Marian Womack

Marian Womack
Womack teaching a workshop in Spain in 2023.
Alma mater	Glasgow University, Wadham College (University of Oxford) Wolfson College (University of Cambridge) Anglia Ruskin University
Occupation(s)	Writer, translator and editor
Notable work	Lost Objects, The Swimmers
Website	www.marianwomack.com

Marian Womack is a bilingual Hispanic-British writer, translator and editor of Weird Fiction, Horror, Speculative Fiction, Science fiction and Fiction of the Anthropocene. She lives in Cambridge, UK. As a translator in Spain she has worked mostly for independent publishing houses. She writes both in English and Spanish. Womack has been included in various collective works in Spain and Latin America, the UK, the US and Australia. Her writing is characterised by mixing elements from the Gothic, Science Fiction and Horror, creating a hybrid genre that Womack uses to highlight the uncanny. She often uses fragmentation, writes experimental prose, and mixes genres.

Womack has published two collections of short fiction and three novels in English, as well as two novels in Spanish. Her ecological fiction has been included in international art installations, translated to Italian and Norwegian, and shortlisted for two British Fantasy Awards and one British Science Fiction Association Award.

Early life and education

Womack was born in Cádiz and studied in the UK. She studied English with Film Studies (Glasgow University), holds a Master's in European Literature (Oxford University), a DEA in Literatura Comparada (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), a Master's in Creative Writing (University of Cambridge) and a PhD in Creative Writing (Anglia Ruskin University).

Career

In her work as a publisher, Womack co-founded, together with British translator and poet James Womack, the indie press Nevsky Prospects, specialising in Russian Literature. The press mainly published Russian and Soviet genre fiction (Science fiction, Gothic) together with classic authors such as Pushkin, Dostoevsky or Dmitri Grigorovich, offering a wide and non-mainstream understanding of this literature. Womack coordinated the imprint Fábulas de Albión, which she used to publish, for the first time in Spanish, female speculative fiction authors such as Nina Allan, Lisa Tuttle, Anna Starobinets or Karin Tidbeck.

Womack has worked in academic libraries and archive collections for more than a decade, including Oxford University's Bodleian Library, and the Modern and Medieval Faculty Library at Cambridge University, where she worked as Hispanic and Lusophone Librarian for five years. She also works intermittently as editor, translator, and bookseller. Womack has taught creative writing, publishing studies and book history in Spain and the UK, and for three years was a creative writing tutor on the Oxford University Creative Writing MSt. Womack is the first Spanish person to attend the Clarion Workshop.

Critical reception

Womack published her first collection in English, Lost Objects, in 2018. Nina Allan wrote in Interzone: "[T]he themes of climate change and ecological destruction are more urgently expressed in this short book than in any other I have recently read, yet it is Womack's bravery in stating these themes in terms of poetry, of metaphysics, of personal loss that lifts them above polemic... This book, with its sharp edges and its thematic urgency and its painful admissions of weakness and of fear, is a collection that highlights everything that speculative fiction, of all possible modes of literature, excels at." Laura Mauro wrote in Black Static that "Lost Objects is a gorgeous, intelligent collection, both masterfully written and cannily prescient... and crafted in a manner that I suspect we will come to recognise as uniquely Womack." Jonathan Thorton wrote in The Fantasy Hive: "These stories deal with landscapes that have been transfigured by humanity's carelessness and hubris, worlds in mourning for everything we have so casually destroyed. They serve as a vital and timely reminder of our current climate crisis, and the responsibility we have to both the world and ourselves." Timothy J. Jarvis wrote in the Los Angeles Review of Books that Lost Objects addresses "humankind's senseless despoliation of its home in subtle, profoundly affecting ways."

Womack's first novel in English, The Golden Key (2020), was described by Publisher's Weekly as an "ethereal debut novel, precise and eerie... Patient readers willing to wade through Womack's murky, off-kilter world will be rewarded with moments of disquieting beauty." Jonathan Thorton wrote in The Fantasy Hive: "A bold, ambitious and genre-bending novel, one that isn't afraid to assume a sensitive and intelligent reader." Womack's second novel The Swimmers (2021) was given a Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly: "Womack draws in readers immediately with her dreamy depictions of the landscape and its dangers. At its heart, however, the novel is a probing examination of cultural and class differences. Readers will be captivated." The Guardian said it was "a richly imagined eco-gothic tale", and The Times said it was "exquisitely realised", selecting it as one of the ten best science fiction novels of 2021.

Personal life

Womack is married to British poet and translator James Womack. They met while they were both students at Wadham College, Oxford. Womack cannot vote in the UK, but she is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales. Womack identifies as bisexual and of Roma ascendency. Womack studied at a convent school, and has written about her rejection of Catholicism as an institution.

Published works

Narrative

Novels

Science Fiction

• The Swimmers, London, Titan Books, 2021. ISBN 9781789094213 (Novel)

The Walton & Waltraud Inquiry Agents Mysteries

• On the Nature of Magic, London, Titan Books, 2023. ISBN 9781803361345 (Novel)
• The Golden Key, London, Titan Books, 2020. ISBN 9781789093254 (Novel)

Spanish

• Calle Andersen, Barcelona, La Galera, 2014. ISBN 9788424652995 (Novel). With Sofia Rhei.
• Memoria de la nieve Zaragoza, Tropo Editores, 2011. ISBN 978-84-96911-34-5 (Novel)

Short Fiction in English

Collections

• Out of the Window, Into the Dark, Cambridge, Calque Press, 2024 ISBN 9781916232174
• Lost Objects New Extended Edition, Cambridge, Calque Press 2024
• Lost Objects, Edinburgh, Luna Press Publishing, 2018 ISBN 9781911143390

As editor

• An Invite to Eternity: Tales of Nature Disrupted. Calque Press, 2019, Cambridge, Calque Press, 2019. With Gary Budden
• The Best of Spanish Steampunk, Madrid, Nevsky Books. With James Womack
• Retrofuturismos. Antologia Steampunk. Madrid, Fábulas de Albión.

Short fiction in anthologies and magazines

• "Ready or Not", in Isolation, The Horror Anthology (Titan Books, 2022), edited by Dan Coxon
• "At the Museum", in Uncertainties, Vol. 4 (Swan River Press, 2020), edited by Timothy Jarvis
• "One, Two, Three", in The Shadow Booth, Vol. 4 (2019), edited by Dan Coxon
• "Nox Una", in The Silent Garden, a Journal of Esoteric Fabulism (Undertow Publications, 2018), edited by Michael Kelly
• "Mrs. Fox", in LossLit (November 2017), edited by Aki Schilz and Kit Caless.
• "Pink Footed", EcoPunk! Speculative Tales of Radical Futures (Ticonderoga Publications, 2017), edited by Liz Grzyb and Cat Spark
• "The ravisher, the thief", Barcelona Tales (NewCon Press, 2016), edited by Ian Whates.
• "Stones", SuperSonic (October–November 2016), edited by Cristina Jurado.
• "Orange Dogs", Weird Fiction Review, ed. Jeff VanderMeer (October 2015). Reimpreso in Year's Best Weird Fiction (vol. 3) (Undertow Publications, 2016), edited by Simon Strantzas and Michael Kelly.
• "Black Isle", Spanish Women of Wonder (Palabaristas, 2016). Reimpreso in A Dying Planet. Short Stories (Flame Tree Press, 2020).
• "Frozen Planet", Apex Mag Special International Issue #76 (September 2015)

Short Fiction in Spanish

• Nox una, in Aquelarre. Antología del cuento de terror español actual (* Aquelarre. Antología del cuento de terror español actual. Cuentos de Alfredo Álamo, Matías Candeira, Santiago Eximeno, Cristina Fernández Cubas, David Jasso, José María Latorre, Alberto López Aroca, Lorenzo Luengo, Ángel Olgoso, Félix Palma, Pilar Pedraza, Juan José Plans, Miguel Puente, Marc R. Soto, Norberto Luis Romero, Care Santos, José Carlos Somoza, José María Tamparillas, David Torres, José Miguel Vilar-Bou y Marian Womack. Salto de Página, Madrid, 2010; edición de Antonio Rómar y Pablo Mazo Agüero). ISBN 978-84-15065-02-9
• Help Needed: el nuevo Barbazul, La banda de los corazones sucios. Antología del cuento villano Madrid, Ediciones Baladí, 2010. Selección y prólogo de Salvador Luis. ISBN 78-84-937661-6-0 (obra colectiva). Reimpreso en La banda de los corazones sucios. Antología del cuento villano La Paz, Editorial El Cuervo, 2010. Selección y prólogo de Salvador Luis. ISBN 978-99954-749-3-5 (collective work)
• En la tierra del lobo, in Al otro lado del espejo, Madrid, Editorial Escalera, 2010. ISBN 978-84-938363-6-8 (collective work)
• «Matrioshka», in Rusia Imaginada, Madrid, Nevsky Prospects, 2011. Edición de Care Santos (collective work)
• «In a glass, darkly», Steampunk: antología retrofuturista. Selección de textos y antólogo: Félix J. Palma. Relatos de Óscar Esquivias, Fernando Marías, José María Merino, Juan Jacinto Muñoz Rengel, Andrés Neuman, Fernando Royuela, Luis Manuel Ruiz, Care Santos, José Carlos Somoza, Ignacio del Valle, Pilar Vera y Marian Womack. Ed. Fábulas de Albión, 2012. ISBN 978-84-939379-3-5
• «Montañas», Náufragos de San Borondón: Antología hispanoamericana de narradores Tenerife, Baile del Sol, 2012. Selección y prólogo de Javier Vázquez Losada. ISBN 978-84-15019-88-6 (collective work)

Academic works

Books

• Beauty is Complicated: Two Essays on the Weird. Cambridge, Calque Press, 2024
• Beyond the Back Room. New Perspectives on Carmen Martin Gaite. With Jennifer Wood. Oxford, Peter Lang, 2010. ISBN 9783039118274

Essays

• It's about to get crazy, it's about to get loud!: Weird Ecopoetics at the end of the world in Writing the Future: Essays on Crafting Science Fiction. Dead Ink Books. Ed. Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst, 2023
• 'Introduction', The Topless Tower by Silvina Ocampo. Calque Press, 2023
• 'Introduction', An Invite to Eternity: Tales of Nature Disrupted. Calque Press, 2019
• 'Nature has at last escaped from their discipline and their fetters: Ostranenie and the Ecological sublime in Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and Brian Catling's The Vorrh'. WorldCon. The World Science Fiction Convention (Helsinki). Academic Track – Environmental Anxieties, 2017
• Profile on Rosa Montero's SF novels, EuroCon Convention Book. BCon, 2016
• The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers / Stalker: Ciencia Ficción: Cien Películas Imprescindibles. JotDown Books, 2015

Translations

• Cuando sale la luna by Gladys Mitchell.
• En trineo y a caballo hacia los leprosos abandonados de Siberia by Kate Marsden. ISBN 978-84-9382-469-3
• El muñeco by Daphne du Maurier. ISBN 978-84-939379-0-4
• Paseando con fantasmas. Antología del cuento gótico. ISBN 978-84-8393-086-1
• La hija del rey del país de los Elfos by Lord Dunsany. ISBN 978-62-8754-063-7
• Transformación. Cuentos góticos by Mary Shelley. ISBN 978-84-8393-063-2
• Formas del amor by David Garnett. ISBN 978-84-92865-13-0
• Para leer al anochecer. Cuentos de fantasmas de Charles Dickens by Charles Dickens. With Enrique Gil Delgado. ISBN 978-84-937601-0-6
• Rusia gótica. With James Womack. ISBN 978-84-937466-1-2
• Las vírgenes sabias by Leonard Woolf. ISBN 978-84-937110-2-3

External links

• www.marianwomack.com