Mike Resnick - Biographical Information

Mike Resnick was born on March 5, 1942, and did very little of note for the next 15 years. He sold his first article in 1957, his first short story in 1959, and his first book in 1962.

He attended the University of Chicago from 1959 through 1961, won 3 letters on the fencing team, majored in absenteeism, and met and married Carol. Their daughter, Laura, was born in 1962, and has since become a writer herself, winning 2 awards for her romance novels and the 1993 Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer.

Mike and Carol discovered science fiction fandom in 1962, attended their first worldcon in 1963, and 71 sf books into his career, Mike still considers himself a fan, and frequently contributes articles to fanzines. He and Carol appeared in five worldcon masquerades in the 1970s in costumes that she created, and won four of them.

Mike labored anonymously but profitably from 1964 through 1976, selling more than 200 novels, 300 short stories, and 2,000 articles, almost all of them under pseudonyms, most of them in the "adult" field. He edited 7 different tabloid newspapers and a pair of men's magazines, as well.

In 1968 Mike and Carol became serious breeders and exhibitors of collies, a pursuit they continued through 1981. (Mike is still an AKC-licensed collie judge.) During that time they bred and/or exhibited 27 champion collies, and were the country's leading breeders and exhibitors during various years along the way.

This lead them to purchase the Briarwood Pet Motel in Cincinnati in 1976. It was the country's second-largest luxury boarding and grooming establishment, and they worked full-time at it for the next few years. By 1980 the kennel had made them financially independent, it was being run by a staff of 21, and Mike was free to return to his first love, science fiction, albeit at a far slower pace that his previous writing.

His first novel in this "second career" was The Soul Eater, which was followed shortly by Birthright: The Book of Man, Walpurgis III, the 4-book Tales of the Velvet Comet series, and Adventures, all from Signet. His breakthrough novel was Santiago, published by Tor in 1986, which made it up to #3 on the bestseller list. Tor has since published Stalking the Unicorn, The Dark Lady, Ivory, Second Contact, Paradise, Purgatory, Inferno, the Double Bwana/Bully!, and the collection, Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun? In the next two years they will be publishing A Miracle of Rare Design, A Hunger in the Soul, and An Ambiguous Clay.

Even at his reduced rate, Mike is too prolific for one publisher, and in the past few years Ace has published Soothsayer, Oracle and Prophet, Questar has published Lucifer Jones, and Bantam has just contracted to publish The Widowmaker Trilogy.

Beginning with Shaggy B.E.M. Stories in 1988, Mike has also become an anthology editor (and was nominated for a Best Editor Hugo in 1994). His list of anthologies in print and in press totals more than 20, and includes Alternate Presidents, Alternate Kennedys, Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, By Any Other Fame, and Christmas Ghosts.

Mike has always supported the "specialty press", and has numerous books and collections out in limited editions from such diverse publishers as Phantasia Press, Axolotl Press, Misfit Press, Wildside Press, NESFA, WSFA, and others.

Mike was never interested in writing short stories early in his career, producing only 7 between 1976 and 1986. Then something clicked, and he has written and sold 93 stories since 1986, and now spends more time on short fiction then on novels. The writing that has brought him the most acclaim thus far in his career is the "Kirinyaga" series, which, with 38 major and minor awards and nominations, are the most honored series of stories in the history of science fiction.

Carol has always been Mike's uncredited collaborator on his science fiction, but in the past two years they have teamed up on three movie scripts -- one is in pre-production as this is written and the other two are in development -- and Carol is listed as his collaborator on those.

Readers of Mike's works are aware of his fascination with Africa, and the many uses to which he has put it in his science fiction. Mike and Carol have taken numerous safaris, visiting Kenya (4 times), Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Botswana, and Uganda, and have three more planned for the next four years.

Since 1989, Mike has won three Hugo Awards (for "Kirinyaga", "The Manamouki", and "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge"), a Nebula Award (for "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge"), and has been nominated for thirteen Hugos, six Nebulas, a Clarke (British), and five Seiun-shos (Japanese). He has also won four Homer Awards, an Alexander Award, a Golden Pagoda Award, a Hayakawa SF Award, and has topped the S. F. Chronicle Poll five times.