For a short bio about Jeff Carlson, please refer to the Press Kit. If you’d like more information, here is a longer biographical sketch:
More Than You Probably Need to Know
Jeff Carlson was born on the day of the first manned moon landing and narrowly escaped being named Apollo, Armstrong, or Rocket. His father worked for NASA-Ames at the time, and his granddad on his mother's side was a science fiction fan whose library included autographed copies of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Guess what they talked about.
Big ideas in small heads sometimes lead in strange directions. Although active in his youth in soccer and baseball, Jeff also spent a lot of time reading Frank Baum, James Michener, Jean M. Auel, Stephen King, John Irving, Wendy Pini, John Varley and Joe Haldeman.
Mom and dad probably should have made him watch more TV. Those writers were heavy-duty influences and more than anything what they taught was scale, the idea that the world is bigger and much stranger than Hometown U.S.A. With a head full of independence, Jeff left high school at age fifteen after acing the California High School Equivalency Exam.
Don't try this at home, kids. A good chunk of his newfound freedom was spent on such thrilling activities as running a cash register at Super 7, but he also wrote an epic novel of approximately a million words, borrowing heavily from The Stand and The Hotel New Hampshire. That's right. A hauntingly beautiful apocalypse. It garnered no more than the usual rejection letters, but another thing Jeff had learned was the persistence of vision.
He attended college in Arizona, where he earned a B.A. in English Literature.
Soon he moved back to the coast after buying a sport coat, taking meetings in Hollywood, and acquiring an agent. Ultimately the decision to return to California proved the best of his life because it led him to his wife, Diana, who is smart and pretty and sweet.
Like many creative types, Jeff has a ridiculous employment history. From the semi-autobiographical short story "Meme," published in Fantastic Stories:
"There is no such thing as a part time job that is both meaningful and well paid. Most aren't either. Including his stints as a gas jockey during high school, Alan Lilly has held nineteen positions in at least seven separate fields, so his expectations are as low as mud. Driver, pressman, salesman, waiter, phone rep, cashier—he rarely stays more than twelve months and several times he's quit after one shift.
"He is not a slacker, thief or trouble-maker. He's a musician. He has better things to do."
In real life, Jeff has also worked in construction and in credit investigation. Most recently he is a House Dad Writer Guy, spending a lot of time with Speed Racer and Captain Underpants (and a little bit, still, with the work of writers like Douglas Preston, Joe Haldeman, and Nelson DeMille) while finding room for his fourth novel; a fifth novel in collaboration with David Brin; skiing; backpacking; NFL games; South Park; Jethro Tull; and sushi-and-a-movie dates with his wife.
Jeff's first novel, high concept thriller Plague Year, sold to Ace/Penguin after a small bidding war between two publishers and strong interest from a third. Plague Year hit stores everywhere in mass market paperback in August 2007. The book immediately went to a second printing and is now in its sixth edition.
Audio rights sold to Recorded Books and Audible.com, who released Plague Year on CD and as a digital download as narrated by stage actor Richard Ferrone.
A sequel entitled Plague War was released in North America in July 2008 and became a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. The third book in the trilogy, Plague Zone, was Ace/Penguin's lead paperback for December 2009 and received nationwide displays in Barnes & Noble and other chain outlets.
In Europe, Spanish language rights to Plague Year went to Minotauro in a preemptive bid over its rival publisher Plaza RHM. Retitled La Plaga, Minotauro released the novel as its lead hard cover for September 2008, backed by a massive promotion campaign including newpaper ads, spectacular book store displays, and this web site. La Plaga quickly became a bestseller in Spain.
The second novel, retitled Antidoto, followed in January 2009. Minotauro is also distributing both books in Columbia and Peru, and plans further releases across South and Central America.
German rights to the entire Plague trilogy went to Piper Verlag in best bid auction over its rival publisher Heyne. Retitled Nano, Piper released Plague Year as its Book Of The Month in September 2008.
To date, the Plague Year novels have also sold in Romania, the Czech Republic, and France.
Jeff's collaboration with David Brin is the first of a new adventure series entitled Colony High with at least two more books already outlined. Jeff also writes parenting articles and has a nonfiction book proposal in the works as well as a collection of humor and how-to essays about life in the trenches as a house dad.
To date, his short fiction and essays have also sold in thirteen foreign languages: Czech, Esperanto, Estonian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portugese, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish.
Jeff lives with his wife and sons in California, and welcomes correspondence via email.