C. L. Clark

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-11

C. L. Clark, whose full name is Cherae Clark, is an American author of fantasy fiction who uses she/her and they/them pronouns. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University Bloomington and was named a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow, a program supporting LGBTQ writers. Alongside her writing career, Clark has worked as a personal trainer and an English teacher, and from 2019 to 2021 she served as co-editor of the fiction podcast PodCastle. She also collaborated with editor Charles Payseur on an anthology of queer speculative fiction. Her debut novel, The Unbroken (2021), the first book in the Magic of the Lost trilogy, was published by Orbit Books and follows a soldier and a rebel princess navigating colonial occupation and rebellion; it was a finalist for the Nebula Award, British Fantasy Award, Ignyte Award, and Locus Award. She continued the trilogy with The Faithless (2023) and The Sovereign (2025). Clark has also published numerous short stories in venues such as Uncanny Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and her story 'You Perfect, Broken Thing' won the 2021 Ignyte Award for Best Short Story. The anthology We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, which she co-edited, won both the 2022 Ignyte Award and the Locus Award for Best Anthology.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Unbroken (2021) · Magic of the Lost Core Canon
• The Faithless (2023) · Magic of the Lost Core Canon
• The Sovereign (2025) · Magic of the Lost Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 3 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)

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