Nicola Griffith is the award-winning author of several novels, including Hild, and a memoir. A native of Yorkshire, England—now a dual U.S./U.K. citizen—she is a onetime self-defense instructor who turned to writing full-time upon being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1993. She holds a Ph.D. from Anglia Ruskin University and lives with her wife, the writer Kelley Eskridge, in Seattle.