An award-winning science fiction novelist has received an honorary degree from Lancaster University.

Anne Charnock, whose career has also taken in environmental science, fine art and journalism, is a distinguished science writer who has written for the Guardian, New Scientist, the Financial Times, as well as the Herald Tribune and Geographical.

Much of her early journalism has informed her creative writing.

Her first novel, A Calculated Life, was nominated for the Philip K Dick Award in 2014. Her novel, Dreams Before the Start of Time, deals with the subject of ectogenesis in a world where pregnancy has been eliminated. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2018 and was shortlisted by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) for its 2017 Best Novel award.

In the same year, Anne won the BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction for her novella The Enclave.

Her fifth novel, Alston Moor, will be published in September 2026.