Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected biography/62

Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (born December 31, 1945), commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major awards than any other writer—most recently the year's "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011.

Willis's first published story was "The Secret of Santa Titicaca" in Worlds of Fantasy, Winter 1970 (December). At least seven stories followed (1978–81) before her debut novel, Water Witch by Willis and Cynthia Felice, published by Ace Books in 1982. Scholar Gary K. Wolfe has written, "Willis, the erstwhile stand-up superstar of SF conventions – having her as your MC is like getting Billy Crystal back as host of the Oscars – and the author of some of the field's funniest stories, is a woman of considerably greater complexity and gravity than her personal popularity reflects, and for all her facility at screwball comedy knock-offs and snappy parody, she wants us to know that she's a writer of some gravity as well."

She won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1988. Her works have won the Hugo and Nebula Award multiple times, and many others have been nominated. Her works have been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the British Science Fiction Association Award.