Martha Wells

As an aspiring writer Wells attended many local writing workshops and conventions, including the Turkey City Writer's Workshop taught by Bruce Sterling. She has also taught writing workshops at ArmadilloCon, WorldCon, ApolloCon, Writespace Houston, and was the Special Workshop Guest at FenCon in 2018.

During 2018, Wells was the leader of the story team and lead writer for the new Dominaria expansion of the card game Magic: the Gathering. In May 2018, her Murderbot Diaries novella All Systems Red was number 8 on The New York Times Bestseller List for Audio. All Systems Red won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Locus Award for Best Novella, and the American Library Association's Alex Award, and was nominated for the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award. It was followed by the sequel novellas Artificial Condition (2018), Rogue Protocol (2018), and Exit Strategy (2018); a short story, "Compulsory" (2018); and a full novel sequel, Network Effect (2020)

Wells was toastmaster of the World Fantasy Convention in 2017, where she delivered a speech called "Unbury the Future" about marginalized creators in the history of science fiction and fantasy, movies, and other media and the deliberate suppression of the existence of those creators. The speech was well-received and generated a great deal of discussion.

Wells has written two young adult fantasy novels, Emilie and the Hollow World and Emilie and the Sky World published by Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry in 2013 and 2014.

Wells' longest-running fantasy series is The Books of the Raksura which included five novels and two short fiction collections published by Night Shade Books: The Cloud Roads (2011), The Serpent Sea (2012), The Siren Depths (2012), Stories of the Raksura Vol 1: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud (2014), Stories of the Raksura Vol 2: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below (2015), The Edge of Worlds (2016), and The Harbors of the Sun (2017). The series was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2018 and The Edge of Worlds was reviewed in The New York Times.

Her fantasy short stories include "The Potter's Daughter" in the anthology Elemental (2006), which was selected to appear in The Year's Best Fantasy #7 (2007). This story features one of the main characters from The Element of Fire. Three prequel short stories to the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy were published in Black Gate Magazine in 2007 and 2008.

She has written media tie-ins, including Reliquary and Entanglement set in the Stargate Atlantis universe, "Archaeology 101", a short story based on Stargate SG-1 for issue No. 8 (Jan/Feb 2006) of the official Stargate Magazine, and a Star Wars novel, Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge.

Wells is known for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology. Her first published novel, The Element of Fire (1993), was a finalist for that year's Compton Crook Award, and a runner-up for the 1994 William Crawford Award. Her second novel, City of Bones (1995) received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and a Black Diamond review from Kirkus Reviews, and was on the 1995 Locus Recommended Reading List for fantasy. Her third novel, The Death of the Necromancer (1998), was nominated for a Nebula Award. The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer are stand-alone novels which take place in the country of Ile-Rien, which is also the setting for the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy: The Wizard Hunters (2003), The Ships of Air (2004), and The Gate of Gods (2005). Her fourth novel was a stand-alone fantasy, Wheel of the Infinite. In 2006, she released a revised edition of The Element of Fire.

Martha Wells (born September 1, 1964) is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on fantasy and science fiction subjects. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells has won a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and two Hugo Awards.