John Scalzi debuted in 2005 with Old Man’s War, a novel that Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, compared directly to Robert Heinlein’s work (“Scalzi’s astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master.”). In the time since, Scalzi has published sixteen other novels, including five others in the Old Man’s War series and three novels in the Interdependency series, all of which take place in a universe where humans have reached into the stars. He won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2013 for Redshirts, and has won several other notable awards including the Locus Award, the Dragon Award, and the Campbell/Astounding Award. In 2016 he was presented with the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio.

Outside of writing, Scalzi has contributed to the field of science fiction in other ways. From 2010 to 2013, he was president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), the pre-eminent writer’s association in the field. In 2012 he was Toastmaster of Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention and emceed the Hugo Awards. On his own site, which has been online since 1998, making it one of the long-running personal sites on the internet, Scalzi hosts the “Big Idea” feature, which over the years has given hundreds of writers in the SFF genre a platform to talk to readers about their latest work.

In addition to fiction, Scalzi has written numerous non-fiction books on the subjects of astronomy, science fiction film, writing and humor. He has written several episodes of the Emmy-winning Netflix animated series Love Death + Robots, and was the Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. His Old Man’s War novel is currently in development for a feature film. Scalzi lives in Ohio with his family.