Meg Elison


Meg Elison is an American author and feminist essayist whose writings often incorporate the themes of female empowerment, body positivity, and gender flexibility. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award, and her second novel, The Book of Etta, was nominated for the award in 2017. Elison's work has appeared in several markets, including Fantasy & Science Fiction, Terraform, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Catapult, and Electric Literature.

Fiction

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is a feminist post-apocalyptic examination of the plight of women after a global epidemic. Written primarily in a journal format, the book follows one surviving medical worker as she struggles to find civilization and to provide birth control and medical care to the women that she meets.
The Book of Etta revisits the community of plague survivors several generations later as a female protagonist strikes out against an oppressive male-dominated regime.
The third and final book of the series, The Book of Flora, continues the story through the memories of Flora, a woman who was a sex slave.

Awards/Nominations

Philip K. Dick Award
Philip K. Dick Award

Background

A high school dropout, Elison advanced through the California community college system and eventually graduated from UC Berkeley. She has written and spoken extensively on the poverty and early queer identity that came to inform much of her work.