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P.A. Cornell

​​Speculative Fiction Writer

​Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Vol. 2 is a finalist for the Aurora Award!

About the Author

​P.A. Cornell is an award-winning, Chilean-Canadian, speculative fiction author. In 2024, she became the first ever Chilean writer to be nominated for the Nebula Award for her story, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” also a finalist for the Aurora and World Fantasy Awards. Additionally, Cornell has been long-listed for the 2023 and 2024 BSFA Awards, and in 2022, her story, “Splits,” won Canada’s 2022 Short Works Prize for Published Fiction. 

​Raised on a steady diet of books, at the age of five, she learned where all these books were coming from and knew then and there that writing was the path for her. She penned her first speculative story as a third-grade assignment: a science fiction piece about shape-shifting aliens. Four decades later, she still has this story, which she keeps in her writing desk to remind her of how far she’s come.
 
Despite her early interest in fiction, Cornell's first publications were in non-fiction as a journalist and copy editor. Since 2015, she’s dedicated herself to writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror full time, and her stories have appeared in over fifty magazines and anthologies, including three "Best of" anthologies. 
 
When not writing, Cornell can be found reading, drinking various varieties of tea in ridiculous quantities, and building Lego sets (check out some of her builds on Instagram), among other things. She also enjoys travel and hopes to do more of it in the future.
Picture
All author photos by Michelle Ward Images
Murals by the artists of Concession Street, Hamilton, ON
​Header image by P.A. Cornell


Awards & Accolades:
  • Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 2 (including "Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont" by P.A. Cornell), is a finalist for the 2025 Aurora Award for Best Related Work
  • "Bright Horizons" is long-listed for the 2024 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards
  • "The Life You've Given Me, Rusty" is long-listed for the 2024 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards
  • "Side Effects May Vary" winner of the 2024 Unicorn Mech Suit Short Story Contest
  • "Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont" is a finalist for the 2024 World Fantasy Award
  • Immigrant Sci-Fi Short Stories (including "El Bordado" by P.A. Cornell) long-listed for the British Fantasy Awards 2024
  • "Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont" included in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024
  • "Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont" is a finalist for the 2024 Aurora Award
  • "Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont" is a finalist for the 2024 Nebula Award
  • "Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont" included in Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 2
  • Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 1 (including "Into the Frozen Wilds" by P.A. Cornell, and listing P.A. Cornell's Lost Cargo as one of the best novellas of 2022) won the 2024 Aurora Award for Best Related Work
  • Darkness Blooms (including "Hard Time" by P.A. Cornell) on the 2023 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot for Superior Achievement in an Anthology
  • "Things Most Meaningful" is long-listed for the 2023 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards
  • ​"Into the Frozen Wilds" included in Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 1
  • Lost Cargo listed as one of 2022's best novellas in Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 1
  • "Splits" winner of Canada's 2022 Short Works Prize Freda Waldon Award for Published Fiction

Affiliations:
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (Full)
Canadian Science Fiction Fantasy Association
ALCiFF Chile (Chilean SFF Association)
Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate (2002)
Codex online writing group

Land Acknowledgement: 
The home in which I live and work is situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. This land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, which was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. I further acknowledge that this land is covered by the Between the Lakes Purchase, 1792, between the Crown and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Statement on Generative AI:
While the tech industry is currently touting AI as the greatest advancement in recent years, I'd like to make my position clear. I feel that generative AI, in its current form, is detrimental on multiple levels. It has been particularly harmful for the arts, as it has been trained on stolen intellectual property (including mine) and disrupts the proper functioning of various art industries. It has also already cost many human creators (as well as tangential professions) their livelihoods. Not to mention the fact that its use is exceedingly damaging to the environment. I would like to give readers my personal guarantee that I have never (and will never knowingly) use AI as part of my writing process in any capacity. Nor will I ever use it in the promotion of my work, or other writing-related tasks. In fact, I don't use it at all, for any reason. Furthermore, I support my fellow creatives in that, to the best of my ability, I have worked to ensure that my stories aren't accompanied by AI-generated art, or read by non-human audio narrators. Please join me in supporting human creatives.
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