Welcome to the official site of Australian speculative
fiction writer Sean Williams.
Author of seventy published short stories and
twenty-nine novels, nominated for the Ditmar,
the Aurealis and the prestigious Philip K Dick Award for Saturn Returns,
Sean has been published around the world in numerous languages, on-line, and in
spoken word editions. His current
projects include Astropolis,
a gothic-noir gender-bending space opera trilogy, and The Broken Land, a
dark fantasy series for children set in the same fantasy universe as the Books of the Change
(now available in the US through E-Reads). Concluding volumes in each, The Grand Conjunction and The Scarecrow, are 2009 books. He also wrote the novelisation of the
computer game Star
Wars: The Force Unleashed, which was the first game tie-in to debut at #1
on the New York Times
bestseller list. Magic
Dirt: the Best of Sean Williams was launched in 2008 and won the first Aurealis
Award for Best Collection (buy
it here).
Forthcoming novels in 2010 include Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance
and the Fixers series
for middle-grade readers. 2011 sees the
beginning of Troubletwisters,
co-written with Garth Nix.
He is a founding board member of the Big Book Club Inc., assesses
for the SA Youth Arts’ Board
Project and Development Grant Advisory Committee, helps judge the Somerset National Novella
Competition and the Writers of
the Future contest, and was recently elected Overseas Regional Director of SFWA.
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essays interviews photos cover blurbs awards "10.5 commandments of
writing"
"a-z
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appearances "the daily dream" "good morning,
earworm" favourite music
Sean's science fiction has been likened to that of the
"Three Gregs" (Benford,
Bear and Egan) while his fantasy
has garnered comparisons to Peter
Carey, China Miéville
and Ursula K. Le Guin. His novel The
Crooked Letter was the first fantasy novel in the history of Australian
speculative fiction to win both Ditmar and Aurealis Awards, and is currently
available as a free
download. The fourth instalment of
the Books of the
Cataclysm, The Devoured Earth,
was released in Australia in September, 2006.
With collaborator Shane Dix, he produced the Evergence, Orphans and Geodesica series
and co-wrote the Star Wars: New
Jedi Order: Force
Heretic trilogy. Together, they have
been called "the
new Niven & Pournelle for the 21st century". A reading of "A Longing for the
Dark", a new short story set in the Geodesica universe, is currently
available for free download from Terra
Incognita.
Sean has written for the stage, and one of his
short stories was adapted
by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild in 2009. Apart from reviews, music (for which he
won a Young Composer's Award in 1984), and the odd haiku (including "hairku" for 2007's
Movember), he occasionally makes
up new words. He also likes to
remix the work of other writers, most recently Gary Numan, Kim Wilkins and Charles Darwin.
You can find his blog here.
Sean lives with his wife and family in Adelaide,
a city once described by Jules Verne as the prettiest in Australia and by
Salman Rushdie as "an ideal setting for a Stephen King novel". He completed a Masters
in Creative Writing at Adelaide University in 2005 and is currently a PhD
candidate at the same institution. He
has served on the executive of the Australian
Society of Authors, and on the board
of the SA Writers' Centre, of which
he has been chair twice in the last decade.
He has been a peer assessor for the Literature Board of the Australia Council and chair of the
literature advisory board of Arts
SA. He has also judged for the Aurealis Awards. He has tutored for Clarion South (2005 and 2009), taught
at various writers’ centres, schools and universities, and is an honorary
member of the International Golden Key
Society. He has been a guest of all
the literary festivals of Australian capital cities (some of them more than
once) and various National SF Conventions.
His name appears on the Celebrity
Atheist List. He is occasionally confused with fellow Australian
speculative fiction author Sean
McMullen, to hilarious results.
He DJs and cooks curries less frequently than he used
to, but still likes mentioning them in his bio.
Sean
Williams is a supporter of Australians
Against Racism and Adelaide PEN. He is a member of SFWA, IAMTW
and the Australian Society of Authors,
and the SA Writers' Centre. His English language publishers include HarperCollinsAustralia,
Del Rey, Ace, Pyr, Swift, Orbit, MirrorDanse, MonkeyBrain, Altair Australia, and Ticonderoga.
(This site is generously sponsored by Chariot Internet.)
©
Sean Williams 2009
(Last updated 20.7.09)
(Author photo: Writers of the Future
2009)