The Author Bio Attempt

Talia
Oct 28, 2024
6 min read

Now that I've had a few stories published (which is crazy, by the way), I've had to confront my embarrassing and downright shameful approaches to writing an author bio. It's something that I've never really been taught how to do and it's such an intimidating task. With the first piece of work I submitted, I attached a half-arsed attempt at a bio because, honestly, I didn't think it would go anywhere. I didn't have much faith in myself as a writer at the time (still don't have much, but I'm working on it), so I thought that on the chance that it was chosen, the bio wasn't the most important thing anyway. Since then, I've been gradually improving my bio, and have redrafted it for future submissions, so I wanted to share my process of rewriting it, and the resources I used. I also want to share some bios of my favourite writers, just to see how it is professionally done.

I'm going to share with you my first ever bio. It was difficult as an unpublished writer to come up with a something, and whilst it does the job, I can't say I'm proud of it:

'Talia is a short fiction writer, whose work often focuses on themes such as isolation and mental health. She usually writes within the horror genre, however she also likes to write pieces with pastoral imagery.'

It's painful to reread it, and I know that sounds quite dramatic, but writing about myself is my personal hell. I hate it with a passion, yet I know it's unavoidable. Despite this, I still want to spend a decent amount of time in order to create a decent(ish) bio. From my reading on the topic, I've gathered a few of the general 'rules' for writing a bio:

Most of the author bio's I've come across are third person, and it is generally advised to write it that way. I don't know why, but it's weird to write about myself in third person.
Keep it short and concise. Obviously if you're an author with an extensive bibliography, then you'll have more that needs to be said (you'll see a couple of examples below). I guess it makes sense, save the flowery and intricate language for your writing, not your bio. The words 'short' and 'concise' appear on almost every resource I viewed.
Mention your experience. Got a degree? Mention it. Been published? Mention it. Think of it as a CV, giving a brief overview of stuff you've done (that's relevant to your work, but I've seen people write about other more irrelevant stuff as well and it's still interesting to read).
Give a brief overview of your work. By that, I mean talk about it broadly. What themes do you write about? What's your favourite subject matter? Things like that.
Include points of contact. If you have a social media account, or a website, it's a good idea to link it or include your username.
Finally, include some other fun details about yourself. I've seen people talk about where they're from/ where they currently live (that sounds more scary than fun), if they're currently working on anything, etc,

With this advice in mind, here is my new (and slightly improved) author bio. It's still not the best, but it is miles better than what I originally had:

'Talia Nash (she/her) is a short story writer from East Sussex. She has recently completed her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Brighton. During her masters, she honed her horror writing, with her first horror script Lobotomy finding its place in The Third Bullshit Anthology. Her other, less horrific flash fiction piece ‘The Heaviness of Sleep’ resides in The 2024 NFFD Anthology. After doing a dissertation on the role of cannibalism in female horror narratives, her writing now centres around body horror. She is currently working on a short story collection. You can find her on Instagram at: taliaofnash.'

Obviously, I'm still a learner when it comes to this, but I hope that this can help a little bit. I also still hate writing about myself, and I feel like you can sense it in the bio.

I hope this post has been some what useful, if not, then I hope you can share in my embarrassment. I'll link some of the resources I've used at the bottom of the page, but if those aren't of any use, then there are a million other ones available.

I hope your writing is well!

All the best,

Talia

P.S.

I wanted to share some of the author bio's from my favourite writers. It's interesting to see how similar they are in terms of formula. I hope they are interesting for you to see nonetheless.

Claire Oshetsky (Author of Chouette)

'Claire Oshetsky is the author of the novels POOR DEER (January 2024) and CHOUETTE (November 2021), which was longlisted for the 2022 Pen/Faulkner award for fiction and won the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Claire's short fiction has been featured in Alaska Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry, North American Review, and many others. A former science journalist, Claire has written for Wired, Technology Review, The New York Times, and other periodicals. Claire is four-time recipient of the "Article of the Year" award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Claire also wrote THE BOOK OF DOG BY LARK BENOBI, an apocalyptic romp that was named one of the ten best eco-fiction books of 2018 by Brit & Co. Claire lives with their family in Santa Cruz, California.' [1]

Grady Hendrix (Author of Paperbacks From Hell and Horrorstör)

(This thing is so so so long. I only included the first paragraph. But read it, it's pretty funny.)

'Like gravity, or ugly people, Grady Hendrix is hard to escape, especially here on his website. In this place, he is all up in your areas and he even wrote the words that you are reading right now. When you are on his website, he can see you. He can see you right now.' [2]

Rachel Yoder (Author of Nightbitch)

'Rachel Yoder is the author of Nightbitch (2021), her debut novel. A film adaptation of her novel, written & directed by Marielle Heller and starring Amy Adams, will be released in 2024. Formerly the 23/24 Trias Writer-in-Residence at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, she now serves as Assistant Professor of Screenwriting and Cinema Arts at the University of Iowa.Selected as an Indie Next Pick in August 2021, Nightbitch has gone on to be named a best book of the year by Esquire and Vulture and recognized as a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and shortlist for the McKitterick Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications such as Harper’s, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, and The Sun. With Mark Polanzak, she is a founding editor of draft: the journal of process.' [3]

Saba Sams (Author of Send Nudes)

'Saba Sams is a writer based in London. Her story ‘Blue 4eva’ won the 2022 BBC National Short Story Award. Send Nudes, her debut collection, won the 2022 Edge Hill Prize. Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Granta, the Stinging Fly and the White Review, among other publications.' [4]

Stephen King (Author of.... many things)

'Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1971, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co., accepted the novel Carrie for publication, providing him the means to leave teaching and write full-time. He has since published over 50 books and has become one of the world's most successful writers. King is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to the American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts. Stephen lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. They are regular contributors to a number of charities including many libraries and have been honored locally for their philanthropic activities.' [5]

Eric LaRocca (Author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke)

'Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 2x Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. Named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fiction,” LaRocca’s notable works include Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats, The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories, and You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood. His upcoming novel, At Dark, I Become Loathsome, will be published in January 2025. The book has already been optioned for film by The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus. He currently resides in Boston, MA with his partner.' [6]