptation on the short-lived Sci-Fi Channel Series Welcome to Paradox.[5]
Her first collection of short fiction, Dangerous Space, was published in 2007; the title novella "Dangerous Space" was a Nebula Award finalist in 2009.[6]
Her first novel Solitaire was published in 2002 by HarperCollins Eos. Solitaire is character-driven science fiction set in a near-future corporate state. It was a New York Times Notable Book,[7] a Borders Books Original Voices selection, and was a finalist for the Nebula,[8] Endeavour,[9] and Spectrum[10] awards. Solitaire was the basis for the 2017 feature film OtherLife co-written by Eskridge, directed by Ben C. Lucas, and starring Jessica De Gouw.[11]
Eskridge has been a full-time writer, screenwriter and independent editor/writing coach. She previously worked in a series of corporate positions, most recently as Vice President of Project Management at Wizards of the Coast. She served on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop from late 2009 to 2014, and was board chair from 2010 to 2013. She taught at Clarion West in 2007.[12]
Eskridge is the co-founder (with Nicola Griffith) and managing partner of Sterling Editing (established 2009) with an international client list of established and emerging writers.[13]
Eskridge is the creator of the Humans At Work program to help new managers learn people management skills.[14] Management guru Bob Sutton (author of The No Asshole Rule) quoted Eskridge's views on management in his book Good Boss, Bad Boss (Chapter 1).[15]
Personal life
Eskridge's commitment ceremony to Nicola Griffith in Atlanta on September 4, 1993 was announced in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,[16] perhaps the first same-sex commitment announcement the paper had published. They were legally married twenty years later on September 4, 2013 in Seattle, Washington where they live today.
