Margret Helgadottir is Norwegian-Icelandic, a four times British Fantasy Award-nominated author and anthology editor, and winner of the Starburst's Brave New Words Award. Biography Helgadóttir was born in Ethiopia to Norwegian and Icelandic parents. She has written about her background as Missionary kid and crosscultural child, and how it has influenced her writing, and said: “... the scars and blessings it has given me to be a child who moved lots between cultures whilst trying to develop my own identity. ... Many of my characters struggle with grief and a feeling of being lost, like in The Stars Seem So Far Away.” She holds a Cand.polit. degree in Pedagogy from the University of Oslo. She has worked as teacher, and in several Norwegian ministries and directorates in Oslo, and in the Nordic Council of Ministers in Copenhagen, Denmark. Helgadóttir is a charter member of the African Speculative Fiction Society. She lives in Oslo, and has lived in Ethiopia, Senegal, Denmark and Norway. Work Helgadóttir started writing fiction in English (her native language is Norwegian) in 2012, when she was one of the winners of a writing competition held by UK-based Fox Spirit Books. Her stories have since then appeared in several anthologies and magazines, such as Luna Station Quarterly, Gone Lawn Journal, The Girl at the End of the World, and Sunspot Jungle - The Ever Expanding Universe of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her prose is called lyrical and haunting. Helgadóttir's debut book, The Stars Seem So Far Away, from 2015, was nominated for British Fantasy Awards in 2016, and is an apocalyptic road tale set in a far-future Arctic world, told through linked tales of five survivors. The book can be seen as a hybrid of a novel and a collection. Mark Bould wrote: "This is why slightly unusual the structure works so well. The characters – and the novel – move from profound disconnection to reconnection." Interzone (magazine) said: "Whether these are stories, chapters, fragments or something else, this book is still stunningly original”, and: “imagine J.G. Ballard rewrote The Odyssey”, while E.P. Beaumont wrote: “The stripped-down language and huge landscapes link this short novel to the world of epic poetry and saga." Helgadóttir is also an anthology editor, her work including the seven volumes in the anthology series The Fox Spirit Books of Monsters, where she invited authors and artists to write stories based on their own