Mary Robinette Kowal is the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Cosmos and Asimov’s. Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, lives in Portland, OR with her husband Rob and eight manual typewriters.
She has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures and founded Other Hand Productions. Her design work has garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.
“The Consciousness Problem” by Mary Robinette Kowal. The skills that have brought Kowal a Campbell award for best new writer are fully on display in this tale of identity and self in which a husband and wife team conducting advanced research into cloning and memory transfer discover the meaning of the phrase 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'. Serious literary qualities are woven through a well-known science fiction trope (cloning) resulting in a fresh new approach. Kowal has a deftness of touch and descriptive powers not all that common in contemporary SF.