Program Participant Biographies, Continued

Connie Willis

Connie Willis is the author of Doomsday Book - winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel; Lincoln's Dreams - winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog - winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel; and several other novels and short story collections.

She describes herself as someone who is "a political junkie, adores movies, House, The Office, Spider-man, P.G. Wodehouse, Shakespeare, Dorothy Parker, chocolate, and Harrison Ford, not necessarily in that order."

A Colorado native, she grew up in Englewood, Colorado, and attended the University of Northern Colorado, where she received a B.A. with a double major in English and elementary education. She is married to Courtney W. Willis, who is a professor at UNC (after being a high school physics and chemistry teacher for most of his career). They have a daughter, Cordelia, who is a forensic scientist.

Willis has been writing full-time since l980. She was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. She served as an Artist-in-Residence for the Colorado Arts Council for three years, doing residencies in Yampa and Loveland. She has taught creative writing in the schools, lectured on writing and on science fiction, and taught a number of teacher seminars for teaching writing to students.

Willis has taught at a number of university writing workshops, including the SUNY Brockport Creative Writing Workshop and the prestigious Clarion Workshops in Michigan and Seattle. She has won an astonishing total of six Nebula Awards and nine Hugo Awards, is the first author to have ever won both awards in all four fiction categories, and holds the record for the most writing Hugos and Nebula Awards. She was named Best Science Fiction Writer of the Nineties by LOCUS magazine.

Willis has won international awards for her writing from Spain and Italy and was a finalist for the British Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel, Passage.

Edward M. Lerner

Edward M. Lerner has degrees in physics and computer science (and, curiously enough, an MBA). Now writing full time, Lerner worked in high tech for thirty years, including seven years as a NASA contractor, as everything from engineer to senior vice president. That experience includes such techie havens as Bell Labs and Northrop Grumman, an Internet service provider, and a software start-up. Sooner or later, it all shows up in his fiction.

His novels include Probe, Moonstruck, and (in collaboration with Larry Niven) Fleet of Worlds. His short fiction has appeared in Analog, Asimov's, Artemis, Darker Matter, and Jim Baen's Universe magazines, on Amazon Shorts, in several anthologies, and in his 2006 collection Creative Destruction.

Coming in summer and fall of 2008 are the novels Fools' Experiments and (again in collaboration with Larry Niven) Juggler of Worlds.

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H. G. Stratmann

Henry G. (H. G.) Stratmann is a full-time cardiologist and part-time science fiction writer. He's been the author or coauthor of some seventy articles and abstracts published in major medical journals, primarily in the field of nuclear cardiology. Though an avid reader of science fiction since early childhood, he never made a serious attempt to write it until about fifteen years ago. He wrote a letter commenting on a story in Analog, which was answered by its author, G. David Nordley, who invited him to cowrite a story dealing with futuristic medicine.

The thrill of having their joint effort published in Analog inspired Stratmann to strike out writing stories of his own. His fifteenth story for Analog appears in the September 2008 issue. Those SF tales and his four science fact articles in Analog incorporate his knowledge and experience of the subjects he likes most. They include medicine (especially space medicine), classical music, all the sciences, history, theology, philosophy, literature, and pop culture such as classic comic books, movies, and TV shows. Another element that occasionally crops up in his stories is his lifelong fascination with electronics, reflected in his Extra Class amateur radio license (call sign AB0TF) and recent certification as an Information Technology computer technician.

Stratmann grew up in the tiny town of East Carondelet in southern Illinois. He was the valedictorian of his high school, graduated summa cum laude with a BA in chemistry from St. Louis University in 1974, and received his MD from Southern Illinois University in 1977. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at St. Louis University School of Medicine and in private practice in Springfield, Missouri.

He and Maryellen, his wife of twenty-four years and a fellow physician, have collaborated on writing many medical articles as well as a book for the general public, Sex and Your Heart Health: A Cardiologist Tells All. However, the collaborations they're most proud of are their two teenage sons. Eighteen-year-old Henry III is the award-winning author of a book of "flash fiction" stories, many of which have an SF twist. Fifteen-year-old Joseph hasn't been bitten by the writing bug yet. Though he's leaning instead toward becoming a lawyer and going into politics, his parents still love him anyway.

Henry finds writing science fiction to be intellectually stimulating, emotionally enriching, and just plain fun. But what he's enjoyed most is rubbing shoulders with so many fine fans and writers at Worldcons and other SF conventions. Henry says, "I'm especially grateful for having met a great many outstanding individuals through my writing for Analog. Special mention goes to my sometime coauthor Gerald Nordley, editor extraordinaire Stan Schmidt, Jay K. Klein, and Ed Lerner. Besides being highly intelligent and accomplished professionals, they've all been a pleasure to work with and are extremely nice people."

He hopes that, after nanotechnology and genetic engineering eliminate all heart disease and reduce his current workload, he'll finally have time to finish his first novel.

James Morrow

Born in Philadelphia in 1947, James Morrow spent his teenage years in Hillside Cemetery, not far from Philadelphia. While such an adolescence might bespeak a morbid frame of mind, in Jim's case the explanation lies in his passion for 8mm moviemaking. Before going off to college, he and his friends used their favorite graveyard locale for a half-dozen horror and fantasy films, including adaptations of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."

After receiving degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, Jim channeled his storytelling urge toward the production of prose fiction. His breakout novel was a satire on the nuclear arms race, This Is the Way the World Ends, which became a Nebula nominee. His next dark comedy, Only Begotten Daughter, chronicled the escapades of Jesus Christ's divine half-sister in contemporary Atlantic City. It shared the 1991 World Fantasy Award with Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer.

Throughout the 1990's Jim devoted his literary energies to killing God, an endeavor he pursued through three interconnected novels. The first book in the Godhead Trilogy, Towing Jehovah, winner of the 1995 World Fantasy Award, recounts a supertanker captain's efforts to bury the two-mile-long corpse of God. Blameless in Abaddon finds a small-town, small-time Pennsylvania magistrate putting God on trial for crimes against humanity. In The Eternal Footman, a "plague of death awareness" descends on humankind after God's skull goes into geosynchronous orbit above Times Square.

Having grown sick of his Creator, and vice-versa, Jim next attempted to dramatize the birth of the scientific worldview. The resulting historical epic, The Last Witchfinder, tells of Jennet Stearne, who makes it her life's mission to bring down the 1604 Parliamentary Witchcraft Act. Jim's latest novel, The Philosopher's Apprentice, relates the adventures of a failed philosophy student hired to implant a conscience in a mysterious young woman whose brain is a tabula rasa. In February, Tachyon Books will publish Jim's stand-alone novella, Shambling Towards Hiroshima, set in 1945 and dealing with a U.S. Navy scheme to leverage a Japanese surrender via a biological weapon that strikingly resembles Godzilla.

Other recent projects by Jim include a set of Tolkien Lesson Plans, written in partnership with his wife, Kathy. Aimed at secondary school teachers who want to bring The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings into their classrooms, this nine-unit curriculum is featured on the Houghton Mifflin website. Another Jim and Kathy collaboration appeared in April of 2007, The SWFA European Hall of Fame, which anthologizes sixteen Continental science fiction stories, each rendered into English via a three-way conversation among the author, the translator, and the editors.

A full-time writer, James Morrow makes his home in State College, Pennsylvania, along with his wife and son. Every day, Jim plays a game called "Klingon" with his dog, Amtrak, a Doberman mix whom he and Kathy rescued from a train station in Orlando.

(Photo by by Didier/Leclerc/Atelier N89)

Jim Frenkel

Jim Frenkel was born and raised in Queens, one of the outer boroughs of New York City. He earned a B.A. in English Literature from Stony Brook University. Jim has worked in publishing since shortly after graduation, having edited for various publishing houses, including Dell Publishing, Grosset & Dunlap, and Macmillan Publishing, among others. "I started in 1971," he claims, "when I was three years old. ;-> Okay. I was older than that." From 1983 to 1987 he ran Bluejay Books, his own publishing company. Since 1983, he's worked for Tom Doherty Associates (Tor Books) where he's currently a Senior Editor. Jim is married to Joan D. Vinge, and they have two grown offspring. Their daughter Jessica is a jewelry designer and creator her younger brother Joshua just graduated Oberlin College with a B.A. in Biology (pre-Med).

Jim hasn't won any awards himself, but has edited a number of books that have won either World Fantasy Awards, Hugo Awards, or Nebula Awards, including, variously Son of Kali by Dan Simmons, The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge, Vernor Vinge's novels A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky, and Rainbows End, and Jack Williamson's Terraforming Earth. He's also the packager of the multiple award-winning The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (previously, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling).

Of course he's edited bunches of books, by pretty much an A to Z of SF writers, including books by Daniel Abraham, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Orson Scott Card, Jeffrey A. Carver, David B. Coe, Peter David, Diane Duane, George Kate Elliott, John M. Ford, David Gerrold, Warren Hammond, John Jakes, Kenneth Johnson, J.V. Jones, Keith Laumer, George R.R. Martin, Andre Norton, A. Orr, Frederik Pohl, Spider Robinson, Susan Shwartz, L. Neil Smith, Sherwood Smith, John Varley, Connie Willis, F. Paul Wilson, Timothy Zahn . . . and many others.

"I guess you'd have to say that I'm a lifer," Jim says. From the first time I edited a book, I have loved what I do. My big thrills are watching a really wonderful book take shape; helping young authors develop their skills and reach an appreciative readership; seeing a book sell so well that it has to go back to press for more copies, things like that: totally book-geek stuff." The latest books his edited include An Autumn War by Daniel Abraham, Darkness of the Light by Peter David, and Dragon and Liberator by Timothy Zahn.

John E. Stith

Colorado native John E. Stith has sold eight novels, optioned several feature-film screenplays, and has sold to television (Star Trek). Redshift Rendezvous (Ace Books) was a Nebula Award nominee. Manhattan Transfer (Tor Books) earned a Hugo Award Honorable Mention a Seiun Award (Japan) nominee. Reunion on Neverend and Reckoning Infinity are his latest two novels from Tor. For those who are wondering, "Stith" rhymes with "Smith."

Stith was born in Boulder, Colorado in 1947 and spent most of his pre-college years in Alamogordo, New Mexico. During the summer Science-Math Institute for High School Students (physics and programming) at St. Cloud State College in St. Cloud, Minnesota, John was the editor of the class paper, but several more years would pass before the urge to write, strengthened by years of loving to read, was too compelling to ignore.

He received a B.A. in physics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1969. During service as an Air Force officer, he enrolled in the Writer's Digest Short Story Writing Class, but dropped out before completing the correspondence course. In 1972 he entered private industry at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland as a Mission Operations Controller for the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory. During the next several years, he spent about one day per year writing and a couple of weeks per year daydreaming about being a writer and not doing it.

In 1977 he began writing nonfiction, using a home-built MITS 6800 computer, and in 1978 he began writing fiction regularly, soon adopting the habit of writing an hour before work and during his lunch hour. His first published short story was in 1979. His first novel was Scapescope (Ace, 1984). His work has appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Analog, Dragon, Fantastic Stories, Nature, and Story; has been selected for book club publication; and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian. His work is also available in Braille and on audiocassette.

Stith's work varies a bit, but often his books combine strong and intelligent male and female characters, suspense/mystery, humor, and big science-fiction ideas. Much of his work is categorized as "hard SF," meaning it's thoroughly researched and significant effort is made to play fair with the rules of science. Most of his work is available in ebook form with eReader, Fictionwise, and Amazon (for the Kindle), and in trade paperback from Wildside Press.

Currently he runs HighTechies, a computer training and consulting business. Complete information on his written works may be found at his website.

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John Scalzi

One of the following statements is false:

1. John Scalzi is Hugo-nominated this year for Best Fan Writer.
2. John Scalzi wrote The Last Colony, Hugo-nominated this year for Best Novel.
   
3. John Scalzi once consumed an entire llama.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Kathryn Rusch was born in Oneonta, New York. She is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance, and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists--even in London--and have been published in 14 countries and 13 different languages.

Her awards range from the Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award to the John W. Campbell Award. She is the only person in the history of the science fiction field to have won a Hugo award for editing and a Hugo award for fiction. Her short work has been reprinted in thirteen Year's Best collections. This year, her story, "Recovering Apollo 8," has won the Asimov's Reader's Choice award. It's nominated for the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History (Short Form) and for the Hugo for Best Novella.

In 2007, she became one of a handful of writers to twice win the Best Mystery Novel award given for the best mystery published in the Northwest (for her Kris Nelscott books). Her novella, "Diving into the Wreck," has won the prestigious international UPC award, given in Spain to the best science fiction novella in English, French, Spanish or Catalan. That novella also won the Asimov's Readers Choice award. Her critically acclaimed Retrieval Artist series has won the Endeavor Award and is currently nominated for the Romantic Times Book Review's Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Science Fiction novel.

She is the former editor of prestigious The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Before that, she and Dean Wesley Smith, started and ran Pulphouse Publishing, a science fiction and mystery press in Eugene. She lives and works on the Oregon Coast. "I always say that my life has been a constant movement westward. I now live a block away from the Pacific Ocean. I stopped going west when I realized I'd fall into the sea."

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Laura Givens

Laura Givens was born in Michigan but escaped to San Francisco to sell comics to the stars for a decade before washing up on Denver's dusty shores. She spent years performing and teaching improv in the Denver area and even made a low budget independent movie, "The Jerusalem Tango."

Several thousand years ago Laura invented cave painting and has subsequently tried her hand with every other art form that has developed since.

Currently she is enjoying the hell out of all the possibilities inherent in digital painting and is presently using her abilities at magazines such as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Talebones, Jim Baen's Universe and Tales of the Talisman (where she is the Art Director) among others. She has also done numerous book covers several publishers as well as playing Art Director for Flying Pen Press. She lives with her troll.

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Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick is one of the most acclaimed science fiction and fantasy writers of his generation. He has received a Hugo Award for fiction an unprecedented five times in six years, and has been honored with the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards as well and receiving nominations for the British Science Fiction Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

His books include the Nebula Award-winning Stations of the Tide; The Iron Dragon's Daughter, a New York Times Notable Book, and Bones of the Earth. His most recent books are a collection, The Dog Said Bow-Wow from Tachyon Publications and a novel, The Dragons of Babel. He is currently working on a new novel featuring Postutopian con men, Darger and Surplus.

Swanwick was born in Schenectady, New York and grew up in Winooski, Vermont. He have been writing for forty years and published for twenty-seven. All told he's written seven novels, more short stories than he can keep track of, and several hundred pieces of flash fiction. He has also worked in non-fiction, most notably a book-length interview with Gardner Dozois and monographs on Hope Mirrlees and James Branch Cabell.

He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter. His most recent accomplishment is having a story on the Hugo ballot. "A Small Room in Koboldtown" was extracted from his fantasy novel, The Dragons of Babel. Asked what else he'd been up to, Swanwick offered, "Last year I visited Moscow and Chengdu. A month ago I tried to break into a Level 3 laboratory. I write a monthly column for Science Fiction World in China."

You'll have to get the details from him.

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Patrick Rothfuss

Patrick Rothfuss had the good fortune to be born in Wisconsin where long winters and lack of cable television brought about a love of reading and writing. His mother read to him as a child, and his father taught him to build things. If you are looking for the roots of his storytelling, look there.

Growing up, Pat failed to live up to his full potential. Despite this, his parents continued to love him. They also were encouraging, but in a very general way, as he seemed to have no actual talent to speak of.

Pat was a gypsy student, studying whatever caught his interest at the time: philosophy, medieval history, eastern theater, sociology. After nine years of this, he was forced to graduate and left with a BA in English, and minors in psychology, history, philosophy, and writing.

While wandering aimlessly through college, Pat learned he had a knack for writing. He wrote poetry for a local literary series, a satirical advice column, and radio comedy scripts. Two months before he graduated, Pat finally finished the project he had been working on for years, a mammoth story centering around the life of a man named Kvothe.

After two excruciating years of grad school, Pat returned to teach at the same university he had grown to love as a student. During this time his book was rejected by roughly every agent in the known universe.

It took four more years, but Pat finally got his book published. In the year since The Name of the Wind has been in print, it has received numerous awards and honors, glowing reviews from critics, and praise from fantasy legends such as Orson Scott Card, Terry Brooks, and Ursula K. LeGuin. It has been sold in 25 foreign countries, and climbed to #10 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Pat continues to live in central Wisconsin where he still lacks cable television and the long winters force him to stay inside and write. He occasionally returns to teach at the college he grew to love as a student, and acts as advisor for the College Feminists and the local Fencing Club. When he's not reading and writing, Pat wastes his time playing video games, holds symposia at his house, and dabbles with alchemy in his basement.

For more information, or a cheap laugh, feel free to check out Pat's active blog.

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Todd Brun

Born in Missouri and raised in New York, Todd Brun is a theoretical physicist who does research on quantum computers, quantum communications, and computers with closed timelike curves (physicist-speak for time machines). He discovered science fiction and fantasy at an early age, and has been a fan ever since, which undoubtedly influenced his choice of research topics.

Inspired by science fiction stories, and by the essays of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, Todd decided on a career in science: he earned degrees in physics from Harvard and Caltech, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of London, the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is now a professor at the University of Southern California.

Why physics? He says, "Erwin Schrödinger discovered that by the careful application of quantum mechanics he could have his cake and eat it, too."

Todd lives in Pasadena with his wife, Cara King, a published Regency Romance author and long-time science fiction fan.

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