All the biographical on this page can be freely duplicated elsewhere provided you don’t alter the text (aside from mixing and matching paragraphs, if that suits your needs).
100-word bio:
Wendy S. Delmater has edited the acclaimed science fiction and fantasy magazine Abyss & Apex since 2006. She’s a professional editor of science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. She is also the editor of several Best of Abyss & Apex anthologies, and the author of numerous non-fiction books including the Better Dating Through Engineering series, Plant a Garden Around Your Life, and Confessions of a Female Safety Engineer. Her “how to” book for authors – Writing the Entertaining Story – is available on Amazon.
A former engineer and New Yorker, she’s now in Lexington, SC. Her Twitter handle is @safewrite ; follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wendy.delmaterthies. Learn more at https://wendysdelmater.net/
70-word addition:
Wendy was born in farm country in Western PA, spent much of her life on Long Island in NY, and now lives in Lexington, SC. Her husband and she spend inordinate amounts of time trying to out-geek each other.
Wendy’s always believed that non-fiction is just “stories about real life,” and she believes her work in science fiction and fantasy makes her non-fiction enjoyable. You can learn more at www.wendysdelmater.net
57-word expansion to the addition:
Wendy has a BS in safety management from Mercy College. She’s a Professional Member (Emeritus) of the American Society of Safety Engineers, and an affiliate member of SFWA – the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
She has worked as a safety manager, florist, business consultant, resume writer, head hunter, auditor, editor, and amateur cat herder.
Early Influences
My father was a reading tutor and brought home all sorts of educational games for me to play with, so I was reading on a college level by the third grade. My mother, though brilliant, was ill most of my life, so I was home most of the time and my friends became the authors and characters in books. I grew up with companions like Robert Lewis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott, and Hans Christian Anderson. And science books! When I grew up I wanted to be some sort of scientist. One of my early heroes was Marie Curie. I’d often climb a 40-ft oak to read a book without my younger siblings bothering me, and my cat would climb up and keep me company. I could see the library from up there. I loved our dusty old library in the Town Hall, and had permission to take out things from the adult stacks. Then they built a new library.
My middle school–we called them Jr Highs back then– was right next to the new library. One of the librarians was science fiction and fantasy fan who introduced me to Tolkien, Asimov, CS Lewis, Clifford D. Simak, Heinlein and Lloyd Alexander. So when I walked about a mile home, it was always with a new book in my hands, only looking up to cross streets. When I discovered that Andre Norton was a pseudonym for a female author, Alice Mary Norton, I felt a stab of hope. Maybe I could be an author, too.
I made my way through school as a person who loved learning and considered any awards to be incidental to that, but still managed to rack up all sorts of accolades, mostly in English, culminating in a National Merit Commendation. To give you an idea of how little I sought such recognition, the other two fiercely competitive recipients of that award in my high school told me I had to have been mistaken when I showed up for its yearbook photo. They simply had no idea I could qualify without any effort.
I spent a year at Michigan State University, earning 36 credits in pre-nursing. But I had to come home and nurse my mother, who’d taken a turn for the worse, and help with the bills since my father lost his tutoring income in an economic downturn. I spent five years helping support them while I worked for American Airlines in their catering division at JFK airport. I had flight benefits, and got to see a lot of the world. (I even had a book of African authors confiscated from me by South African police because my flight to Nairobi continued on to Johannesburg.)
I married and had three children. My ex was a home improvements contractor and I helped run the business while starting to write. When he abandoned us, the temp agencies put me in construction and I found safety management as a career. I wrote, and then edited, for national safety publications and discovered the world of science fiction conventions.
The rest, as they say, is history.