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Ellen Klages

Ellen Klages is an eclectic writer. She has co-written four books of hands-on science activities for children for the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco. Her short fiction has been on the final ballot for the Nebula, Hugo, and John W. Campbell Awards. She is on the board of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and is somewhat notorious as the auctioneer/entertainment for the Tiptree auctions. For more about her, see her web site.



Ellen Klages is the author of two acclaimed YA novels: The Green Glass Sea, which won the Scott O'Dell Award, the New Mexico Book Award, and the Lopez Award; and White Sands, Red Menace, which won the California and New Mexico Book Awards. Her short stories have been have been translated into Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, and Swedish and have been nominated for the Nebula Award, the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Campbell awards. Her story, "Basement Magic," won a Nebula in 2005. She lives in a small house in San Francisco, where she does not play the violin, although she recently bought a ukulele. To contact her, send email to ellen@ellenklages.com. For more about her and her work, see her website.
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10 Aug 2026

the sleeping are so hard to distinguish / from the dead
We'd only lived in Arizona four years—it was our retirement place. But I'd died there, and she'd dumped my ashes out in the desert without fanfare, without any poem or prayer, unless you considered, “Jesus, Marty, don't leave me. Why'd you leave me, you old bastard" to be an elegy.
Nature, desecrated, refused to yield more than bone
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