Nathanial White
White’s speculative fiction explores the human psyche, disability, culture, technology and consumerism. He teaches high school English in Western Colorado. White is the winner of the 2021 Miami University Novella Prize. His debut novel, Conscious Designs, won the 2023 Colorado Book Award for
In the news
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Conscious Designs wins 2023 Colorado Humanities Book Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy
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Nate White wrote a main character as proxy to face pain from his own disability
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Nathanial White: Is Pain an Essential Part of the Human Experience?
In Conversation with Mitzi Rapkin on the First Draft Podcast
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Telling Truth with Fiction
Sopris Sun article by Paula Mayer
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The New Speculative Fiction: A Conversation Between Nathanial White & Brandon Teigland
Disturbing the Comfortable:
On Writing Disability in Science Fiction
Conscious Designs
In the near future, Eugene, a wealthy executive for a company that grows organs for human transplantation, looks for ways to escape the pain and disability of his biological existence as a paraplegic. Eugene considers purchasing a Second Self from Conscious Designs, a company that claims to be able to replicate his consciousness into a digital utopia where he may be free of the pain that torments his physical existence. A relatively new technology, the ethics and philosophy of digital life remain disputed. Eugene’s wife, Corina, questions his motives and his understanding of what it means to be human if consciousness can be copied. The more Eugene understands about digital replication, the more he begins to question the nature of personhood, love, and reality. In their journey of self discovery, Corina and Eugene learn the value of suffering, empathy and mortality. Conscious Designs explores the boundaries between body and mind, self and other, neurology and cybernetics, reality and simulation.
Seamus Sullivan reviews Nathanial White’s debut novel, Conscious Designs, for Strange Horizons. Sullivan opines, “the journey we take with Eugene is, ultimately, as poignant as it is discomfiting. Using the storytelling tools of SFF, White captures the creeping sense of unreality that makes it so painful to be alive today. And he reminds us that our pain is the surest sign that we, too, exist.”