Occupation Editor Nationality USA | Name Teresa Hayden Role Editor | |
 | ||
Born March 21, 1956 (age 68) ( 1956-03-21 ) Genre Non-fiction (writer);
science fiction, fantasy (editor) Spouse Patrick Nielsen Hayden (m. 1979) Books Making Book, Atlanta Nights Awards Edward E. Smith Memorial Award Nominations Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer Similar People Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Kathryn Cramer, David G Hartwell, Susan Palwick, Samuel R Delany | ||
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (born March 21, 1956) is an American science fiction editor, fanzine writer, essayist, and workshop instructor. She is a consulting editor for Tor Books. and is well known for her weblog, Making Light. She has also worked for Federated Media Publishing, when in 2007 she was hired to revive the comment section for the blog Boing Boing. Nielsen Hayden has been nominated for Hugo Awards five times.
Contents
Early life
Born Teresa Nielsen, she grew up in a Mormon household in Mesa, Arizona.
Career
In 1985, Nielsen Hayden and her husband were TransAtlantic Fan Fund delegates to Europe for Eastercon. Over the next few years, the Nielsen Haydens published at least three TAFF trip reports. From 1985 to 1989, she served on the editorial board of The Little Magazine, a poetry magazine.
She is a former managing editor and a former consulting editor at Tor Books. In 1994, a collection of her essays, Making Book (ISBN 0-915368-55-2), was published by NESFA Press. It is now in its third printing. The second printing is the preferred edition.
She is also one of the regular instructors for the writing workshop Viable Paradise.
Nielsen Hayden is well known for her weblog, Making Light, where she writes about subjects such as animal hoarding, publishing scams, astroturfing, and global political events. She is the first recorded Internet editor to practice disemvoweling of the entire text of offensive posts; the term itself was coined in a Making Light post by Arthur Hlavaty. She was the first lead comments moderator at the popular blog Boing Boing when it reopened its comments feature in 2007. In June 2008, a controversy on Boing Boing concerning the "unpublication" of all articles that mention Sex-Columnist Violet Blue generated criticism of some of her moderation techniques, including disemvowelment.
Personal life
Teresa Nielsen appended Hayden to her name upon marrying the former Patrick Hayden in 1979; he also took her name, becoming Patrick Nielsen Hayden. The two of them were active members of science fiction fandom and collaborated on various fanzines, including the Hugo-nominated Izzard.
She was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1980 for her support of the Equal Rights Amendment. In her youth, she served as a page in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Nielsen Hayden has narcolepsy, for which she had been taking pemoline until the Food and Drug Administration withdrew the drug from the marketplace. In September 2008 she had what appeared to be a heart attack; paramedics were summoned immediately, and she made a full recovery.