Cat’s Profile on the SFWA Speakers Bureau
Reasons to Invite Cat to Events
- Experienced moderator who makes sure everyone on the panel gets a chance to speak.
- Startling combination of indie, small press, AND trad published author! (Novels coming out from Wordfire and Tor MacMillan).
- Funny and quick-witted as well as charismatic, makes a great toastmaster or emcee.
- Well read in F&SF, including dark fantasy, feminist, literary, steampunk, 18/19th century, urban fantasy, historical fantasy. Advanced degrees in writing, literature, and gender studies as well as several decades of technology training and expertise.
- Over three decades of teaching experience, including for Johns Hopkins, Indiana University, Bellevue College, Clarion West, Towson University, and the Center for Talented Youth.
- Experienced interviewer and podcaster.
- Former two-term President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America who has worked on the board for five years and continues to volunteer with the organization.
- Former editor of Fantasy Magazine as well as political SF anthology If This Goes On.
Short bio:
Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She is an Endeavour, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominee. Her most recent works include Hearts of Tabat (novel, WordFire Press), Neither Here Nor There (collection, Hydra House Books) and CARPE GLITTER (fiction, Meerkat Press). Forthcoming in 2020 are Exiles of Tabat (Wordfire Press) and You Sexy Thing (Tor MacMillan).
For more about her, as well as links to her fiction and her popular online school, The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, see http://www.kittywumpus.net She is represented by Seth Fishman of the Gernert Agency.
Longer bio:
John Barth described Cat Rambo’s writings as “works of urban mythopoeia” — her stories take place in a universe where chickens aid the lovelorn, Death is just another face on the train, and Bigfoot gives interviews to the media on a daily basis. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. In 2005 she attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. Among the places in which her stories have appeared are ASIMOV’S, WEIRD TALES, CLARKESWORLD, and STRANGE HORIZONS, and her work has consistently garnered mentions and appearances in year’s best of anthologies. Her collection, EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT was an Endeavour Award finalist in 2010 and followed her collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, THE SURGEON’S TALE AND OTHER STORIES. Her most recent collection is NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, which follows NEAR + FAR, containing Nebula-nominated “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain”. Her most recent novel is HEARTS OF TABAT from Wordfire Press, book 2 of the Tabat Quartet.
She has edited anthologies, including political SF anthology IF THIS GOES ON, as well as the online award-winning, critically-acclaimed Fantasy Magazine. Her work with Fantasy Magazine earned her a nomination for a World Fantasy Award in 2012. She teaches at Bellevue College as well as in a highly successful series of online classes. She has also taught for Clarion West, the King County Library System, Blizzard, and countless convention workshops.
Although no longer actively involved with the game, she is one of the minds behind Armageddon MUD, the oldest roleplay-intensive MUD (an interactive text-based game) on the Internet, which has been described as “like no other mud I have played before“, “the most entertaining game I’ve ever played“, “the most creative, emotionally involved mud on the Net” and “a place of astonishing beauty and detail“. She continues to do some game writing as well as technology journalism and book reviews. A longtime volunteer with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), she served as its Vice President from 2014-2015 and its President for two terms, from 2015-2019. For more about her, as well as links to her fiction, see http://www.kittywumpus.net
Pictures:
On the Great Wall.
Photo by Cat Rambo
Fantasy and SF writer Cat Rambo in the San Juan Islands. Photo by Wayne Rambo.
Fantasy and SF writer Cat Rambo in Disneyland with a friend. Photo by Michael J. Francis.
Taken at World Fantasy Con, 2011. Photo Credit: On Focus Photos, http://onfocusphoto.com.
Resources:
Interviews:
- Lightspeed Magazine, 9/2010, Author Spotlight by Erin Stocks
- Redstone Science Fiction, 7/1/2010, Interview by Michael Ray
- Novy MIRror, 6/30/2009, Video interview by Rick Novy
- Bibliophile Stalker, 9/2/2008, Interview by Charles Tan
- The Fix, 7/1/2008, Interview by Marshall Payne
- Ambling Along the Aqueduct, 9/4/2007, A Brief Conversation with Cat Rambo by L. Timmel Duchamp
- Interview with Genevieve Valentine for the Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight presskit
