Bio Hazard
Perfecting Your Author Bio
Welcome to another short and sweet Shelf Life as I begin workday 18 in a row. My soul is no longer in my body. It’s really hard to write when your soul is in orbit around the planet you live on. I don’t know what part of the body the soul is usually stored in but mine is not in there. I have this weekend off. I’m really excited to get up on Saturday and not go to work. Anyway today’s Shelf Life will be short and sweet, just like the author bios it is about.
If you’re a writer, which you probably are if you read this, you’re going to need an author bio at some point. Here are just a few things you’ll need it for:
The “about” section of your website
The back cover or inside back jacket flap of your book
To share with editors and anthologists who publish your work
Your nonfiction book proposal
The bio you write should:
Be short and concise
Be written in the third person
Include a photo, although a photo isn’t always needed
There’s more to it than that, which I’ll get into in a moment, but those are the basics.
The author bio is typically run alongside all of your publications so that readers can find out a little bit more about the author whose work they’re reading. Readers will check the author bio at one of two points in their reading process, for two different reasons:
Before they start reading, to decide whether or not they want to read your book.
During or after reading, if they liked your work, to find out more about you and find more of your work.
You want to ensure your author bio meets the needs of both kinds of reader.
Begin your bio with your name exactly as it appears on the byline of your work. For instance, my byline is Catherine Forrest. I don’t use my middle initial as part of my byline, although I have a middle name (E, for the record). Your name at the start of your author bio should match your byline exactly; if you’re putting your bio inside or on the cover of a book, the name should match exactly with the title page, cover, and spine.
If you write under more than one name, like Iain Banks/Iain M Banks or Gail Carriger/GL Carriger, it’s probably because you write in more than one genre (Banks wrote mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M Banks) or for more than one audience (Carriger writes YA as Gail and adult as GL), you’ll probably have two separate bios, one for each pen name. In that case it’s wise for each bio to reference the other pen name in the event someone is looking for more of your work to read (eg, “Ms Forrest also writes children’s picture books under the name CE Forrest”)(I don’t actually, that’s just an example).
After giving your full name, decide how you wish to refer to yourself, in the third person, for the rest of the bio. For instance, after introducing myself as “Catherine Forrest” I might refer to myself as:
Ms Forrest
Forrest
Catherine
Any of these are fine, but it’s always a good idea to be consistent. If you have a prenominal title—like Doctor Smith or Rabbi Jones—those are always good to use, too.
Immediately after your name as it appears on the byline, go with “is” and then write what you are. An author? You are if you’re publishing a story. An author of what?
Catherine Forrest is an author of short horror and science fiction.
If you have won any awards (related to writing) or you’ve made a prominent bestseller list, you should definitely include that before author (“a Nebula Award-winning author” or “a New York Times bestselling author”)
If is also appropriate to include your pronouns if you want to, but it is not necessary. I always appreciate it when someone includes their pronouns in their bio, especially editors, so when I submit stories to them or query them I know whether to lead with Mr or Ms or Mx. That’s just me, though. If you’re not sure what gendered prenominal title to use for someone you can always address them as “The Right Honorable [their name].” That’s always appropriate.
The next thing you should include, if it makes sense to do so, is your qualification(s) for writing what you write. This is largely material in nonfiction. The author of a history of ancient Rome might mention that they’re Professor of Classics at Harvard University, while the author of a book on climate change might include that they are a scientist at NASA. Including these sorts of qualifications is less common with fiction writing, but not unheard of. An author of legal thrillers might wisely mention any work they’ve done in the legal field, or an author of noir fiction might mention past work as a police officer or PI, if they had that experience.
If it doesn’t make sense to include qualifications, they next thing you should include is your past writing credits, if any. When you include a writing credit, you can include books you’ve written or anthologies in which you’ve been included:
Book Title (Publisher, Year)—Go Set a Watchman (HarperCollins, 2015)
or magazines in which you have appeared:
Magazine Title (volume, issue, or date of publication)—Clarkesworld (June 2024)
If you don’t have any prior publication credits, just skip this and move on to the next section. If you have many publication credits, you may wish to trim them down to just your most prestigious.
Their short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Uncanny Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among other publications.
There is no need to include everything you have ever published.
Then, with those formalities out of the way, the you might want to include a brief bit of personal information about yourself, for instance:
Catherine lives in the Baltimore, Maryland, area, with her partner and several furry and feathered friends.
This could be about where you live, what you do for work, your hobbies and interests, or what you do when you’re not writing and publishing.
When Jane is not writing, she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles and bartending at weddings.
Last but not least, let readers know where they can find more information about you and read more of your work, if they are so inclined. If you have a website, your bio can include a link where readers can find out more, like your full bibliography, your list of award-eligible work, or your press kit.
Now: How long should this whole bio be? How many words? Different editors and publishers will ask for bios of different lengths. Some may ask for 100 words or fewer, others will ask for “a few sentences,” some may ask for “half a page” or “a paragraph or two.” You never know what you’re going to be asked for.
Sarah Gailey has a great model of author bio on their website. In their press kit, they have a 25-word bio, a 75-word bio, and a 120-word bio that media outlets can choose from depending on how much space they have to run Gailey’s bio. Developing a few different bios, as Gailey has, is a great idea—a few different versions of varying length and for different purposes (one for your computer science textbooks and one for your bodice-ripping romances, for instance), will serve you well.
I have found that I usually tweak and customize my bio a bit for each person, place, or magazine that asks for it. It’s quite short because I don’t have many publishing credits. By basic, non-customized bio looks like this (under 25 words):
Catherine Forrest (she/her) lives in the Baltimore, Maryland, area. She edits medical journals by day and moonlights as an essayist and fiction writer.
The customized bio I used for Spectrum looks like this (under 75 words):
Catherine Forrest (she/her), author of "These Thirteen Simple Tricks Will End Your Sleep Hallucinations for Good," is a writer, editor, and longtime sleep-disorder experiencer from Baltimore, Maryland. She produces medical publications by day and moonlights as the author of Shelf Life. Catherine currently lives in the suburbs of Baltimore with her partner and several furry and feathered pets.
The bio I use when querying nonfiction looks like this (under 125 words):
Catherine Forrest (she/her/hers) is associate director of publications production at the American Society of Clinical Oncology and has previously held a variety of writing, editing, and publishing positions with Sage Publications, CQ Press, Lockheed Martin, The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Adams Media/F+W Publications, Island Press, and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins/Wolters Kluwer Health. She is a board-certified Editor in the Life Sciences (ELS).
In addition to Shelf Life, which has published biweekly essays since 2020, Catherine’s nonfiction writing has been published in EON, the official publication of the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors, and in Corrections Today. Her short fiction has been published in Spectrum (Third Estate Books, 2024) and in The Quiet Reader.
Now: A word regarding your author photo. If you don’t have a professional photo or headshot for this purpose, lots of people use selfies. However: A photo taken by another person is often a better choice than a selfie. Have a friend take some photos if you can. Ultimately, choose a photo that coordinates with your authorial voice and the type of writing you do.
A publisher I once worked for—I won’t say which—had a bulletin board where we put up the most out-of-pocket author photos we received. Someone wrote a 400-plus-page, dry-as-dust history tome then sent us an author photo of themself holding a mylar balloon that said “Happy Birthday.”
Don’t be that person.
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