Beth Cato

Beth Cato (born January 13, 1980) is an American speculative fiction writer and poet, best known for her Clockwork Dagger and Blood of Earth series.

She usually writes as Beth Cato, though in one instance she used the byline Beth L. Cato.

Cato was born Beth Louise Davis on January 13, 1980 in Hanford, California.

She married Navy sailor Jason Cato in 2000; in the course of his naval career they traveled the country, living at various times in South Carolina and Washington.

They settled in Arizona after Jason left the Navy, where they live in Buckeye, near Phoenix, with their son and three cats.

Cato's first published fiction appeared online at Ligonier Valley Writers (lvwonline.org) in 2009.

The Clockwork Dagger placed fifth in the 2015 Locus Poll Award for Best First Novel.

Wings of Sorrow and Bone was nominated for the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novella.

"Fried Okra" was a preliminary nominee for the 2016 Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem.

"The Box of Dust and Monsters" placed third in the 2017 Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem.

"The Death of the Horse" and "Morning During Migration Season" were both preliminary nominees for the 2017 Rhysling Award for Best Long Poem.

Breath of Earth placed nineteenth in the 2017 Locus Poll Award for Best Fantasy Novel and was nominated for the 2017 Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel.

Her fiction has appeared in various periodicals, podcasts and anthologies, including A is for Apocalypse, At Year's End: Holiday SFF Stories, B is for Broken, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Blue Shift, C is for Chimera, Cast of Wonders, Cats in Space, Clockwork Phoenix 5, Coffee: 14 Caffeinated Tales of the Fantastic, Crossed Genres, Cucurbital 3, D is for Dinosaur, Daily Science Fiction, Decision Points, E is for Evil, Electric Spec, Escape Pod, Every Day Fiction, F is for Fairy, Fae, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Fantastique Unfettered #3, Fantasy Scroll Magazine, Far-Fetched Fables, Fireside Magazine, Fireside Quarterly, Future Science Fiction Digest, Futures, Galactic Games, Giftmas 2018 Advent Anthology, Kasma Magazine, Little Green Men—Attack!, Mountain Magic, Mysterion, Nature, Not Just Rockets and Robots, Oomph: A Little Super Goes a Long Way, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, The Overcast, The Pedestal Magazine, Penumbra, Perihelion, PodCastle, Rocket Dragons Ignite, Science Fiction Short Stories, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, StarShipSofa, Stupefying Stories, Surviving Tomorrow, Swords and Steam Short Stories, Toasted Cake, 2016 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide, The 2021 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Poetry of 2020, Uncanny Magazine, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader presents Flush Fiction, Utopia Science Fiction, Waylines, Year Five, and Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction 2013.

Some of her stories have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, German and Persian.

Cato's fiction and poetry has been nominated for a number of literary awards, and in one instance won.

"A Net to Snare a Unicorn" and "Wayfaring King" were both finalists for the 2018 Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem.

"The Library is Open" was a preliminary nominee for the 2018 BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction.

"After Her Brother Ripped the Heads from Her Paper Dolls" won the 2019 Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem.