December 2, 2017
Jeff VanderMeer on my new novel – “Beautiful, horrifying, passionate, and bold, A LONG CURVING SCAR WHERE THE HEART SHOULD BE is a fascinating chronicle of the effects of place and history on the individual, and a record of how little of the inequities of that history in this country have yet been held to account. I can think of few books this year that I felt were more necessary to read at this point in time and yet were also so very lyrical and so so well-wrought as storytelling.”
Jeff has also been an ardent supporter of my first book, THE HOPE OF FLOATING HAS CARRIED US THIS FAR
, as well as the new book A LONG CURVING SCAR WHERE THE HEART SHOULD BE (available in hardback and paperback; hardback has paper that supports the photographs in all their visceral punch). Both links take you to the independent publishers, which allows you to support innovative independent publishing and divest from the corporate behemoths, but you can find the books wherever you seek out tomes that meet your interests.
From my first introduction to Jeff’s WONDERBOOK to discovering how tremendously supporting he is of other writers working in imaginative innovative fictions, I am in awe of his work – his most recent fiction is the NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), which won the Shirley Jackson Award and Nebula Award. The trilogy made over 30 year’s best lists, including Entertainment Weekly’s top 10, and prompted the New Yorker to call the author “the weird Thoreau.” The trilogy has been acquired by publishers in 28 other countries, with Paramount Pictures acquiring the movie rights. VanderMeer’s nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Atlantic.com, and the Los Angeles Times. He has taught at the Yale Writers’ Conference and the Miami International Book Fair, lectured at MIT, Brown, and the Library of Congress. His forthcoming novel from Farrar, Straus and Giroux is titled Borne. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife, the noted editor Ann VanderMeer.
A three-time World Fantasy Award winner and 15-time nominee, VanderMeer serves as the co-director of Shared Worlds, a unique teen SF/fantasy writing camp located at Wofford College and now entering its tenth year. Previous novels include the Ambergris Cycle, with nonfiction titles including Wonderbook, Booklife, and The Steampunk Bible. Widely regarded as one of the world’s best fantasists, Jeff VanderMeer grew up in the Fiji Islands and spent six months traveling through Asia, Africa, and Europe before returning to the United States. These travels have deeply influenced his fiction. He is the recipient of an NEA-funded Florida Individual Artist Fellowship for excellence in fiction and a Florida Artist Enhancement Grant.
His wife Ann VanderMeer was the fiction editor for Weird Tales for five years and won the Hugo for her work there. She now serves as an acquiring editor for Tor.com. She is also an award-winning publisher, and co-editor with Jeff on Best American Fantasy 1 and 2, Fast Ships, Black Sails (pirates), Steampunk 1 and 2, New Weird, The Weird, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, The Time Traveler’s Almanac, and many more. Together, they have taught writing workshops and given lectures all over the world. This literary “power couple” (Boing Boing) has been profiled on Wired.com, NYT blog, and on national NPR.