Saladin Ahmed

Saladin Ahmed (born October 4, 1975) is an Eisner Award winning American comic book and science fiction and fantasy writer. His 2012 book Throne of the Crescent Moon was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has also been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Ahmed's fiction has been published in anthologies and magazines including Strange Horizons, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Clockwork Phoenix 2 and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He is also the author of Black Bolt, Exiles and Miles Morales: Spider-Man from Marvel Comics.

Personal life

Ahmed was born in 1975 in Detroit, Michigan to parents of Lebanese, Egyptian, Irish, and Polish descent. His father, Ismael Ahmed, formerly in the merchant marine, worked both in a factory and as a community organizer. His mother was a political activist.

After graduating from high school, Ahmed attended Henry Ford Community College before transferring to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. After receiving a B.A. in American Studies, Ahmed earned an MFA at Brooklyn College and an MA in English from Rutgers University. Ahmed is Muslim.

Career

Writer

Ahmed's science fiction and fantasy stories have been published in magazines and anthologies including Strange Horizons, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Clockwork Phoenix 2, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. In 2010, he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Ahmed's story "Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela", originally published in Clockwork Phoenix 2, was a finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. His story "Where Virtue Lives", originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, was a finalist for the 2009 Harper's Pen Award.

His novel trilogy The Crescent Moon Kingdoms is currently being published by DAW Books. The novels are fantasies inspired by One Thousand and One Nights. The first book in the series, Throne of the Crescent Moon, was published by DAW Books in February 2012.

Ahmed's poetry has been published in various literary journals and books and has been awarded fellowships from the University of Michigan, Brooklyn College, and the Bronx Council on the Arts.

In October 2017 gained media attention for a Twitter post addressed to the cereal company Kellogg's: "why is literally the only brown corn pop on the whole cereal box the janitor? this is teaching kids racism." Kellogg's indicated they would change the artwork on future Corn Pops shipments.

Awards and honors

Throne of the Crescent Moon was a finalist for both the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Ahmed won the Locus Award for Best First Novel for the novel.

He was also a finalist for the 2010 and 2011 John W. Campbell Award and the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Short Story.

Ahmed's comic Black Bolt, with Christian Ward as the artist, won the 2018 Eisner Award for Best New Series while the graphic novel collection of the comic, Black Bolt, Volume 1: Hard Time, was a finalist for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.

Works

Novels

• Throne of the Crescent Moon (DAW Books, 2012)

Comics

• Black Bolt (12 issue monthly series from Marvel Comics, May 2017-April 2018)
• Abbott (5 issue mini series from BOOM! Studios, January 2018 to May 2018)
• Exiles (12 issue monthly series from Marvel Comics, April 2018 to January 2019)
• Quicksilver: No Surrender (5 issue limited series from Marvel Comics, May 2018 to September 2018)
• Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (one shot from Marvel Comics, September 2018)
• Miles Morales: Spider-Man (monthly series from Marvel Comics, December 2018 to present).
• The Magnificent Ms. Marvel (monthly series from Marvel Comics, March 2019 to present).
• Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales (3 issue limited series from Marvel Comics, August 2019 to October 2019)

Collections

• Engraved on the Eye (Ridan Publishing, 2012)

Short stories

• Star Wars: Canto Bight - "Rules of the Game" (Del Rey, December 2017)
• "Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy" - Rags & Bones, ed. By Melissa Marr, Tim Pratt (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, October 2013)
• "Amethyst, Shadow, and Light" - Fearsome Journeys, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris, May 2013)
• "The Faithful Soldier, Prompted" - Apex Magazine 18, November 2010

podcast by StarShipSofa

• "Mister Hadj's Sunset Ride" - Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2010
• "General Akmed's Revenge?" - Expanded Horizons 16, March 2010
• "Doctor Diablo Goes Through The Motions" - Strange Horizons, February 2010

podcast by DrabbleCast

• "Judgment of Swords and Souls" - Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show
• "Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela" - Clockwork Phoenix 2, ed. by Mike Allen (Norilana Books, July 2009)

Finalist for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story

podcast by PodCastle

• "Where Virtue Lives - Beneath Ceaseless Skies, April 2009

Finalist for the 2009 Harper's Pen Award.

Poetry

Ahmed's poetry has appeared in the following journals and anthologies:

• Callaloo Volume 32, Issue 4 (2009)
• Against Agamemnon: War Poetry (WaterWood Press 2009)
• Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry (University of Arkansas Press 2008)
• Margie: The American Journal of Poetry Volume 6 (2007)
• We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon (Interlink Books 2007)
• The Brooklyn Review #19 (2002)
• The Brooklyn Review #18 (2001)
• Big City Lit (2001)
• Mizna Volume 3, Issue 1 (2001)
• Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry (Wayne State University Press 2001)
• Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing' (Kitab/Syracuse University Press 2000)
• Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream (Wayne State University Press 2000)