Australian Sean Williams
is another Contest winner turned successful author and now WotF judge. He is
the author of over one hundred published short stories and fifty novels, and
has been called many things in his time, including “the premier Australian
speculative fiction writer of the age” (Aurealis), the “Emperor of Sci-Fi”
(Adelaide Advertiser), the “Lord of
the Genre” (Perth Writers’ Festival), and the “King of Chameleons” (Australian Book Review) for the
diversity of his published output. He is a multiple recipient of the Aurealis
and Ditmar Awards and has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, the
Seiun Award, and the William Atheling Jr. Award for criticism. He also received
the “SA Great” Literature Award in 2000 and the Peter McNamara Award for
contributions to Australian speculative fiction in 2008.
Williams has
been published around the world in numerous languages, online and in spoken
word editions. After winning the Writers of the Future Contest in 1992, he has
never looked back. He is currently the bestselling science fiction writer in
Australia and is also a #1 New York Times bestseller.
Williams lives with his wife
and family in Adelaide. He completed a master’s in creative writing at Adelaide
University in 2005 and went on to earn a Masters and PhD in Creative Writing
from the University of Adelaide. He is a founding board member of the
award-winning Big Book Club Inc., and was recently elected to the role of
Overseas Regional Director in the SFWA. 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.
Sean Williams became
a WotF judge in 2003, only ten years after becoming a Contest winner.
