Fran Wilde

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-18

Fran Wilde, born in 1972 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She earned a BA in English from the University of Virginia (1994), an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College (1996), and a master's degree in information architecture and interaction design from the University of Baltimore (2001). Before writing full-time, she worked as a sailing instructor, a jeweler's assistant, a teacher and professor, and a web and game developer. Her debut novel, Updraft (2015), launched the Bone Universe trilogy, a secondary-world fantasy set among a society living on towering bone spires above the clouds; it won the 2016 Andre Norton Award and the Compton Crook Award, and was nominated for the Nebula Award. She also created the Gem Universe trilogy, comprising The Jewel and Her Lapidary, The Fire Opal Mechanism, and The Book of Gems, and the middle-grade novel Riverland (2019), which won a second Andre Norton Award and was named an NPR Best Book of 2019, making her the first person to win the award twice. Her fiction frequently explores themes of social class, disability, disruptive technology, and empowerment. She directs the Genre Fiction MFA concentration at Western Colorado University and lives in Philadelphia with her family.

Universe(s)

Books

• Updraft (2015) · Bone Universe Core Canon
• Cloudbound (2016) · Bone Universe Core Canon
• Horizon (2017) · Bone Universe Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 3 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 1 (1 won)

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