Juliet E. McKenna

Juliet E. McKenna (pen name, J. M. Alvey; born 1965) is a British fantasy author. Her novels mostly form part of series, five series as of 2022. She is a Karl Edward Wagner Award and BSFA Award laureate.

Early life and education McKenna was born in Lincolnshire in 1965, and studied Greek and Roman history and literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford.

Career After college McKenna had a career in personnel management before changing to work in book-selling. She also fitted in becoming a mother around her writing. McKenna is one of the British boom of fantasy writers.

McKenna also writes historical murder mysteries as 'J. M. Alvey'.

As well as her various novel series, McKenna writes articles and reviews for magazines. She has worked as a judge for various awards such as the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2013, the 2011 James White Award and the World Fantasy Awards in 2018. McKenna is also a contributing editor for the Irish anthology magazine Albedo One. In 2013 McKenna was the chair of the British National Science Fiction Convention, EightSquaredCon. She was also one of the authors, along with others such as Sarah Ash and Mark Chadbourn, behind The Write Fantastic, which was an initiative by a group of fantasy authors to promote the fantasy genre, and to display the scope of current fantasy writing.

McKenna joined forces with a group of micro business owners to form EU VAT ACTION to resolve the VAT issue caused by the EU VAT regulations which came into force on 1 January 2015. She spent considerable time working with businesses and experts in the UK and EU to create a way that small businesses online could work with the VAT regulations.

She regularly attends fantasy conventions and hosted FantasyCon 2015's awards night, gives talks, and teaches creative writing courses.

Critical reception Financial Times reviewer James Lovegrove described McKenna's 2012 She-who-thinks-for-herself, as "a cunning, funny... feminist rewrite" of H. Rider Haggard's She: A History of Adventure.

Personal life McKenna is married, with two sons. She lives with her husband in Oxfordshire.

Awards Karl Edward Wagner Award for special achievement (2015) BSFA Award shortlist for best non-fiction (2017) for The Myth of Meritocracy and the Reality of the Leaky Pipe and Other Obstacles in Science Fiction & Fantasy British Fantasy Award shortlist for best fantasy novel (2019) for The Green Man's Heir BSFA Award shortlist for best novel (2021) for The Green Man's Challenge BSFA Award winner for best novel (2023) for The Green Man's Quarry