Eleanor Atwood Arnason (born 1942) is an American author of science fiction novels and short stories.

Arnason is the daughter of H. Harvard Arnason, who became the director of the Walker Art Center in 1951, and Elizabeth Yard Arnason, a social worker by profession who has spent her childhood in China. From 1949 to 1961, Arnason and her parents lived in "Idea House #2," a futuristic dwelling built by the Walker Art Center. [1]

Arnason's earliest published story appeared in New Worlds in 1972. Her work often depicts cultural change and conflict, usually from the viewpoint of characters who cannot or will not live by their own societies' rules. This anthropological focus has led many to compare her fiction to that of Ursula K. Le Guin.

Arnason won the first James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and the Mythopoeic Award (both for A Woman of the Iron People), the Spectrum Award (for "Dapple") and the HOMer Award (for her novelette Stellar Harvest). Stellar Harvest also was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2000. In 2003 she was nominated for two Nebula Awards, for her novella Potter of Bones and her short story "Knapsack Poems." She lives in Minnesota.

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