February 8th, 2019–Today’s featured event is John Kessel in conversation with Michael Blumlein at Kings on Saturday, February 23rd at 1pm.
Born in Buffalo, New York, John Kessel is the author of the novels Pride and Prometheus, The Moon and the Other, Good News from Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, and in collaboration with James Patrick Kelly, Freedom Beach. His short story collections are Meeting in Infinity (a New York Times Notable Book), The Pure Product, and The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories.
Kessel’s stories have twice received the Nebula Award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in addition to the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, the Locus Poll, the James Tiptree Jr. Award. His play “Faustfeathers’” won the Paul Green Playwright’s Prize, and his story “A Clean Escape””was adapted as an episode of the ABC TV series Masters of Science Fiction. In 2009 his story “Pride and Prometheus” received both the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award.
With Jim Kelly, he has edited five anthologies of stories re-visioning contemporary short sf, most recently Digital Rapture: The Singuarity Anthology.
Kessel holds a B.A. in Physics and English and a Ph.D. in American Literature. He helped found and served as the first director of the MFA program in creative writing at North Carolina State University, where he has taught since 1982. He lives and works in Raleigh, NC with his wife, the author Therese Anne Fowler.
Michael Blumlein is the author of THE MOVEMENT OF MOUNTAINS, X,Y, THE HEALER, AGELESS, and THE ROBERTS (a novella), as well as the award-winning story collection THE BRAINS OF RATS and the newly released collection WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED. He has been nominated twice for the World Fantasy Award and twice for the Bram Stoker Award, received the ReaderCon Award, and has been short-listed for the Tiptree Award.
He has written for the stage and for film. His novel X,Y was made into a feature-length movie. In 2011 he was one of a panel of experts at the “Impossible Futures” symposium sponsored by The Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley.
His stories have been widely anthologized and taught in a variety of settings, from high school through college, medical and law schools.
In addition to writing, Dr. Blumlein is a practicing M.D and a faculty member at the University of California in San Francisco. Much of his career has been spent caring for the underserved.
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