José Pablo Iriarte

José Pablo Iriarte is a Cuban American author of children's fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, best known for the Nebula Award– and James Tiptree Award–nominated short novelette "The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births."

Personal life
Iriarte is Cuban American and Spanish is their first language, having learned English right after starting kindergarten. The first paying magazine rejection Iriarte received was at 13.

Iriarte is non-binary and says to have long had a fascination with gender and societal expectations of it. Their work takes inspiration from the young adult novelist A.S. King and the short story writers Sam J. Miller, Sarah Pinsker, Caroline M. Yoachim, Sandra McDonald, Ken Liu, and Elizabeth Bear.

Iriarte works as a high school math teacher and lives in Central Florida. They are married and have two children.

Selected works
The short story "The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births" tackles gender identity, a choice inspired by Iriarte identifying as non-binary. The story was published in the American online speculative magazine Lightspeed, in Issue 92, in January 2018. It was a finalist for a Nebula Award for Best Short Story in the category Fantasy in 2018 and on the longlist for the James Tiptree Award in 2018. It was received favorably by critics, earning a triple star review, and was on Tangent Online's Recommended Reading List in 2018.

Iriarte's short story "Yuca and Dominoe," originally published by Strange Horizons in 2013, has also been translated into Spanish and published in the anthology Órbita Juracán: Cuentos de Ciencia Ficción in 2016 as "Yuca y Dominos."

Iriarte's 2016 short story "The Vampire's Stepdaughter" was published in the September/August issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. It was on Tangent Online 's Recommended Reading List in 2016 and received a starred review, as well as the 2017 short story "O Stone, Be Not So" in 2017.

Several of their short stories were placed on the SFWA Nebula Recommended Reading List.

Some of Iriarte's work is published under the name José Iriarte.

Awards
Won


 * Sippy Award for "Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic" (Strange Horizons, 2016)

Nominations

 * Nebula Award for Best Short Story for "The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births" (Lightspeed Magazine, 2018)
 * James Tiptree Award for "The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births" (Lightspeed Magazine, 2018)
 * Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Proof by Induction" (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021).