Annalee Newitz

I write about science, culture,

and the future.

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Shorter-ish third person bio:

Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the author of three novels: The Terraformers, The Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award. As a science journalist, they are the author of Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age and Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in science. They are a writer for the New York Times and elsewhere, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. They have published in The Washington Post, Slate, Scientific American, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, and Technology Review, among others. They are the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, and have contributed to the public radio shows Science Friday, On the Media, KQED Forum, and Here and Now. Previously, they were the founder of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.

Longer first person bio:

Mostly I write books of the nonfiction and fiction varieties. 

My latest nonfiction book, which came out in summer 2024, is Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind. The New York Times called “skillful at elucidating such a tangled, morally contentious history.” Previously, I published Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, a national bestseller that was praised in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New Yorker. I'm also the author of Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction (Doubleday and Anchor), which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in science.

My third novel, which came out in early 2023, is called The Terraformers, and received praise from The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle. It was nominated for a Nebula and a Locus Award. My second novel The Future of Another Timeline, received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Booklist. My first novel, Autonomous, won the Lambda Literary Award, and was nominated for the Nebula and Locus Awards. My short story “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis” was winner of the 2019 Sturgeon Award.

I'm currently a freelance science journalist, contributing to publications including The Washington Post, Scientific American, and The New York Times. I also write a column for New Scientist. I'm the co-host, with Charlie Jane Anders, of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. I have also contributed to the public radio shows Science Friday, On the Media, KQED Forum, and Here and Now.

Previously, I founded io9, and was the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.

My nonfiction has appeared in Slate, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, The Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, 2600, New Scientist, Technology Review, Popular Science, Discover and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. I'm the co-editor of the essay collection She’s Such A Geek (Seal Press), and author of Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture (Duke University Press).

Much earlier, I was a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a lecturer in American Studies at UC Berkeley. I was the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, and have a Ph.D. in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley.