Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Series. The series' first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was adapted into a Hollywood film by director Alex Garland. Among VanderMeer's other novels are Shriek: An Afterword and Borne. He has also edited with his wife Ann VanderMeer such influential and award-winning anthologies as New Weird (anthology)|The New Weird], The Weird, and The Big Book of Science Fiction.
VanderMeer has been called "one of the most remarkable practitioners of the literary fantastic in America today," with The New Yorker naming him the "King of Weird Fiction". VanderMeer's fiction is noted for eluding genre classifications even as his works bring in themes and elements from genres such as postmodernism, ecofiction, the New Weird and post-apocalyptic fiction.
Early life and education
VanderMeer was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in 1968, and spent much of his childhood in the Fiji Islands, where his parents worked for the Peace Corps. After returning to the United States, he spent time in Ithaca, New York, and Gainesville, Florida. He attended the University of Florida for three years and, in 1992, took part in the Clarion Writers Workshop.When VanderMeer was 20, he read Angela Carter's novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, which he has said "blew the back of my head off, rewired my brain: I had never encountered prose like that before, never such passion and boldness on the page." Carter's fiction inspired VanderMeer to both improve and be fearless with his own writing.
Career
Writing
VanderMeer began writing in the late 1980s while still in high school and quickly became a prolific contributor to small-press magazines. During this time VanderMeer wrote a number of horror and fantasy short stories, some of which were collected in his 1989 self-published book The Book of Frog and in the 1996 collection The Book of Lost Places. He also wrote poetry—his poem "Flight Is for Those Who Have Not Yet Crossed Over" was a co-winner of the 1994 Rhysling Award—and edited two issues of the self-published zine Jabberwocky.One of VanderMeer's early successes was his 2001 short-story collection City of Saints and Madmen, set in the imaginary city of Ambergris. Several of VanderMeer's novels were subsequently set in the same place, including Shriek: An Afterword and Finch, the latter of which was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel. In 2000, his novella The Transformation of Martin Lake won the World Fantasy Award.
VanderMeer has also worked in other media, including on a movie based on his novel Shriek that featured an original soundtrack by rock band The Church. The band Murder By Death likewise recorded a soundtrack for Finch, which was released alongside a limited edition of the book. VanderMeer also wrote a Predator tie-in novel for Dark Horse Comics called Predator: South China Seas and worked with animator Joel Veitch on a Play Station Europe animation of his story "A New Face in Hell".
The Southern Reach Series
In 2014, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published VanderMeer's Southern Reach Series, consisting of the novels Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. The story focuses on a secret agency that manages expeditions into a location known as Area X. The area is an uninhabited and abandoned part of the United States that nature has begun to reclaim after a mysterious world-changing event.VanderMeer has said that the main inspiration for Area X and the series was his hike through St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos is among the books VanderMeer has cited as also having had an influence.
The original trilogy was released in quick succession over an 8-month period, in what has been called an innovative "Netflix-inspired strategy." The strategy helped the second and third books reach the New York Times Bestseller list, and established VanderMeer as "one of the most forward-thinking authors of the decade."
The series ended up being highly honored, with Annihilation winning the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards for Best Novel. The entire original trilogy was also named a finalist for the 2015 World Fantasy Award and the 2016 Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis. Annihilation was also adapted into a film of the same name by writer-director Alex Garland. The film stars Natalie Portman, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Oscar Isaac.
Later writing
In 2017 VanderMeer released Borne, a "biotech apocalypse" novel about a scavenger named Rachel trying to survive both a city "plunged into a primordial realm of myth, fable, and fairy tale" and a five-story-tall flying bear named Mord. As with the Southern Reach trilogy, the novel was highly praised, with The Guardian saying, "VanderMeer’s recent work has been Ovidian in its underpinnings, exploring the radical transformation of life forms and the seams between them." Publishers Weekly said the novel reads "like a dispatch from a world lodged somewhere between science fiction, myth, and a video game" and that with Borne Vandermeer has essentially invented a new literary genre, "weird literature."Paramount Pictures has optioned the film rights to Borne.
In August 2017 VanderMeer released the novella The Strange Bird: A Borne Story. The stand-alone story is set in the same world as Borne but featuring different characters.
Dead Astronauts, a stand-alone short novel set in the Borne universe, was released on December 3, 2019. A stand-alone novel, Hummingbird Salamander, was published on April 6, 2021.
Literary criticism and editing
VanderMeer is a frequent writer of critical literary reviews and essays, which have appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, and other places. For a number of years he was a regular columnist for the Amazon book-culture blog and has served as a judge for the Eisner Awards, among others. He has been a guest speaker at such diverse events as the Brisbane Writers Festival, Finncon in Helsinki, and the American Library Association annual conference.In 2019, VanderMeer was a judge for the National Book Award for Fiction.
VanderMeer has also edited a number of anthologies. He won a 2003 World Fantasy Award for Leviathan, Volume Three, a collection of genre-bending stories he edited with Forrest Aguirre. He and Mark Roberts were also finalists for the same award the next year for the anthology The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases.
Most of his recent anthologies have been collaborations with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, the Hugo-award-winning former editor of Weird Tales. These anthologies include The New Weird, a collection of stories from New Weird authors; Last Drink Bird Head, a charity anthology benefiting literacy; The Weird, a World Fantasy Award winning collection of weird fiction; Time Traveler's Almanac, an anthology of time-travel fiction; Fast Ships, Black Sails, a pirate fiction anthology; and the Locus Award winning The Big Book of Science Fiction.
VanderMeer is the founding editor and publisher of the Ministry of Whimsy Press, which he set up in the late 1980s while still in high school. The press is currently an imprint of Wyrm Publishing. One of the Ministry's publications, The Troika by Stepan Chapman, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1997.
Teaching
VanderMeer has been involved in teaching creative writing. One of the projects he is involved with is Shared Worlds, an annual two-week program that aims to teach creative writing to teenagers. VanderMeer has also taught at the Clarion Workshop and at Trinity Prep School. In addition to his teaching, VanderMeer has also written guides to creative writing such as Wonderbook, which won a BSFA Award, a Locus Award, and was nominated for a Hugo and World Fantasy Award.Critical reputation
VanderMeer has been called "one of the most remarkable practitioners of the literary fantastic in America today," with The New Yorker naming him the "King of Weird Fiction." VanderMeer's fiction is noted for eluding genre classifications even as his works bring in themes and elements from genres such as postmodernism, ecofiction, the New Weird and post-apocalyptic fiction.VanderMeer's fiction has been described as "evocative intellectual observations both profound and disturbing" and "lyrical and harrowing," with his mixing of genres producing "something unique and unsettling." His writing has been compared in editorials with the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, and Henry David Thoreau.
Personal life
In 2003, VanderMeer married Ann Kennedy, then editor for the small Buzzcity Press and Silver Web magazine. They have two cats. One is named Neo.Awards
VanderMeer has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award 14 times. He has also won an NEA-funded Florida Individual Writers' Fellowship, and, the Le Cafard Cosmique award in France and the Tähtifantasia Award in Finland, both for City of Saints. He has also been a finalist for the Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, International Horror Guild Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and many others. Novels such as Veniss Underground and Shriek: An Afterword have made the year's best lists of Amazon.com, The Austin Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Publishers Weekly, among others.| Work | Year & Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
| Flight is for Those Who Have Not Yet Crossed Over | 1994 Rhysling Award | Short Poem | Won | |
| The Bone-Carver's Tale | 1996 Asimov's Readers' Poll | Short Story | ||
| Dradin, In Love | 1997 Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | ||
| The Ministry of Whimsy Press | 1998 World Fantasy Special Award—Non-professional | |||
| Leviathan 2 ' | 1999 British Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| The Legacy of Boccaccio | 1999 British Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| The Transformation of Martin Lake | 2000 World Fantasy Award | Novella | Won | |
| Leviathan 3 ' | 2002 Philip K. Dick Award | |||
| Leviathan 3 ' | 2003 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Leviathan 3 ' | 2003 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| City of Saints and Madmen | 2002 Locus Award | Collection | ||
| City of Saints and Madmen | 2003 World Fantasy Award | Collection | ||
| City of Saints and Madmen | 2007 Tähtifantasia Award | Won | ||
| The Exchange by Nicholas Sporlender, illustrated by Louis Verden | 2002 Locus Award | Short Story | ||
| Veniss Underground | 2003 International Horror Guild Award | First Novel | ||
| Veniss Underground | 2003 Bram Stoker Award | First Novel | ||
| Veniss Underground | 2004 Locus Award | First Novel | ||
| Veniss Underground | 2004 World Fantasy Award | Novel | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases ' | 2004 Hugo Award | Related Work | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases ' | 2003 International Horror Guild Award | Anthology | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases ' | 2004 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases ' | 2004 British Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| Album Zutique | 2004 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Secret Life | 2005 Locus Award | Collection | ||
| Three Days in a Border Town | 2005 Locus Award | Novelette | ||
| The Farmer's Cat | 2006 Locus Award | Short Story | ||
| Shriek: An Afterword | 2007 Locus Award | Fantasy Novel | ||
| The Secret Paths of Rajan Khanna | 2007 Locus Award | Short Story | ||
| The Third Bear | 2008 WSFA Small Press Award | |||
| The Third Bear | 2008 Locus Award | Short Story | ||
| The Third Bear | 2008 Shirley Jackson Award | Short Fiction | ||
| The Third Bear | 2011 Shirley Jackson Award | Collection | ||
| The Third Bear | 2011 Locus Award | Collection | ||
| The Third Bear | 2011 World Fantasy Award | Collection | ||
| The Surgeon's Tale | 2008 Locus Award | Novelette | ||
| The Situation | 2009 Shirley Jackson Award | Novelette | ||
| Fast Ships, Black Sails ' | 2009 Shirley Jackson Award | Anthology | ||
| Fast Ships, Black Sails ' | 2009 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Fast Ships, Black Sails ' | 2010 FantLab's Book of the Year Award | Anthology | ||
| Fixing Hanover | 2009 Locus Award | Short Story | ||
| Steampunk ' | 2009 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Steampunk ' | 2009 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| The New Weird ' | 2009 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Best American Fantasy ' | 2010 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Finch | 2009 Foreword INDIES Awards | Science Fiction & Fantasy | ||
| Finch | 2010 Locus Award | Fantasy Novel | ||
| Finch | 2010 World Fantasy Award | Novel | ||
| Finch | 2010 Nebula Award | Novel | ||
| Finch | 2011 RUSA CODES Reading List | Fantasy | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities ' | 2012 Shirley Jackson Award | Anthology | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities ' | 2012 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities ' | 2012 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| The Steampunk Bible ' | 2012 Hugo Award | Related Work | ||
| The Steampunk Bible ' | 2012 World Fantasy Special Award—Professional | |||
| The Weird ' | 2012 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| The Weird ' | 2012 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | Won | |
| The Weird ' | 2012 British Fantasy Award | Anthology | Won | |
| Weird Fiction Review ' | 2013 World Fantasy Special Award—Professional award | |||
| Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction | 2013 BSFA Award | Non-Fiction | Won | |
| Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction | 2014 Locus Award | Non-Fiction | Won | |
| Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction | 2014 Hugo Award | Related Work | ||
| Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction | 2014 World Fantasy Special Award—Professional award | |||
| Annihilation | 2014 Shirley Jackson Award | Novel | Won | |
| Annihilation | 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards | Science Fiction | ||
| Annihilation | 2015 Locus Award | SF Novel | ||
| Annihilation | 2015 RUSA CODES Reading List | Science Fiction | ||
| Annihilation | 2015 Premio Ignotus | Foreign Novel | ||
| Annihilation | 2015 Nebula Award | Novel | Won | |
| Annihilation | 2015 Kurd Laßwitz Award | Foreign Work | ||
| Annihilation | 2016 Tähtivaeltaja Award | |||
| Authority | 2015 Locus Award | SF Novel | ||
| Acceptance | 2015 Locus Award | SF Novel | ||
| The Time Traveler's Almanac ' | 2015 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy | 2015 World Fantasy Award | Novel | ||
| Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy | 2015 John W. Campbell Memorial Award | |||
| Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy | 2016 Kurd Laßwitz Award | Foreign Work | ||
| From Annihilation to Acceptance: A Writer's Surreal Journey | 2015 BSFA Award | Non-Fiction | ||
| Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology ' | 2016 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| The Big Book of Science Fiction ' | 2017 Locus Award | Anthology | Won | |
| Borne | 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards | Science Fiction | ||
| Borne | 2018 Locus Award | SF Novel | ||
| Borne | 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award | |||
| Borne | 2018 John W. Campbell Memorial Award | |||
| Borne | 2018 Kurd Laßwitz Award | Foreign Work | ||
| Borne | 2021 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire | Foreign Novel | ||
| Dead Astronauts | 2020 Locus Award | Fantasy Novel | ||
| Dead Astronauts | 2020 Dragon Awards | Fantasy | ||
| The Big Book of Classic Fantasy ' | 2020 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| The Big Book of Classic Fantasy ' | 2020 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| The Big Book of Classic Fantasy ' | 2020 British Fantasy Award | Anthology | ||
| Hummingbird Salamander | 2022 Shirley Jackson Award | Novel | ||
| Hummingbird Salamander | 2022 Locus | SF Novel | ||
| A Peculiar Peril | 2021 Locus Award | Young Adult Book | ||
| A Peculiar Peril | 2021 Dragon Awards | Young Adult/Middle Grade | ||
| The Big Book of Modern Fantasy ' | 2021 Locus Award | Anthology | ||
| The Big Book of Modern Fantasy ' | 2021 World Fantasy Award | Anthology | Won | |
| Absolution | 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards | Science Fiction | ||
| Absolution | 2025 Locus Award | SF Novel |
Novels
Dradin, In Love The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, by Duncan Shriek Veniss Underground Shriek: An Afterword Predator: South China Sea Finch- Southern Reach Series:
- * Annihilation
- * Authority
- * Acceptance
- * Absolution Borne Dead Astronauts
- The Misadventures of Jonathan Lambshead:
- * A Peculiar Peril
- * A Terrible Trouble Hummingbird Salamander
- ''The Stone Shed''
Nonfiction
Why Should I Cut Your Throat? Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer The Steampunk Bible Monstrous Creatures: Explorations of Fantasy through Essays, Articles & Reviews Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction- ''The Steampunk User's Manual: An Illustrated Practical and Whimsical Guide to Creating Retro-futurist Dreams''
Collections
The Book of Frog Lyric of the Highway Mariner: A Collection of Poems The Book of Lost Places City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris- * City of Saints and Madmen
- * City of Saints and Madmen The Day Dali Died Secret Life Why Should I Cut Your Throat? VanderMeer 2005 Secret Lives The Surgeon's Tale and Other Stories The Third Bear The Compass of His Bones and Other Stories
- ''Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation; Authority; Acceptance''
Short fiction
The Mare Tenebrosum Varlags Are Strange One-Armed Bandit So the Dead Walk Slowly Disintegration Requiem for the Machine Welcome to the Masque Flesh Ex Post Facto Confessions Ghost in the Machine A Report on the Living Dead David Pangborn Takes A Walk Afterwards, Drowning Afterwards, Burying the Dog Mansions on the Moon An Enthusiastic Foreword by the Editors Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation How Benjobi Song Came to Rule Iphagenia A New Face in Hell King Tales Island Tales The Situation Why the Vulture is Bald The Mona Lisa Errata The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod The Lizard Dance Myster Odd Theme Song Komodo No Breather in the World but Thee Fragments from the Notes of a Dead Mycologist Marmot Season The Strange Bird This World is Full of Monsters The Comet Man Book Club Questions Epilogue: Clarity, Now With Hellscape The Leviathan's Tale- ''Wildlife''
Other projects
Anthologies edited
Leviathan 1 Leviathan 2 Leviathan 3 Album Zutique The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases The New Weird Best American Fantasy Best American Fantasy: v. 2 Last Drink Bird Head, Steampunk Fast Ships, Black Sails, – Fantasy pirate storiesSteampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities ODD? The Weird The Time Traveler's Almanac Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection The Big Book of Classic Fantasy- ''The Big Book of Modern Fantasy''