Judith Moffett

Judith Moffett (born 1942) is an American author and academic. She has published poetry, nonfiction, science fiction, and translations of Swedish literature. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and presented a paper on the translation of poetry at a 1998 Nobel Symposium.
She began her career writing poetry and about poets, including a 1984 book about James Merrill, who was both her friend and mentor. Moffett still writes for organizations such as the Academy of American Poets. She did not publish science fiction until 1986, but gained almost immediate attention by winning the first Theodore Sturgeon Award in 1987. Her first novel, Pennterra in 1987, further enhanced her reputation. It is noted both for its treatment of alien sexuality and as an example of Quakers in science fiction. In the following year, 1988, she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction. In 1989 her novella "Tiny Tango" also received award nominations.

Awards, honors, and recognitions

• 1967 Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to the University of Lund, Sweden
• 1971 First prize, Graduate Division, in the Academy of American Poets Contest at the University of Pennsylvania
• 1973 Fulbright Travel Grant to Sweden
• 1973 Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry magazine
• 1976 First Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant in poetry
• 1976 Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine
• 1978 Columbia University Translation Center Award
• 1980 Second Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant
• 1981 Poem "Scatsquall in Spring" included in Pushcart IV: Best of the Small Presses annual collection
• 1982 Annual Translation Prize of the Swedish Academy
• 1983 National Endowment for the Humanities Translation Grant
• 1984 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship Grant
• 1987 "Surviving": won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best science fiction story of the year; also a finalist for a 1986 Nebula Award in the novelette category
• 1988 Received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the World Science Fiction Convention in New Orleans
• 1989 "The Hob": a finalist for the 1988 Nebula Award in the novelette category
• 1990 "Tiny Tango": a finalist for the 1989 Nebula Award and the 1990 Hugo Award in the novella category
• 1991 Third Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant for poetry and translation
• 1991 The Ragged World: a New York Times Notable Book
• 1992 Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream: a New York Times Notable Book and shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award
• 1994 Translation grant from the Swedish Academy
• 1998 Presenter at the Nobel Symposium on Translation of Poetry and Poetic Prose
• 1999 One-year stipend from the Swedish Authors' Fund
• 2015 Presenter, "Mixed Messages" (an excerpt from Unlikely Friends: A Memoir), at the James Merrill Symposium, Washington University in St. Louis