Is This the Ultimate Author Bio?
Finding Inspiration in Sword & Sorcery Land
I was asked to write an author bio for the Crawling anthology this week. Author bios are tricky beasts. It’s hard to make yourself sound like a semi-normal human being while writing in the third person (Or is that just me?) I was in the fortunate position of having recently written an updated bio for my website, which is pretty much what I sent in. It reads like this:
Caroline Barnard-Smith is a speculative fiction writer with too many ideas. She's written horror, epic fantasy, and sci-fi, and she adamantly refuses to pick a favourite.
Her work has appeared in Annihilation Radiation (Storgy) and Endless Pictures (TL;DR Press), among many other places. She is currently editing the first volume of an epic fantasy trilogy, while simultaneously drafting a weird sci-fi novel set in a planetary system that revolves around a colossal, sentient head. The effort may well tip her over the edge.
Caroline and her family live in the wild valleys of Devon in the UK. They are owned by a grumpy orange cat.
I don’t think it’s terrible. I would love to have some more recent writing credits to list, but you have to work with what you’ve got. I think writing an author bio feels awkward because they never really tell the truth. They never fully encompass what it means to be you because you’re trying so hard to sound interesting and worthy of being read (and like a semi-normal human being). A more truthful bio would have read like this:
Caroline Barnard-Smith is a speculative fiction author who jumps around between too many ideas and finds it difficult to commit to finishing any one project. She has, however, filled countless notebooks with detailed novel plans, character descriptions, and world maps the world may never get to see.
Her work has appeared in a handful of places over a span of many years during which time her writing dreams were put on hold while she fought not to collapse from exhaustion trying to keep three children under three alive.
Caroline and her family live in a beautiful part of the country that gets overrun by tourists in slow-moving caravans during the summer. They are owned by a grumpy orange cat who refuses to wear a collar and will attack them if he’s hungry.
Some of those sentences are far too long, but you get the idea. I’m not saying writers should write more personal bios (although if they did, and if they were anything like mine, those bios would amuse me greatly). I’m just saying that writing an author bio can be a weird experience.
I finally got around to reading New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine Issue Zero after leaving the poor thing languishing unread on my Kindle for an ungodly amount of time (You should definitely get your own copy, by the way. It’s awesome and it’s free!) It includes a really interesting article by Cora Buhlert about C.L. Moore and Jirel of Joiry. I’m a fairly recent convert to classic sword & sorcery so this was the first time I’d heard about C.L. Moore. As soon as I read that Jirel of Joiry was the spiritual grandmother of Xena and She-Ra, I was running off to World of Books about as fast as my fingers could click and procuring my own copy of the collected stories. I haven’t been able to dig into them properly yet, but I’m loving what I have read. This was a very long prelude (hopefully it was interesting, though) to get to an interesting example of another writer’s early author bio. While I was digging around at World of Books, I decided to double down on my sword & sorcery education and get The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee. Look at the magnificent 70’s copy I was sent:
That’s some proper cover art, right there. It smells deliciously old and musty too, the way good books should. Lee’s author bio hits you right between the eyes on the very first page:
Tanith Lee was born in England and now lives in South London. She attended grammar school and art school, and, having had a variety of in-between jobs, was a Library Assistant for four years. Miss Lee is now a full time writer and her interests include listening to music, painting and reading.
How great is the formality of “Miss Lee”? Contrast this with a much later bio from Fantasy Book Review:
Tanith Lee was born in London, England, in 1947. Following the completion of her secondary education, she was employed in a variety of jobs, including file clerk, assistant librarian, shop assistant and waitress. She also attended art college for one year, but quickly came to the conclusion that she would rather express herself through words than pictures.
Lee's first publication was Eustace, a 90 word vignette which appeared in The Ninth Pan Book Of Horror Stories in 1968. After receiving numerous rejections from British publishers for her adult fantasy novel The Birthgrave, she wrote a letter of inquiry to DAW Books, the American publishing firm founded by well-known science fiction fan and editor Donald A. Wolheim. DAW published The Birthgrave in 1975, beginning a relationship that lasted until 1989 and saw the publication of 28 books. In 1976, following the publication of her second and third books, Don't Bite The Sun and The Storm Lord, Lee was able to quit her day job and become a full-time freelance writer.
Tanith Lee has won or been nominated for a variety of awards, including the World Fantasy Award, the August Derleth Award and the Nebula. She has appeared as Guest of Honour at a number of science fiction conventions, including Boskone XVIII in Boston in 1981, and the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa.
In 1987, she met John Kaiine, a British writer and artist. The couple married in 1992 and currently live in the south of England.
It’s so much longer and more detailed, but a few more decades of life would naturally lead to a longer biography. It might also be my favourite author bio of all time. It’s got all the usual facts and list of awards won or nominated for, but there’s also that brilliant paragraph in the middle where we are made aware, in no uncertain terms, that Lee refused to give up after “numerous rejections from British publishers” and instead forged a relationship with DAW Books that lasted for over a decade. That paragraph is a total mic drop.
Again, I’m not really sure what point I’m trying to make. Perhaps the point is that if writing an author bio feels awkward or inauthentic, all you can do is hope that one day, self-belief and determination will mean you can go from, “I went to art school and I enjoy reading” to, “You all said my book wasn’t good enough but I proved you wrong and became the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award.” I bloody love Tanith Lee.
While I’m off on this tangent I might as well share her advice for new writers (from an interview at sffchronicles), because it’s glorious:
“Write, that is the main advice. Write and read and watch movies and listen to music — or any of these — or other — you like; they will feed the flame. Meanwhile don't let anyone — or thing — stop your writing. Resist adverse criticism unless it chimes — not with your own unsureness — but with your coolest analytical personal feelings as your own first line editor. Even then, be careful. You can, sometimes, be your own worst judge in the matter of inadequacies. Remember, your work may have flaws — but they won't prevent its being damn good. (Emeralds have flaws.) If you get the chance, publish. If, for now at least that chance is evasive, continue to write for yourself, while expecting and believing that eventually you will be published. Trust what inspires you and drives you. A very great mystic, known as A.E., suggested that what we normally call a 'Gift' in any field or area, is in fact a reward for some excellence in a previous life, or elsewhere. Believe in your self and your powers — something (and who knows what?) already seems to have done so.”
Stats for Nerds
Words written: 3300
Short stories submitted: 5
Short stories accepted: 0
Short stories rejected: 3
Current Favourite Website
Prime’s Face - First Created 2008 - Last Updated - 2011
A site that dares to dream, “WHAT WOULD OPTIMUS PRIME LOOK LIKE WITHOUT HIS FACE MASK?!”
A small collection of pictures taken from official Transformers sources show a variety of things going on behind Prime’s mask. In my favourite picture, it looks like Prime is weeping after being torn open by a very large can opener:
The page is part of a larger site called The Obscure Transformers Website, “devoted to the unseen, the unknown, and the unwanted of the Transformers universe.” There’s also a fuck-ton of old Toy Fair Catalogs.
That’s it for now.