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JACK CHALKER'S
BIOGRAPHY |  |
Jack Laurance Chalker was born on a 1944 winter day in Baltimore, Maryland (even though most published bios list his birthplace as Norfolk instead). Growing up in that far eastern city, he attended public school and graduated from Towson State College. Jack then attended graduate school at John Hopkins University, receiving a Masters in History with a specialty in the "History of Ideas." Through the years, he has worked as a professional typesetter, a sound engineer for outdoor rock concerts, an audio and computer reviewer, free-lance editor, a publisher (founder and now sole owner of The Mirage Press, Ltd.), a book packager, an Air National Guard Information Director, a new and used book dealer, and a history teacher. His lecturing has been much in demand, speaking at the Smithsonian, The National Institutes of Health, and numerous colleges and universities (mostly on science fiction and technology subjects and not his graduate degree subject).
He has been living off his writing of science fiction since 1978 (click here to see his lengthy bibliography). A newsgroup, alt.books.jack_chalker, has long been running as an open forum on his works. Various awards he has received include the Daedalus Award (1983), The Gold Medal of the West Coast Review of Books (1984), Skylark Award (1985), Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award (1979), others of varying importance. He has been a two time John W. Campbell Award nominee with no wins and a four time Hugo nominee also with no wins (but he still holds out hope).
In fannish circles, he has written for and edited several fanzines. He still occasionally does so, and always in regards to nonfiction topics. In addition, he wrote almost all of the uncredited text of Progress Reports #3 and #4 and the Program Book of Discon II, the 1974 World Science Fiction Convention. He also wrote almost all the uncredited text for all progress reports and the Program Book for Suncon, the 1977 World Science Fiction Convention. Meanwhile, he also had columns in all four of the progress reports of ConStellation, the 1983 World Science Fiction Convention. Mike Resnick and he have managed to write tongue in cheek biographies of each other for various other Convention Reports. Other interesting fannish type writing he has done includes an entry for "Small Presses" in Jim Gunn's SF Encyclopedia and the inclusion of his family recipe for Maryland Crab Cakes in Serve It Forth: Cooking With Anne McCaffrey (Warner Books, 1996). He wrote a history of Baltimore science fiction fandom for Mimosa, a Hugo winning fanzine devoted primarily to SF history, in 1997, and a condensed version of it was reprinted in the Program Book of the 1998 World SF Convention in Baltimore.
Chalker is a regular attendee of several science fiction conventions on the east coast - including Balticon, Midwestcon, and Philcon. He frequently goes to many many more every year, including World Con and the World Fantasy Convention. He says on his website that "I'm trying to cut down on the cons I go to, but, in spite of my efforts, still get to 6 or 7 a year. If there's an SF con near you but you've never seen me there, the odds are I wasn't asked or the Powers That Be didn't want me."
From his website (circa mid-2002) = "LOSCON 30: I've been to northern California and the northwest often in the past few years but haven't been back to LA since the last worldcon there. I've just been asked to be GoH at the 2003 Loscon and I've accepted. So, those of you out west who are going to the worldcon, I'll see you in San Jose this year. Those who can't make it, or miss me (easy in today's worldcons), I'll see you in L.A. over Thanksgiving weekend next year! More details when I get them."
Jack Chalker also says - "If you do see me at a con, and I'm not obviously doing business, don't hesitate to come up, say hello, talk, comment, etc. I'm a very old hand at cons and started off as a fan myself. I rarely hang out at secret pro parties (they are incredibly boring) and generally will settle in at the best party and watch the world go by 'til dawn. If a party is serving coffee, the odds are that's the one I'm at."
Feel free to Visit his website at
www.JackChalker.com
or to E-mail him
(he answers most mail that isn't nasty) at
jchalker@miragepress.com.
Facts and pictures are courtesy of Jack Chalker's website, www.JackChalker.com
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