Jia Xia (pen name of Wang Yao) was born in 1984 in Xan’ji in China. She then entered the Film Studies Program at the Communication University of China, where she completed her Master’s thesis: A Study on Female Figures in Science Fiction Films. Recently, she obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Peking University, with  Chinese Science Fiction and Its Cultural Politics Since 1990 as the topic of her dissertation. She now teaches at Xi’an Jiaotong University. She has been publishing fiction since college in a variety of venues, including  Science Fiction World, Jiuzhou Fantasy, and  Clarkesworld. Several of her stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award.