Bio Page Guidelines
Bio sketches are optional, but almost all of our contributors have taken advantage of the opportunity.
Please e-mail your bio as well as reminders for updates to the BwS bibliography on your bio page to the Managing Editor.
First-person bio sketches are welcome. One of our contributors mentioned that writing about herself in the third person was like writing her own obituary. Point taken!
Photos are optional. The editor will resize images to fit our pages. However, very small photos can’t be included if they are too small to be viewed easily. And they usually blur upon enlargement. Please, one person only. Photos may not include anyone other than yourself.
An external link to a blog or personal website is welcome. It will be made live and set to open in a new window, like this page. The editor will correct a faulty link if it is reported; the editor does not verify contributors’ external links.
Bibliographies
BwS bibliographies are titles and links included on the bio page. Reminders are appreciated and needed; keeping everybody’s BwS bibliography up to date is a big job.
Procedure: Cite the issue number and title. Complete information is available at Michael E. Lloyd’s Titles, Authors, Genres Index.
Personal bibliographies — namely lists of works published elsewhere — may be included in the bio sketch as long as the number of titles is reasonable, say, about half a dozen. But such lists cannot be updated; please don’t ask. And they may include only one external link, namely to the author’s website or blog.
Explanation: In the early years, Bewildering Stories was one of the few places authors could publish personal bibliographies, but traffic has increased enormously, and times have changed. Personal bibliographies are now best kept on the authors’ personal websites or blogs, where they can be updated as needed.
Name: You may use your real name or a pen name. If the name you choose duplicates one that is already in our Biographies Index, you’ll have to distinguish it in some way. For example, “Don Webb” and “Don J. Webb” are two different authors.
Pen names: You may use as many pen names as you like, within reason. However, everyone has only one bio page. The copyright line on all your pages, whatever the byline, will link to your bio page.
Bio page title: The page title is the name in the author’s first byline in Bewildering Stories. However, your page may be titled with your real name, if you prefer. “One can never be too careful in choosing names” — BwS motto. Be sure you’re comfortable with the name or names you choose; we can’t make changes retroactively.
E-mail addresses: As a rule, BwS does not post contributors’ e-mail addresses. If you want yours published, you’ll have to say, “Please include my e-mail address in my bio page,” otherwise no can do. The @ (arrobas) symbol will be encoded in ascii in an attempt to foil spambots, but we can’t guarantee it will work.