Laurie Penny

Penny was born in London, England, to two lawyers of Irish, Jewish and Maltese descent,^[3] and grew up in Lewes^[4] and Brighton.^[5] Penny suffered from anorexia as a teenager and was hospitalised with the condition aged 17. They recovered from the illness and wrote about the experience from a feminist perspective in their book Unspeakable Things.^[6]

Penny attended the independent school Brighton College before studying English at Wadham College, Oxford.^[7]

Penny's blog "Penny Red" was launched in 2007^[8] and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for blogging in 2010.^[9] Penny went on to become a columnist at The Independent in 2012^[10] and then a columnist and contributing editor for the New Statesman.^[11] They are a regular contributor to The Guardian.^[12]

In April 2011, they presented the Channel 4 Dispatches programme "Cashing in on Degrees".^[13] and also appeared on Channel 4's satirical current affairs programme 10 O'Clock Live^[14] and on BBC Two's Newsnight.^[15]

In 2012, Tatler magazine described Penny as one of the top 100 "people who matter".^[16] In October 2012, The Daily Telegraph ranked Penny as the 55th most influential left-winger in Britain, describing them as "without doubt the loudest and most controversial female voice on the radical left",^[17] and the knowledge networking company Editorial Intelligence awarded Penny its "Twitter Public Personality" award.^[18] In 2015, Penny was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.^[19]

Several of Penny's articles have provoked criticism, including a 2014 article for the New Statesman that argued short hair on women was a "political statement"^[20] and a 2015 article defending vandalism of the Monument to the Women of World War II.^[21]

Penny is the author of seven books, including Bitch Doctrine, Unspeakable Things and Everything Belongs to the Future.^[22] Penny's book Penny Red: Notes from the New Age of Dissent was shortlisted for the first Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing in 2012.^[23] Their seventh book, Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults, was longlisted for the 2018 Orwell Prize.^[24]

Penny has also written for streaming TV, contributing to episodes of the Netflix show The Haunting of Bly Manor and HBO's The Nevers, and acted as a story editor on Carnival Row.^[25]

Penny came out as genderqueer, pansexual and polyamorous in 2015.^[26][27] In 2020, Penny stated a preference for the pronouns they/them; they also use she/her pronouns, although they consider them to be "less accurate".^[28]

In December 2020, Penny married in Los Angeles, California.^[29]

Penny has spoken of having complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)^[30] and autism.^[31]

• 2010: Orwell Prize for blogging, shortlist^[32]
• 2012: Bread and Roses Award, shortlist, Penny Red: Notes from the New Age of Dissent^[33]
• 2014: Red Women of the Year Award, blogger category, shortlist^[34]
• 2015: William Montalbano Nieman Fellow^[35]
• 2015: Fellow at the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University^[36]
• 2017: John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, finalist^[37]
• 2018: American Society of Magazine Editors National Magazine Awards, Columns and Commentary category, finalist, for the columns "The Horizon of Desire", "We’re All Mad Here: Weinstein, Women, and the Language of Lunacy", and "The Unforgiving Minute".^[38]

• Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (Zero Books, 2011)
• Penny Red: Notes from the New Age of Dissent (Pluto Press, 2011)
• Discordia: Six Nights in Crisis Athens (Random House, 2012)
• Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013)
• Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014)
• Everything Belongs to the Future (Tor.com, 2016)
• Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults (Bloomsbury USA, 2017)
• Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2022) ISBN 978-1526602213

Wikiquote has quotations related to Laurie Penny.

• Laurie Penny at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Laurie Penny at IMDb