Biography

CHRISTOPHER MCKITTERICK is an author, editor, tech writer, college teacher, astronomer, and back-yard engineer. If you want to get to know him, check out his LiveJournal blog, which is full of cool stuff he finds on the Web, astronomy goodness, thoughts about the meaning of life, videos of cute hamsters, and so on. To get a feel for what he likes to read, check out his Goodreads Bookshelf. He also makes frequent updates on his Facebook and Google+ pages.

Chris has published short work in Analog, Artemis, Captain Proton, E-Scape, Extrapolation, Global Warming Aftermaths, Locus, Mythic Circle, NOTA, Ruins: Extraterrestrial, Sentinels: In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke, Synergy: New Science Fiction, Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, various TSR publications, Visual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Art, a bowling poem anthology, and elsewhere. He'll have new fiction appearing in February 2012 in Westward Weird.

His debut novel, Transcendence, is now available; his second, Empire Ship, is just about fully revised; and his next, The True-Life Space Adventures of Jack and Stella, is underway - keep an eye on the Novels page for updates!

Technical-writing projects have included a weekly astronomy newsletter, science articles, and software-related documentation and advertising materials. When he lived in Seattle, he served as editor, writer, and documentation manager for the Microsoft Windows Resource Kits, which technically makes him a best-selling author. He doesn't like to think too much about that. On the other hand, his contributions to those projects helped win a bunch of STC awards in technical communication, which he thinks is kinda cool.

Chris is Director (with Kij Johnson and founder James Gunn) of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, which offers a program to get science fiction into the hands of young people. If you are interested in helping keep our genre vital through the influx of new readers, and you want to help youngsters enjoy the thrill and sense of wonder you remember, get involved! He's also helped launch an educator-focused outreach and resource program through the Center called AboutSF.com - check it out. Other CSSF duties include serving as nominations director for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short SF story of the year, and as juror for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel of the year.

Chris was honored to be guest editor (and webmaster) of the special May/June 2010 World Literature Today "International Science Fiction" issue, with much internet-exclusive content available online. Check it out!

As a young'un, Chris started the Ortonville space program - whose most successful launch only reached about 30 feet - as part of the Ortonville Science Society (the OSS, natch), and edited the monthly journal. He has also built nearly 100 telescopes. Currently, he teaches technical-writing and -editing at the University of Kansas (where he developed the program in technical communication), as well as science fiction and creative writing.

He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and has shared his home with many pets including cats: Tatsuko (a.k.a. "Neko no tatsuko shikibu," who has her own LJ) and a three-legged terror (Sanju, a.k.a. Peep); a silver mouse (Sophia); a hamster (Hammie-Boy, who followed Chloe, who also had her own LJ); a German Shepherd dog (a.k.a. "Sid, Dog of Peace"); a collie-dog Hope, whom rescued from the Lawrence Humane Society (here's another shot of Hope with a little monster they fostered for a while); Chris's kitty Helen (a.k.a. "The Great Helen of Peerless Whose Face Could Launch a Thousand Combines"); Spot the Mouse and other lovely mice (no photos, sorry!); and Kosmo the aquatic frog. He owned most of these pets with author Kij Johnson; somehow they never owned a monkey.

Go here if you want to see more pet photos on my LiveJournal photo-gallery pages; here's a page with lots of links to photos.

Current hobbies include astronomy, blogging, restoring old vehicles, gaming with friends, building a land-speed-record 50cc scooter, and many other things he'd like to be doing but doesn't have time to do. But ain't that always the case. Come say hello at one of Chris' hangouts:

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        The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
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        Wikipedia