Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Note

I do not ever want my author bio to read:

"Kameron now lives in (insert small midwestern town name here) with her three cats."

Call me crazy, but I want more than that. At the same time, I also don't want it to read:

"Kameron now lives in (insert small midwestern town name here) with her adoring, supportive attorney husband Walter and their three adorable children, Minnie, Mickey, and Mike."

I think my bio should just say:

"Kameron Hurley subsists primarily on the blood of her enemies and should not be allowed out in direct sunlight. She prefers fucking in Marrakech to boxing in Madrid, but it depends on the time of year. When she's not shooting up in service to her life-sustaining drug habit, she can still drink small children under the table. She lives with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a substantial number of Chipotle burritos and occasionally sees a boy whose name she can't remember, but right now she's probably out at a bar learning French from a one-legged prostitute named Bruno."

At least it's more memorable, and has less of the "inevitable boring death" slant to it.

The inevitable death of us all could at least be spiced up a little.

4 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Unknown said...

That is SO AWESOME.

I hate writing bios, myself- luckily I don't have to much, because then I write, "Jennifer REALLY hates writing bios."

Sometimes it seems like bios are just there to reassure the reader that the author is happily settled down with a spouse n' children. Anyone else ever think that? It makes me think, "Gawd, even if I ever got struck by lightning and got married someday, I think I'd leave out who I'm married to, just to screw 'em."

Kameron Hurley said...

It's something I've been considering - leaving out a spouse/partner in a bio even if I had one - for that very reason. It all starts to sound to smug and domestic.

So either you're a Scary Cat Lady or Docile Settled Homemaker in your off hours. I'm not saying we do this on purpose - it's just the style of what a lot of author bios have become.

And I understand that, of course. Acknowledging your partner, often, is something you really want to do quite a lot after all the help and support they give you during a writing project. But that's what acknowledgements and dedications are for.

I want the sort of author bio that goes with the sort of book I write. Most writers are pretty boring, ordinary people (myself included). Why make it so obvious! ;)

I think I remember reading a bio of Jeff VanderMeer's where he said something about how he liked to walk his lobster on a leash.

See. *That's* different.

clindsay said...

And another keyboard ruined due to unexpected spitting of liquids.

Really, you are so gonna pay one of these days.

Treat Queen said...

How hard is it to drink small children under the table?