T. Kingfisher is the pen name of Ursula Vernon, the American writer and illustrator, under which she publishes fantasy and horror for adults - the pseudonym chosen to spare parents who knew her only as a children's author.
Born in Japan in 1977 to a military family and raised largely in Oregon and Arizona, she began as a freelance artist and first made her name with the Hugo Award-winning webcomic Digger. As Ursula Vernon she has written much-loved children's books, including the Dragonbreath and Hamster Princess series and Castle Hangnail; as T. Kingfisher she has become one of the most garlanded voices in modern fantasy.
Her Saint of Steel series - Paladin's Grace, Paladin's Strength and their successors - follows the bereft, berserker paladins of a god who has inexplicably died. Standing alongside it are Nettle & Bone, a fairy-tale quest that won the Hugo Award for Best Novel; the Sleeping Beauty retelling Thornhedge; the Poe-inspired gothic horror of What Moves the Dead; and A Sorceress Comes to Call, a darkly enchanted reworking of a Grimm tale.
Her honours span the field, from a Nebula for the short story 'Jackalope Wives' and Hugos across graphic story, novelette and novel, to the Andre Norton Award for the delightful A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, whose heroine can work magic only upon bread.
