Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick James Nielsen Hayden (born Patrick James Hayden January 2, 1959), is an American science fiction editor, fan, fanzine publisher, essayist, reviewer, anthologist, teacher and blogger. He is a World Fantasy Award and Hugo Award winner (with nine nominations for the latter award), and was an editor and the Manager of Science Fiction at Tor Books until his retirement on January 5, 2026.

Life and career Born in Lansing, Michigan, he was first active in science fiction fandom while living in Toronto in the early 1970s. He continued in Seattle, before moving to the New York area in the 1980s to work professionally in publishing. After moving to New York, he worked at Literary Guild as an editorial assistant, then at Chelsea House as an associate editor. He changed his last name to "Nielsen Hayden" on his marriage to Teresa Nielsen (now Teresa Nielsen Hayden) in 1979. He joined Tor Books in the mid-1980s as an assistant and worked there until his retirement from Tor Books on January 5, 2026.

He has published a number of essays and reviews. He has contributed to a number of books and magazines, including The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd edition, 1993) and The Map: Rediscovering Rock and Roll. and has also taught at both U.S. Clarion Workshops.

He used to be active on the Usenet groups rec.arts.sf.* in the 1990s. Since July 2000 he wrote a blog, Electrolite, until it was incorporated into his wife's blog Making Light in May 2005, where he now writes along with her, SF writer James D. Macdonald, and SF fans Avram Grumer and Abi Sutherland.

Fanzine editor, small press publisher and magazine editor From 1982 to 1987, he edited and published the science-fiction fanzine Izzard with his wife Teresa Nielsen Hayden. He has worked on a number of other fanzines over the years, including Twibbet, Thangorodrim, Tweek, Ecce Fanno, Telos, Zed, and Flash Point.

Through their small press, Ansatz Press, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden published Samuel R. Delany's Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions

From 1985 to 1989, he served on the editorial board of The Little Magazine, a poetry magazine. In 1988, he was one of the founding editors of The New York Review of Science Fiction, for which he did the basic design, 1989 co-nominee for Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine for The New York Review of Science Fiction 1986, 1987 nominee for Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer 1984 co-nominee, with Teresa Nielsen Hayden, for Hugo Award for Best Fanzine for Izzard

Works

Anthologies Alternate Skiffy (Wildside Press, 1997) with Mike Resnick New Skies (Tor, 2003)