A Mile Closer to the Stars
Alphabetical List of Participants * * To Previous Page of Biographies * * To Next Page of Biographies
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Gay HaldemanGay Haldeman (Mary Gay Potter Haldeman) has a Master's degree in Spanish Literature from the University of Maryland and another in Linguistics, from the University of Iowa. She teaches in the Writing Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) every fall, specializing in English as a second language. The rest of the year she resides in Florida, where she manages writer Joe Haldeman's career, dealing with editors, answering correspondence (in Spanish and French as well as English; isn't e-mail wonderful?), serving as travel agent, answering the phone, typing and filing, arranging publicity, selling Joe's out-of-print books, etc. She's been going to SF conventions since 1963 (so has Joe) and loves to meet new people. After 42 years of marriage, she still thinks Joe's the best
thing that ever happened to her. |
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Jeanne SteinJeanne Stein's first novel, The Becoming, was a Barnes & Noble national best seller for December 2006 as well as a local bestseller in San Diego and Denver. It was published first by ImaJinn Books, a small Colorado publisher, then picked up by Berkley. She lives now in Colorado, but was raised and educated in San Diego, which is the setting for her contemporary vampire fantasy. According to Jeanne, "Sunny beach climes seemed a perfect fit for a vampire who has adapted to sunlight. Anna Strong's cottage in Mission Beach and most places mentioned in the stories are real." Blood Drive, the second in the Anna Strong series, was released by Berkley in June 2007 and Watcher, the third, in December 2007. She also has a story in an anthology entitled Many Bloody Returns, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, which debuted at #30 on the NYT bestseller list in September 2007. Jeanne is active in the writing community, belonging to Sisters in Crime both nationally and in San Diego and LA. She also belongs to Horror Writers of America, RWA and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She was just named RMFW's Writer of the Year for 2008, an honor given to a writer who has contributed to the organization as well as achieved success in publication. Jeanne is a full time writer, working on her novels, short
stories and as editor of a beer newsletter for Distinguished Brands
International, a beer and wine importer. She also tries to work in a
kickboxing class or two each week to stay in shape. |
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 Photograph by Marilyn Niven |
Larry NivenOne of science fiction's most respected and enduring authors, Larry Niven was born in Los Angeles and graduated high school in Beverly Hills. He was attending the California Institute of Technology when he discovered a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines, which he claims were responsible for his flunking out of college. His BA in Mathematics was earned one month before half the campus at Washburn University in Kansas was scattered to the winds by a tornado. Niven returned later to receive an honorary doctorate in Letters. Niven lives in Southern California with wife Marilyn Joyce (Fuzzy Pink) Wisowaty Niven, an avid sf and convention fan herself, whom he met at Nycon World Science Fiction convention in 1967 where he was Guest of Honor. Their household consists of several non-humans, including a cat, dogs he borrows for walking companions, and neighborhood raccoons and ferrets. He stated that this association "with nonhumans has certainly gained me insight into alien intelligences." Niven claims that his only "honest employment" was as a gas station attendant; that claim is belied by his distinguished writing career which began with the publication of a short story, The Coldest Place in the Worlds of If in December, 1964. His published short stories now number in the hundreds. Among his many awards are 5 Hugos, 1 Nebula, 4 Locus Awards, 2 Ditmars, 5 Selun Awards, and 1 Prometheus. Ringworld (1970) received the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Ditmar awards. A diverse writer, he has written fiction of every length, speculative articles, speeches for high schools and colleges and conventions, television scripts, and graphic novels, plus material in a couple of comic book universes. Additionally he has collaborated with numerous other science fiction authors including Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes. His influence has gone beyond the world of science "fiction." Long interested in space exploration with a goal of "moving mankind into space by any means, but particularly by making space endeavors attractive to commercial interests," he was pursuaded in 1980 by his wife and Jerry Pournelle into hosting a "gathering of the top minds in the space industry in an attempt to write a space program for the Reagan government," which included goals, timetables, and costs. This Citizens Advisory Council for a National Space Policy which included spacecraft designers, businessmen, NASA personnel, astronauts, lawyers and science fiction writers, met four times during the Reagan Administration, and twice after that. Niven says that adding the writers turned out to be "stunningly effective," since "We can translate! We can force these guys to speak English." This group had some effect on the space program. SDI (Space Defense Initiative, or Star Wars) was drafted at his house in Tarzana. "In '93 we watched the DC-X1 fly. It was a toy version of a single-stage ground-to-orbit spacecraft, and the Council generated it. Our design lost out to the current Skunk Works X-33, but the Council caused the revival of the X Program itself." |
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Lou AndersA 2008/2007 Hugo Award nominee, 2007 Chesley Award nominee and 2006 World Fantasy Award nominee, Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books' science fiction imprint Pyr, as well as the anthologies Fast Forward 2 (Pyr, Fall 2008), Sideways in Crime (Solaris, Summer 2008), Fast Forward 1 (Pyr, February 2007), FutureShocks (Roc, January 2006), Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film (MonkeyBrain, December 2004), Live Without a Net (Roc, 2003), and Outside the Box (Wildside Press, 2001). In 2000, he served as the Executive Editor of Bookface.com, and before that he worked as the Los Angeles Liaison for Titan Publishing Group. He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books, 1996), and has published over 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine, and Manga Max. His articles and stories have been translated into Danish, Greek, German, Italian and French, and have appeared online at SFSite.com, RevolutionSF.com and InfinityPlus.co.uk. Visit him online at www.louanders.com |
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Mark L. Van NameMark L. Van Name's science fiction stories have appeared in a wide variety of books and magazines, including Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, many different original anthologies, and The Year's Best Science Fiction. With John Kessel, he co-founded the Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference. With Richard Butner they edited Intersections, the Sycamore Hill Anthology. With T.K.F. Weisskopf, he also edited Transhuman, an original anthology that appeared in February of this year. Van Name grew up in Florida but has lived and worked for over thirty years in North Carolina, where he plans to stay. Both a writer and the CEO of Principled Technologies, Inc., a technology assessment company, he's been involved with computer technology for his entire professional career. Said Van Name, "We live constantly a few months in the future, testing products before they are released." He's been writing for as long as he can remember, everything from articles to technical manuals to fanzines to stories to non-fiction. His first novel, One Jump Ahead, began the Jon and Lobo series. It is an open-ended series because of his belief in the enormous power of series fiction to build strong relationships between readers and the characters and worlds of the series. At the same time, he's dedicated to making each book stand entirely on its own; you don't have to read anything else to enjoy each one. One Jump Ahead won the Compton Crook award for the best first science fiction, fantasy, or horror novel. Slanted Jack, the second book in the series and an entirely different type of story, is out now. The third novel, Overthrowing Heaven, yet another type of book, will appear in June 2009. Van Name is working on it now, adding, "Delivering a great story is my top priority in each book." Visit his website at www.markvanname.com
and his blog at
http://markvanname.blogspot.com. |
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Mary RosenblumMary Rosenblum first published in Asimov's Magazine in 1990 with "For A Price," one of her Clarion West stories, having attended that boot camp for writers in 1988. Since that first publication, she has published more than 60 short stories in SF, mystery, and mainstream fiction, as well as eight novels. Said Rosenblum, "Boredom and a regular day job are two things that seemed highly unappealing, even when I was a kid. Boredom was easy to avoid. I simply carried a book everywhere." When she was thirteen, spending family summer vacations on Nags Head, North Carolina, they had a two-hour siesta every noontime. "That only chafed until I discovered the box of Astounding and Galaxy magazines under the bed in my room," she said, "From then on, 'nap times' were never an issue!" Her SF stories have been published in Asimov's, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, SciFiction, and Analog among others. She won the Compton Crook award for Best First Novel, The Asimov's Readers Award, and has been a Hugo Award finalist as well as an Endeavor Award finalist, and has been short listed for a number of other awards. She publishes in mystery as Mary Freeman. She teaches writing for Long Ridge Writers Group, at writers' workshops and was an instructor for the Clarion West Writers Workshop in the summer of 2008. Rosenblum is particularly interested in long-term space habitats, biotechnology, genetics, and environmental science. Her newest novel, Horizons, was released in November 2006 from Tor Books and came out in paperback in November 2007. Water Rites, a compendium of the novel Drylands as well as three prequel novelettes that first appeared in Asimov's were released from Fairwood Press in January 2007. She is currently working on an alternate history novel. You can find more information, including how she met "James
Tiptree" without knowing it, at her website: www.maryrosenblum.com. |
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Matthew PetersonNineteen Facts About Matthew Peterson
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Matthew S. RotundoAward-winning author Matthew S. Rotundo wrote his first story—"The Elephant and the Cheese"—when he was eight years old. It was the first time he had ever filled an entire page with writing. To his young mind, that seemed like a major accomplishment. It occurred to him shortly thereafter that writing stories was what he wanted to do with his life. In 1998, Matt attended Odyssey, a six-week workshop for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, where he studied under Jeanne Cavelos and Harlan Ellison, among others. In 2002, Matt won a Phobos Award for "Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown," which appeared in the anthology of the same name. He is a Writers of the Future Contest winner for 2008, for his story "Gone Black." His fiction has appeared or will soon appear in Cosmos, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Prime Codex, and Paradox. Matt also plays guitar and has been known to sing karaoke. He married his lovely wife, Tracy, in 1992. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He has husked corn only once in his life, and has never been detasseling, so he insists he is not a hick. Visit Matt's LiveJournal for more information. |
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Melanie FletcherMelanie Fletcher is an expatriate Chicagoan who currently lives in North Dallas. At night, she turns into SF Writer Girl, and has the SFWA membership card to prove it. Her short story "The Padre, the Rabbi, and the Devil His Own Self" was on the 2007 Nebula Preliminary Ballot, and received an honorary mention in 2006 Year's Best Science Fiction collection. Between Chicago and Dallas she's lived in Hammond, Indiana; Tongham, England; Montreal, Canada; Gilze, Holland and Stockholm, Sweden. She lives with her husband the Bodacious Brit and their two fabulous furbags, JJ and Jordan. JJ is a cat who thinks he's a dog, and Jordan is a cat who thinks he's Anna Nicole Smith. It's unsurprising that Melanie has pets like these. She and her husband were among the first five couples to meet and get married thanks to the Internet (they met in 1991 on rec.arts.tv.uk). She is also a mutant: a carrier of the Bombay phenotype that masks her actual blood type and makes it appear to be O. She notes that she's had a private evening tour of Abbey Road Studios from a music producer, is descended from Russian nobility and has a couple of Tsars in her lineage. She's also had breakfast with Larry Niven, lunch with Terry Pratchett and dinner with Elizabeth Moon. A professional writer since 1995, her fiction can be found in anthologies from Circlet Press, Yard Dog Press and DAW Books, as well as online zines such as Quantum Muse and Helix SF. Her recent publications include "Think Small" (Enchantment Place, DAW Books) and "Lusts of the Cat Queen: A Dash Manning Adventure" (Helix SF). She is currently finishing her YA fantasy novel Undercover Godmother and editing her SF novel White Knight, Queen Alice. She also maintains an extremely tongue-in-cheek cyberpunk serial called "Hoosier Red: The Life and Times of a Questionable Property" at http://www.melaniefletcher.com. In related activities, she fences with the SFWA Musketeers and performs with the Feral Chihuahuas in Yard Dog Road Shows at SF conventions around the country. As a general observation Fletcher notes, ""Being a redhead is
an attitude, not a phenotype." |
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Michael CarrollWriter and artist Michael Carroll has been writing all his life, but went professional in the early 1980s. He has written close to 20 books, both for adults and for children, on subjects ranging from Biblical archeology to dinosaurs to space sciences. He has written dozens of articles for science magazines throughout the world, including Iceland, Japan, Germany, the UK, Brazil, and others. One of his paintings is aboard the Mars Phoenix Lander, in digital form. Carroll was born in San Diego but raised in the shadow of aerospace company Martin Marietta (now Lockheed/Martin) in Colorado, where his father worked during the golden era of space exploration. He received his BFA from Colorado State University and has been an astronomical artist and science writer for 25 years. He is a Fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, and the recipient of the 2006 Lucien Rudaux Award for lifetime achievement in the astronomical arts. He has received several other awards including from Asimov's Science Fiction magazine and the Challenger Center. Said Carroll, "I love to not only entertain and inform, but to inspire people to look at the beauty of the creation around them, and in doing so, to learn something about themselves. A good painting or story is a mirror into the soul." Carroll adds that he has a really cool and creative wife and two children who are so talented and sharp that they must not have much of his genetic material. He also has several seahorses. His latest books include Alien Volcanoes (Johns
Hopkins University Press) and Space Art: How to draw and paint
planets, moons, and landscapes of alien worlds (Watson Guptill). He
also recently illustrated Max Goes to Jupiter by Jeffrey
Bennett and How To Survive on Mars by Robert Zubrin. He is
currently writing and illustrating The Seventh Landing: How We'll
Return to the Moon...to Stay. (Springer) |
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Alphabetical List of Participants * * To Previous Page of Biographies * * To Next Page of Biographies