Kate Heartfield is a Canadian author of fantasy, science fiction, horror, as well as a non-fiction writer and editor.

Life

Heartfield was born in 1977 in Kitchener,

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, and grew up in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

. She received a degree in political science from the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

and a master of journalism degree from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

. She worked as an editorial board member and columnist for the ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as the Bytown ''Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the ''Ci ...

'' from 2004-2015, and was editorial pages editor for the paper from 2013-2015. She was nominated for Canada's Canada's National Newspaper Award in the category of Editorial Writing category in 2015. She now teaches journalism at Carleton University and creative writing online for

The Loft Literary Center The Loft Literary Center is a non-profit literary organization located in Minneapolis, Minnesota incorporated in 1975. The Loft is a large and comprehensive independent literary center which offers a variety of writing classes, conferences, grant ...

. She lives in rural

Ottawa, Canada Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau ...

Literary career

Heartfield's first published fiction appeared in the March 2013 issue of ''Black Treacle''. She belongs to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Historical Novel Society, the Writers' Union of Canada, Ottawa's East Block Irregulars, and the Codex writers' group. She was a member of the board of the Ottawa International Writers Festival from 2011-2014, a member of the science fiction jury for the Ottawa Book Award in 2017, and is currently (2020) on the novel jury for the Sunburst Award. Heartfield's writing has appeared in various periodicals, anthologies and podcasts, including ''Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland'', ''Black Treacle'', ''Clockwork Canada'', ''Curiosities'', ''

Daily Science Fiction ''Daily Science Fiction'' was an American online science fiction magazine originally founded in September 2010 and edited by Jonathan Laden and Michele Barasso. New stories were published each weekday. On 11 August 2022 the magazine announced it ...

'', ''

Escape Pod ''Escape Pod'' is a science fiction podcast magazine produced by Escape Artists, Inc. It proclaims itself "the world's leading science fiction podcast". The present co-editors are Mur Lafferty and Valerie Valdes. While episodes are free, the ...

'', ''49th Parallels'', ''GlitterShip'', ''Kaleidotrope'', ''Lackington's'', ''Liminal Stories'', ''Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales from Shakespeare's Fantasy World'', ''Murder Mayhem Short Stories'', ''

On Spec ''On Spec'' is a digest-sized, perfect-bound, Canadian quarterly magazine publishing stories and poetry in science fiction, fantasy, and allied genres broadly grouped under the "speculative fiction" umbrella. History and profile Based in Edmo ...

'', ''

PodCastle ''PodCastle'' is a weekly audio fantasy fiction podcast. They release audio performances of fantasy short fiction, including all the subgenres of fantasy, including magical realism, urban fantasy, slipstream, high fantasy, and dark fantasy. As ...

'', ''Postscripts to Darkness #4'', ''Shades Within Us: Tales of Migrations and Fractured Borders'', ''Spellbound'', ''

Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online magazine, online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and non-fiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in S ...

'', ''Tesseracts Twenty-One: Nevertheless'', ''Tesseracts Twenty-Two: Alchemy and Artifacts'', and ''Waylines''. Heartfield has also written for

Choice of Games Choice of Games LLC is a video game developer based in California that creates interactive fiction. They create their games in the custom-made ChoiceScript programming language, which is designed for writing multiple-choice games with a small ...

. In June 2022, Heartfield was announced as the author of then-upcoming ''

Assassin's Creed ''Assassin's Creed'' is a historical fiction, historical action-adventure video game series and media franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil (game engine), Anvil and its m ...

'' novel ''The Magus Conspiracy'' as part of the series' 15th anniversary celebration. In an interview with community developer Sebasteann Barradas, she reaveled that the novel was the first in a planned trilogy, titled ''The Engine of History''. The novel was published by Aconyte Books on 2 August 2022 in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, and on 8 September in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. On 30 August, it was announced that the first sequel, ''The Resurrection Plot'', had a planned release date of 2023; it was published on 4 July. In August 2024, Heartfield revealed on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

that, despite the initial announcement of ''The Engine of History'' as a trilogy, the publisher had no current plans for a third book in the series.

Recognition

Heartfield's novel ''Armed in Her Fashion'' won the 2019

Aurora Award for Best Novel The Aurora Awards are granted annually by the Canadian SF and Fantasy Association and SFSF Boreal Inc. The Award for Best Novel was first awarded in 1982 as the Award for Best Outstanding Work, and there are two awards, one granted to an English-lan ...

(English), was nominated for the 2019

Sunburst Award The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is an annual literary award given for a speculative fiction novel or a book-length collection, first awarded in 2001. A young adult category was created in 2008, to differentiate from ad ...

for Adult Fiction, and placed eighth in the 2019

Locus Award for Best First Novel The Locus Award for Best First Novel is one of the annual Locus Awards presented by the science fiction and fantasy magazine '' Locus''. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year. The award for Best Fir ...

. Her interactive medieval adventure novel ''The Road to Canterbury'' was nominated for the 2019

Nebula Award for Best Game Writing The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing is one of the Nebula Awards, presented each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy game writing. The Nebula Awards have been described as one of ...

. Her novella ''Alice Payne Arrives'' was nominated for the 2019

Nebula Award for Best Novella The Nebula Award for Best Novella is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novellas. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 4 ...

and the 2019 Aurora Award for Best Short Fiction - English. Her stories "The Seven O'Clock Man", "Not Valid for Spain", and "A Threadbare Carpet" were preliminary nominees for the Sunburst Award.

Bibliography

Novels

*''Armed in Her Fashion'' (2018) *''The Embroidered Book'' (2022) * ''The Valkyrie'' (2023) * ''The Tapestry of Time'' (2024)

''Alice Payne'' series

*''Alice Payne Arrives'' (2018) *''Alice Payne Rides'' (2019)

''Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History'' series

*''Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Magus Conspiracy'' (2022) *''Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Resurrection Plot'' (2023)

Interactive novels

*''The Road to Canterbury'' (2018) *''The Magician's Workshop'' (2019)

Short stories

References

External links

My Favorite Bit: Kate Heartfield talks about ARMED IN HER FASHION

My Favorite Things with Kate Heartfield
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heartfield, Kate 1977 births Living people Canadian speculative fiction writers Writers from Kitchener, Ontario 21st-century Canadian women writers