Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023)

SF writer Suzy McKee Charnas, 83, died January 2, 2023. She was best known for her ambitious works that explored gender, sexuality, and feminist issues.

Suzy McKee was born October 22, 1939 in New York City. She attended Barnard College, where she studied economic history, and then served in the Peace Corps for two years in West Africa before getting a masters degree in teaching at NYU and working as a curriculum writer. She married lawyer Stephen Charnas in 1968, and they relocated to New Mexico around 1970, where she spent the rest of her life, occasionally teaching but mainly writing full-time. She has also taught at writing workshops, including Clarion and Clarion West.

Her career began with the Holdfast Chronicles, starting with Walk to the End of the World (1974) and continuing with Motherlines (1978), The Furies (1994), and Tiptree Award winner The Conqueror’s Child (1999). The Sorcery Hall trilogy is The Bronze King (1985), The Silver Glove (1988), and The Golden Thread (1989). Standalones include Dorothea Dreams (1986), The Kingdom of Kevin Malone (1993), Strange Seas (2002), and The Ruby Tear (1997, written as Rebecca Brand).

She was also an accomplished short fiction writer. “Unicorn Tapestry” (1980) won a Nebula Award and was included in collection of linked stories The Vampire Tapestries (1980), and feminist werewolf story “Boobs” (1989) won a Hugo Award. Some of her stories were collected in Moonstone and Tiger Eye (1991), Music of the Night (2001), and Stagestruck Vampires & Other Phantasms (2004). She also wrote a memoir, My Father’s Ghost: The Return of my Old Man and Other Second Chances (2002).

Her husband predeceased her in 2018. She is survived by her stepchildren and grandchildren.

For more, see her entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.