Longer Bio

Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than 190 books, 58 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has more than 24 million copies in print in 34 languages. He has won or been nominated for many awards, including the Nebula, Hugo, Shamus, Scribe, Bram Stoker, Lifeboat to the Stars, SFX Reader’s Choice, Colorado Book Award, and New York Times Notable Book.

Kevin has written numerous Star Wars projects, including the Jedi Academy trilogy, Darksaber, the Young Jedi Knights series (with his wife Rebecca), and Tales of the Jedi comics from Dark Horse. He wrote three X-Files novels, including the #1 bestseller Ground Zero, and also collaborated with Dean Koontz on the novel Frankenstein: Prodigal Son, which sold a million copies in the first year of its release. He has written Superman and Batman novels, as well as comics for DC, Marvel, Boom!, IDW, Wildstorm, Topps, and Dark Horse.

Kevin has coauthored fifteen books in the DUNE saga with Brian Herbert, as well as their original Hellhole trilogy. His epic SF series, The Saga of Seven Suns, is a 7-volume opus that topped international bestseller lists; he followed it with the award-nominated sequel trilogy, The Saga of Shadows. He produced and cowrote the lyrics (with his wife Rebecca Moesta) for two crossover rock CDs based on his Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy. He wrote a steampunk fantasy adventure novel based on the concept CD, “Clockwork Angels,” by legendary rock group Rush, as well as the steampunk novels Captain Nemo and The Martian War. In a lighter vein, he has written humorous fantasy The Dragon Business and the Dan Shamble, Zombie PI series. He has edited numerous anthologies, including 2113, the Pulse Pounders series, A Fantastic Holiday Season 1 & 2, Blood Lite 1–3, Five by Five 1–3, War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, and three Star Wars anthologies.

As publishers of WordFire Press, Kevin and his wife Rebecca Moesta have released more than 300 titles from Alan Dean Foster, Frank Herbert, Jody Lynn Nye, Allen Drury, Mike Resnick, Tracy Hickman, Jay Lake, Brian Herbert, Ken Scholes, and their own backlist.

Kevin has a degree in physics/astronomy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and worked for thirteen years as a technical writer for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before becoming a full-time novelist. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University. He is a Special Ambassador for the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education and a board member for the Lifeboat Foundation.

He climbs mountains, including all 54 peaks over 14,000 ft in Colorado, has completed all 500 miles of the Colorado Trail, and has visited six of the seven continents (only Antarctica left!). Kevin and his wife have been married for more than thirty years; they live in a castle in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

His most recent novels are Bats in the Belfry, Skeleton in the Closet, Persephone, and Princess of Dune (with Brian Herbert).

Personal Bio

Kevin James Anderson was born in Racine, Wisconsin on March 27, 1962. He was raised in small town Oregon, Wisconsin, south of Madison—an environment that was a cross between a Ray Bradbury short story and a Norman Rockwell painting.

He first knew he wanted to create fiction when he was five years old, before he even learned how to write: he was so moved by the film of War of the Worlds on TV that he took a notepad the next day and drew pictures of scenes from the film, spread them out on the floor, and told the story out loud (which may be what led him into writing comics nearly three decades later).

At eight years old, Kevin wrote his first “novel” (three pages long on pink scrap paper) on the typewriter in his father’s den. The Injection was a story about a mad scientist who invents a formula that can bring anything to life … and when his colleagues scoff, he proceeds to bring a bunch of wax museum monsters and dinosaur skeletons to life so they can go on a rampage.

At the age of ten, he had saved up enough money from mowing lawns and doing odd jobs that he could either buy his own bicycle or his own typewriter.

Kevin chose the typewriter … and has been writing ever since.

He submitted his first short story to a magazine when he was a freshman in high school, and managed to collect 80 rejection slips for various manuscripts before he actually had a story accepted two years later (for a magazine that paid only in copies). When he was a senior, he sold his first story for actual money (a whopping $12.50), and he never slowed down. He sold his first novel, Resurrection, Inc., by the time he turned 25.

Kevin worked in California for twelve years as a technical writer and editor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the nation’s largest research facilities. At the Livermore Lab, he met his wife Rebecca Moesta and also his coauthor, Doug Beason.

After he had published ten of his own science fiction novels to wide critical acclaim, he came to the attention of Lucasfilm, and was offered the chance at writing Star Wars novels; he ended up doing 54 projects for them.

Along the way he also collected over 750 rejection slips, as well as a trophy as “The Writer with No Future” because he produced more rejection slips by weight than any other writer at an entire conference. When asked for advice about how to be a successful writer, he answers quickly: persistence!

After living in California for many years, he and his wife moved to Colorado where they have spent nearly two decades. He is an avid hiker and camper, doing much of his writing with a hand-held voice recorder while on long walks in Death Valley, the redwoods, or the Rocky Mountains. He is also a great fan of fine microbrews.