Mary Robinette Kowal
American writer and puppeteer

Mary Robinette Kowal (née Harrison; born February 8, 1969) is an American author, translator, art director, and puppeteer. She is a four-time Hugo Award winner, a Nebula Award and Locus Award winner, and served as the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 2019-2021. She has worked on puppetry for shows including Jim Henson Productions and the children's show LazyTown.
Early life
Mary Robinette Harrison was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. She was named after both of her grandmothers, and describes her given name, "Mary Robinette," as a double first name.
She attended William G. Enloe High School, and studied at East Carolina University. She graduated with a degree in Art Education with a minor in Theater and Speech. She began work as a professional puppeteer in 1989.
Career
Puppetry and art direction
Kowal has performed for the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Productions; and her own production company, Other Hand Productions. She also worked in Iceland on the children's television show LazyTown for two seasons.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mary Robinette Kowal” is american writer and puppeteer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mary, Robinette and Kowal, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4225496. VIAF identifies the subject as 121205922. The Library of Congress control number is no2010075611. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 2019, 2021 and 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mary Robinette Kowal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.