Recorded live at The Lost Church in San Francisco, May 4, 2025 ABOUT THE AUTHORS PAT MURPHY is an American science writer and author of science fiction and fantasy novels. She has often used the ideas of the absurdist pseudophilosophy pataphysics in some of her writings. Along with authors Lisa Goldstein and Michaela Roessner, she formed The Brazen Hussies in 2000 to promote their work. Together with Karen Joy Fowler, Murphy co-founded the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an award encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender, (now called the Otherwise Award) at WisCon in 1991. The award was originally named for science fiction author Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pen name James Tiptree, Jr. Her new novel, published in May 2025, is The Adventures of Mary Darling, from Tachyon Publications. Mary Darling is a pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose children have gone missing from their beds. In this subversive take on Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, a daring mother is the populist hero the Victorian era never knew it needed. A starred review from Library Journal: “Mary’s story is a dangerous and delightful adventure that turns the bigotry and misogyny of Victorian England on its head. Her first novel, Shadow Hunter, was reprinted in a revised edition by Tachyon Publications in 2002. In 1986, she received the Nebula Award for both her second novel, The Falling Woman (1986), and her novelette, “Rachel in Love.” Her short story collection, Points of Departure (1990) won the Philip K. Dick Award, and her 1990 novella, Bones, won the World Fantasy Award in 1991. From 1998 through 2018, Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty (a scientist and educator) jointly wrote the recurring ‘Science’ column in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction that typically appeared twice each year. Her YA novel, The Wild Girls (2008), won the Christopher Award, as well as the children’s category of the 2008 Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Awards. For more than 20 years, when she was not writing science fiction, she worked at the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s museum of science, art, and human perception, publishing published nonfiction as part of the museum staff. After a stint at Klutz inventing games and things like Lego Chains, Murphy joined Mystery Science (company) in 2014 as the first employee, creating science curriculum for elementary school teachers. She lives in Nevada, is black belt in the martial art kenpō, and is a whiz at creating balloon animals. KAREN JOY FOWLER is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the 19th century, the lives of women experiencing the unexpected or fantastic, and social alienation. She is best known for the popular novel, The Jane Austen Book Club (2004). Fowler attended UC Berkeley, and majored in political science. She later returned to college, entering a creative writing class at UC Davis, and began publishing science fiction stories. She first made a name for herself with the short story “Recalling Cinderella” (1985) in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 1 (1985) and the collection, Artificial Things (1986). Her first novel, Sarah Canary (1991), involves a group of people in the Pacific Northwest alienated by 19th century America, who experience a peculiar kind of first contact in 1873. Her second novel, The Sweetheart Season (1996), is a romantic comedy of a woman’s baseball team in the 1940s, infused with history and fantasy. Her novel The Jane Austen Book Club, (2004), was a critical and popular success, becoming a NY Times bestseller for 13 weeks. The plot, that of six members of a contemporary book club discussing Jane Austen books, includes science fiction as an integral part of the novel’s plot. It was made into a romantic comedy film in in 2007. Fowler also collaborated with Pat Murphy to found the James Tiptree, Jr. Award (the Otherwise Award) in 1991. Fowler drew inspiration from the fact that Sheldon’s mother, Mary Hastings Bradley, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hastings_Bradley was an adventurer, going on several trips to Africa including a gorilla hunting expedition in 1920. As such, she served as the inspiration for the protagonist in Fowler’s “What I Didn’t See” which won the Nebula for Short Story in 2003 Fowler’s novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013), was a critical success, winning the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2014. It was also shortlisted for the 2014 Nebula Award and 2014 Man Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, Booth, involves a family of Shakespearean actors best known for their connection to Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth. It was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Fowler received a World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2020 World Fantasy Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.
