Author Bios

[scififanatic]

I have a big problem with these. It is particularly difficult for a person with no or very little publishing credits to write a concise yet meaningful bio. I say meaningful because the bios are supposed to summarize the writer's work and not the writer's interests because no one cares that I like to crochet in my spare time!

This brings me back to the dilemma: How does a person write a bio and summarize her writing history when she has no good credits to start with?!

Ugh. I say we banish ALL bios. It's all meaningless unless there's a good story behind it.

Comments

[tinaconnolly.livejournal.com]

actually a director of mine used to say that stuff like crocheting was *all* the audience cared about. It was only other actors who wanted to know your other credits.

Really, the only bits of bios I remember are things like McCaffrey saying she wrote her first novel in latin class and she played a witch in an opera. Much more memorable to a non-writer, which I was back then, than a string of credits. :)

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

Those are two very memorable descriptions.

I always feel like I should be able to write something a little more creative for a bio but my mind usually goes blank. Like when someone finds out you can sing and they say, "sing us a song!" and suddenly all the lyrics go floating out of your brain.

I submitted a couple of things this week and I didn't bother to write a bio because I couldn't think of anything interesting to say, publishing credits or otherwise.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Go ahead and say you like to crochet. If you can say it in an offbeat manner so much the better, but what the heck. Mention any organizations you might volunteer for or be a member of that matter to you, if there are any. The bio is for the readers, not the editor.

You don't need to send your bio out with your subs, though. Not very many places ask for it, and of the ones that do, you can always send them one after they buy. It's good to have one around, though, so that when the editor says, "Oh, send us a bio," you can just paste it in and hit send.

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

That's a good suggestion! I recently joined SCBWI so that's something to mention. The only reason I thought I should work on a short bio now is because one of the markets I submitted to yesterday (non-fiction) asked for a short bio. I don't have a good one and couldn't think of anything interesting to say so I didn't include one with my submission. Like you said, if they're interested in buying the piece, they'll ask for it. That should be the only time I start to worry.

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

You combine info with bio - You did go to Clarion so that becomes part of bio - you studied something in college, maybe even got diploma for it - that becomes fodder, you particularly like to write X and that becomes fodder --


Jane Writer graduated from Disney School of Giggles with a degree in snarf hunting and tickling. She attended renowned writing workshop, Clarion West in 1904. She prefers to write speculative fiction with a strong focus on humorous octopus stories. She also writes introspective nonfiction articles on diversity in literature.

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

This is where depression sets in--I was accepted to CW and I had my bags packed, my roundtrip tickets paid for, and my grandmother died in the middle of the night before I was supposed to leave Saturday. I didn't find out until that morning and couldn't get myself on the plane. She was my last living grandmother and I was actually much closer to her than my other grandmother on my dad's side, who passed away when I was only 2 years old. I will have to reapply, which I plan to do either this year or next year. Basically, I say all of this to explain that I have a sucky bio and have only realized this because I recently sent out two different submissions; one asked for a short bio to be included with my email. I hesitate to mention that I attended grad school because really, no one cares about that either. There are mixed feelings about MFA programs (Rightly so) because most actually don't produce renowned writers. I don't want to sound pretentious either because I don't believe having such a credit to my name gives me any advantage. Okay, this comment is way too long! You get my drift. Thank you for the suggestions. I will have to find a creative way to write a short paragraph about myself, without spelling out my weaknesses in publishing.

[eclexys.livejournal.com]

Don't be depressed. It just wasn't your time. I look back on my experience and realized I got more out of it because I didn't go till I was thirty-two! So a couple of years' wait isn't a bad thing -- though I (we!) would have loved to have you in the class.

As for bios: back when I had to write them for poetry readings and had zero publishing credits, I always wrote wacky ones. Once I even held a contest online (I think on a mailing list) for the best wacky Gord bio possible.

It's like writing a cover letter; when you have less experience, highlight personal skills and interesting things more, so people get a sense of you as someone about whom they'll be hearing and seeing more soon!

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

Hosting a contest sounds fun (and funny)! Do you still have those descriptions people wrote for you? (Just curious)

I'd like to write a wacky bio but my brain shuts down. Perhaps I should be like Daniel Handler and create an alter ego (Lemony Snicket) and write that person's bio and then take it as my own. *Shrug*

[eclexys.livejournal.com]

Hey,

Oh, that was almost a decade ago, so while I might have one or two of the bios squirreled away somewhere, my electronic archives are currently a ridiculous mess -- one of my 2008 goals is to sort them out -- so it would take forever to find them.

I think writing a wacky bio for someone else -- a character -- could work, if it gets you thinking about this in some way where the "writing about oneself" blockage is gone.