I should probably sleep less, not more. I woke with this very clearly presented in my mind.

[mer]

Merrie Haskell emerged quietly onto the Author Bio scene with a simple link to her website: http://www.merriehaskell.com. She often felt unable to compete with other bios due to her extreme lack of interesting secondary occupations, having begun a humble career as a library paraprofessional at the age of 20 and otherwise not having deviated from that course, in spite of many dull promotions and arguments about fair use in document delivery and electronic reserves settings. It was not until years later that Merrie's Author Bio exploded with quirkily presented mundanities, such as facts about Merrie's ancestry ("descendant of lumberjacks and midwives") and tallying her cat-ownership in pounds, not number of felines (47 pounds of cat, as it happens). Merrie Haskell has yet to win any awards for her Author Bios, but we feel it is merely a matter of time. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Nature, and Strange Horizons.

Comments

[mmuenzler.livejournal.com]

That is an adorable bio. It makes me all giggly. Hee hee!

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

It's a bit long for most venues, but the subconscious presented it pre-written, so who am I to argue?

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

*snickers*

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I hope you're going to use it.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I think it needs a "meanwhile" in the last sentence.

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. Sorry, it is just not going to be award worthy until you can add a list of weird jobs such as roughneck, war correspondant, and insurance adjustor. Librarian is a good start, though.

[mmuenzler.livejournal.com]

Never argue with your subconscious! It always wins.

On the thoughtful side of things, I think I know somewhat how you feel. There are so many writers out there with weird and fascinating hobbies and lives that sometimes I feel a bit bland in comparison. Like I haven't "lived" enough.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I will definitely nominate that author bio for an award. Reckoning cat ownership in terms of pounds rather than numbers is a stroke of pure genius.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

How about a librarian correspondant and an insurance roughneck... and a war... adjuster.

Now there's an occupation: war adjuster.

[rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com]

I like that.

Bios are hard. I try to throw in a sentence or two about the story every time, but some places don't like that.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Hah! As a fellow pet-pounds-calculator, I approve.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, that brightened my day.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

*nods solemnly* Pets are right fine units of measure. I know that my "to file" stacks are out of control when they are taller than the dog.

Also, I like your last night's dream better than mine, which involved necking with the Beautiful Young Man in front of a bunch of former high school classmates all gathered in a crowded artsy movie theater for a gay-themed film-fundraiser -- and then somehow losing him during an intermission. My subconscious is about as subtle about my rejection/abandonment issues as a garbage truck.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

lol!

[helaaspindakaas.livejournal.com]

The official conversion rate from Your Pounds of Cat to My pounds of Dog is 3.357:1, fyi.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

This bio wins.

[kelly-swails.livejournal.com]

Ah lurve it.

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Ah, now I have bio envy.

Also, :sneeze:: Podcastle ::sneeze::

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Podcastle sneeze?

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

I believe you've also had your fiction in PodCastle's podcasts.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Sure, and also Escape Pod and the Hugo-winning Electric Velocipede, but I subscribe to the "top three credits" school of thought... and while I adore Podcastle, and believe that the Escape Artists venues are deeply underappreciated by the powers that be, my three biggest credits are definitely the ones listed. And if I listed a fourth, it'd be my Unplugged credit, as that's a Year's Best.