Judith Berman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Judith Berman
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Berman in 2008
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| Born | November 12, 1958 |
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| Nationality | American |
| Education | Bennington College University of Pennsylvania (PhD) |
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| Spouse | John Holland |
| Children | 1 |
Judith Elsa Berman, born on November 12, 1958, is an American writer. She writes exciting stories in the science fiction and fantasy genres. She is also an anthropologist, which means she studies human societies and cultures.
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About Judith Berman
Judith Berman grew up in Moscow, Idaho. As a child, she loved reading "Golden Age science fiction" books. These are classic science fiction stories from an earlier time. She started making up her own stories when she was only five or six years old.
She went to Bennington College and graduated in 1979. There, she studied Anthropology, Russian, and different types of literature. After college, she worked as an assistant at a publishing company. Later, she earned her PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.
As of 2025, Judith Berman lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She lives there with her husband, John Holland, and their son, Sam, who was born in 1999.
Judith Berman has something called synesthesia. This means that when she experiences one sense, like hearing a sound, it might trigger another sense, like seeing a color.
Her Exciting Stories
Judith Berman's stories have been recognized with several awards. Her short stories were nominated for the Nebula, Sturgeon, and Crawford awards. She also won the SFRA Pioneer Award for an essay she wrote in 2001. This essay was called “Science Fiction Without the Future.” Her short stories have appeared in popular magazines like Asimov’s and Interzone.
Sometimes, her science fiction and fantasy stories use ideas from her anthropology background. For example, her first novel, Bear Daughter (published in 2005), was nominated for the Crawford Award. Even though Bear Daughter is about made-up characters, it was inspired by Native American stories. It also draws on the traditions of the Indigenous people from the north Pacific coast.
Berman wanted to be very respectful of the ways of thinking found in these Indigenous sources. She thanked many cultures in their own languages in her book. These included Gunalchéesh (Tlingit), Hàw’aa (Haida), T'ooyaksiy nisim (Nisga), and others.
Her Work in Anthropology
Judith Berman is a linguistic anthropologist. This means she studies how language and culture are connected. She has written articles about the myths and translations of Native American people, especially those from the Pacific Northwest.
She focuses on oral literature, which are stories passed down by speaking them. She also studies the history of Indigenous people on the Northwest Coast. She has researched the lives and work of Indigenous ethnographers like George Hunt and Louis Shotridge. Ethnographers are people who study different cultures.
In 2005, she was a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. From 2013 to 2016, she taught at the University of Victoria. She is also a scholar who studies the work of Franz Boas, a famous anthropologist.
Berman has also talked about cultural appropriation in an interview. This is when elements of a culture are used by another culture, sometimes without understanding or respect.
Her Published Works
Fiction Books and Stories
- “The Year of Storms” (1995)
- “Lord Stink” (1997)
- “The Window” (1999) (This story won third place for the Sturgeon Award.)
- “Dream of Rain” (2000)
- “Lord Stink and Other Stories” (a collection of stories, published in 2002)
- “The Fear Gun” (2004) (This story was a finalist for the Sturgeon Award in 2005.)
- “The Poison Well” (2004)
- Bear Daughter (2005)
- "Awakening" (2008) (This story was nominated for a Nebula Award.)
Non-fiction Writings
- Topics in the Clausal Syntax of German
- "The Culture as it Appears to the Indian Himself" (This essay is part of a book about the history of anthropology.)
