PRESS KIT, BIO AND RESOURCES — KarlSchroeder.com (original) (raw)

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Table of Contents

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Contact me

• Email Address: karl@kschroeder.com

About Me

I am a professional futurist as well as one of Canada's most popular science fiction and fantasy authors. I divide my time between writing fiction and analyzing, conducting workshops and speaking on the potential impacts of science and technology on society. As the author of ten novels I've been translated into about a dozen languages. In addition to my more traditional fiction, I've pioneered a new mode of writing that blends fiction and rigorous futures research—my influential short novels Crisis in Zefra (2005) and Crisis in Urlia (2011) are innovative ‘scenario fictions’ commissioned by the Canadian army as study and research tools. In 2011 I attained a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University in Toronto.

Biography

I'm Canadian, born in Brandon, Manitoba in 1962. Brandon's about a two-hour drive north of Minot, North Dakota, and situated right in the center of the continent. It's snowy and cold in the winter, and beset with mosquitoes in the summer--but Brandon has a university with a renowned music school. I grew up in an atmosphere of summer festivals--madrigalia and an annual film festival that holds some of my fondest memories of small town summer nights.

Growing up, I was hugely influenced by my Mennonite background, but also by my progressive family. My mom, Anna Schroeder, published two novels around the time I was born, Year of Discovery and The Secret of His Presence. Since these sat in our bookshelves along with works by Andre Norton, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and many others, I just assumed that everybody's mom wrote books, and that I could too. So when I was 14, I started writing. I completed my first novel when I was 17.

Of course, my fanatical focus on writing meant I had little patience for school, and I dropped out that same year. I eventually got my GED, but my lack of higher education dogged me throughout my twenties and thirties.

I moved to Toronto in 1986, just in time to participate in a renaissance in Canadian science fiction and fantasy happening at that time. This flowering occurred simultaneously across the country, as previously-isolated authors got email accounts and started discovering one another. I helped set up the first national email listserver for SF&F authors, was a founding member of SF Canada and president for a time.

In 1988 I helped found a writer's group now known as the Cecil Street Irregulars. Our mentor was Judith Merril, and past and present members include Cory Doctorow, Peter Watts, David Nickle and Michael Skeet. I wrote my first published novel with David, The Claus Effect, and the workshop have hugely influenced my development as a writer, and a person.

I married Janice Beitel in April 2001--we tied the knot in a tropical bird sanctuary on the shore of the Indian Ocean, Kalbarri Western Australia. Our daughter was born in May 2003.

Around this time I began getting invitations to government-run foresight conferences in and around Ottawa, the nation's capital. I met some of the world's most prominent futurists and participated, as a writer, facilitator and later, analyst. When in 2009 OCAD University in Toronto offered a Master's degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, I jumped at the chance to go back to school, and finished the program in 2011. I'm now a card-carrying futurist as well as an SF writer.

I made my reputation writing far-future adventures, but being a parent in the era of climate change has forced me to reconsider my obligations. Starting with Stealing Worlds, I've refocused on near-future worlds, using what I've learned as a futurist to paint as accurate a picture of our prospects and perils while remaining (I hope) entertaining.