Hybrids

About the Author

Robert J. Sawyer lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and is Writer in Residence at the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy.

Rob has a bachelor’s degree in Radio and Television Arts from Toronto’s Ryerson University—so it’s no surprise that he keeps turning up on both those media. He’s got 200 television appearances under his belt (including Rivera Live with Geraldo Rivera) and almost as many radio interviews (including National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation ). In addition, he’s hosted programs for CBC Radio and Discovery Channel Canada, and is a frequent commentator about science fiction on Space, Canada’s national SF cable network, and about science fact on Newsworld, Canada’s cable news network. In 2002, on the twentieth anniversary of his graduation, Ryerson presented him with its Alumni Achievement Award, making him one of only thirty out of 100,000 alumni so honored to date.

Rob’s other honors include a Nebula Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for Best Novel of the Year (for The Terminal Experiment ); six best-novel Hugo Award nominations (for The Terminal Experiment, Starplex, Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Calculating God, and Hominids ); SF awards in France, Japan, and Spain; seven Aurora Awards (Canada’s top honor in speculative fiction); the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Short Story of the Year; and an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada.

Since graduating in 1982, Rob has had all of two jobs: four months working at Bakka, Toronto’s SF specialty store, immediately followed by eight months back at Ryerson, demonstrating TV studio-production techniques.

Ever since, he’s been a full-time freelance writer, although he spent most of the 1980s doing over 200 articles for magazines and newspapers (usually about computers or personal finance), and writing brochures, newsletters, and other materials for corporations and government offices.

Rob’s first novel, Golden Fleece, came out in 1990, and by 1992 he had given up nonfiction work to concentrate exclusively on SF. In 1997, his wife, Carolyn Clink, left her job in the printing industry to come work full-time as Rob’s assistant, and in 2002 they started their own corporation, SFWRITER.COM Inc., named in honor of Rob’s massive, award-winning Web site at www.sfwriter.com.