Short Biography
New York Times-bestselling speculative fiction author
Sean Williams lives in
Fact Sheet
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information below is out of date. Please
refer to the index page of this site for the most up to date information, or
contact Sean directly for confirmation of any particular details.
New York
Times Bestselling
author Sean Williams:
started writing
full-time 15 years ago. He supports
himself solely by writing.
is a diverse and prolific author,
simultaneously covering many different facets of the genre. His major works explore such areas as:
-
cutting-edge science fiction dealing with major post-human issues including
nanotechnology, biotechnology, longevity, artificial intelligence, the origins
of life, and fundamental properties of the universe (the Orphans series);
-
fantasy "for all ages" incorporating South Australian landscapes and
new myths for Australian readers (the Books of the Change);
-
gritty "future noir" hybrids portraying the possibilities of crime
prevention and detection in the twenty-first century, plus possible outcomes of
present day political, social and technological developments (Metal Fatigue,
The Resurrected Man).
has received a great deal of recognition for
his work, including the SA Great Literature Award in 2000, six Aurealis Awards
and four Ditmar Awards (for achievement in Australian speculative fiction), Locus
Recommend Reading listings, recommendations and reprints in major international
Year's Best anthologies, a prize in the international Writers of the Future
Contest, nomination for the William Atheling Jr.
Award (for criticism), and translation into numerous foreign languages.
was the recipient of a major Australia Council
grant to assist him in the writing of the Books of the Change. He served as a peer assessor for the
Literature Board in 2001.
is consulted on occasion by ABC radio as a
futurist and has appeared as a guest on Aftershock, the ABC's
short-lived replacement for Quantum.
has been a guest at most of the major
Australian literary festivals (
is also the co-author of three Star Wars
novels and other science fiction adventure novels. His books routinely enjoy four- to five-star
ratings on Amazon.com.
lives in the centre of Adelaide, where he was
Chair of the Board of the SA Writers' Centre from 2001-2003 (he was on the
Executive for four years), a member of the inaugural steering committee of the
Big Book Club, a keen promoter of things South Australian, and an occasional
DJ.
Long
Biography
Sean Williams has
been writing full-time since 1999, ten years after he wrote his first short
story. He has been nominated thirty
times for the major Australian awards (Ditmar, Aurealis & McNamara) and has
won ten times. Jack Dann
has described him as "One of the hottest writers in the country ... a
major Australian talent", and added in the bio accompanying his opening
story in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, Dreaming Down-Under, that he "cooks a mean curry."
He lives in the
centre of
Sean recently
finished working on three series simultaneously: The Books of the Change (a solo
fantasy trilogy generously supported by the Australia Council), the Orphans
series (a post-Spike space opera co-written with Shane Dix, and the Force
Heretic trilogy (set in the Star Wars: New Jedi Order universe and also
co-written with Shane Dix).
Future series
include the Books of the Cataclysm, a prequel/sequel series set in the same
universe as the Books of the Change, and a diptych of science fiction novels (Geodesica)
in collaboration with Shane Dix.
(For
information on these and other titles, click here.)
As well as
novels, Sean has had over 60 short stories published in a variety of places
around the world. "Ghosts of the
Fall" was first published in Volume IX of the annual anthology series of
the Writers of the Future Contest, in which it was a prize-winner. Three stories were reprinted in the Strahan
and Byrne Year's Best Australian SF &
Fantasy series. "Going
Nowhere" appeared in The Oxford Book
of Australian Ghost Stories, "A Map of the Mines of Barnath" was chosen for inclusion in Centaurus, a
collection of the best short Australian SF published in the last 25 years, and
"Evermore" was reprinted in Gardner Dozois'
Year's Best SF 17 (2000). His work has been translated into French,
Japanese, Hebrew, Russian and Polish, and collected in the Ditmar Award-winning
New Adventures in Sci-Fi (1999) and A View Before Dying (1998), both from
Ticonderoga Publications, and Doorway to
Eternity (MirrorDanse Books, 1994).
He won two
Aurealis Awards in 1996, one of them for Best Horror Short Story ("Passing
the Bone"). The other was for Best
SF Novel (Metal Fatigue, reprinted by
the UK's Swift Publishers in hardcover in 1999). His 1998 novel The Resurrected Man won the Ditmar Award for Long Fiction for that
year. He was short-listed for the SA
Great Literature Award in 1999, and received it in 2000.
He is also
known as a collaborator. A non-fiction
piece with Simon Brown, "No Axis, No Boundary: the Search for a Definition
of SF", was nominated for the William Atheling Jr
Award. Together they also won the 1999
Best Horror Short Story Aurealis Award (for "Atrax") and were reprinted
in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best SF 15 ("The Masque of
Agamemnon").
Non-writing Biography
Sean Williams was born in Whyalla, SA
in 1967. He started reading science
fiction at an early age, and was writing his own genre short stories as young
as Grade 5. His parents were teachers
(his father later became an Anglican priest) and that meant a lot of moving
around. He has lived in places as far
apart as
He studied sciences and music at Pulteney
Grammar and matriculated third in his year (1984), topping the state for Music
Composition. That same year, he won the
Young Composer's Award for a theme and three variations for string quartet with
flute, oboe and trumpet soloists called "Release of Anger". (Its original title was "Cowled they the Rampant Gargoyle Down" but his music
teacher thought something sensible would be greeted more warmly.) His interest in music has remained strong,
with occasional forays back into composition.
Writing fiction takes up most of his time at the moment, however, so he
has to content himself with buying CDs and occasionally DJing
for parties. (For a list of Sean's favourite albums, click here.)
When he finished school,
he was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. Instead of leaping straight into further
full-time study, he worked for two years for the Australian distributor of
Yamaha musical instruments. His
experience in the workplace convinced him that he needed a decent job and that
a sensible degree would help him obtain one, so he enrolled in a Bachelor of
Economics at
Those ten years proved to be lean times. He went through a lot of part-time jobs. In the first year he worked as a sound engineer, a petrol station attendant, a pizza delivery driver, an usher and a retail clerk, as well as studying music part-time (in a vain attempt to finish his degree) and writing full-time. There were numerous ups and downs, including the birth of his niece and the death of his father, and the making (and breaking) of several emotional attachments that served to educate him as much about himself as it did about other people.
In that time, he managed to write over 100 short stories and beat his self-imposed deadline by four years. His first solo novel, Metal Fatigue, was published in 1996.
Now, in his sixteenth year as a professional writer, things are definitely looking up. And up. He is happy to be doing the job he has always dreamed of doing, while finding time to try new things like DJing and caving. He enjoys his busy schedule of writing two (or more) books a year, but still hopes one day to write some music. Given that he expects anti-ageing technology to allow him to live several centuries (at least), there's a good chance that might happen ...