Charles M. Knudsen
Bewildering Stories biography
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I am a writer and teacher living in Shizuoka, Japan.
I worked for a few years as a script reader for a Japanese film company, during which time I managed to sell a sci-fi comedy of mine to the now defunct Trimark studios. I was paid one dollar for the script, and the script was never produced. Bum deal. But it was still fun somehow.
After that, I took a few years off from writing stories and scripts, but I did manage to publish a textbook and get work as a regular contributor to a Japanese newspaper writing an education column. Now, at the ripe old age of 38, I’m back into fiction full throttle and I’m in it to stay. I’m thrilled to have a found a home here at Bewildering Stories.
I love all forms of fiction but my roots are in speculative fiction. I grew up reading Asimov, Herbert, as well as Tolkien and Stephen Donaldson. Though I love their work, I think my writing has been more influenced by Martin Amis’s collection of short stories Einstein’s Monsters as well as the writings of J. G. Ballard and George Saunders.
I’m fascinated by this first-person experience that we call consciousness. So far, most of my stories have dealt with altered conscious experience in one form or another. I am an optimist when it comes to science and technology and the human race in general. Bad things will happen, sure. But we’ll keep plugging along. And literature will help us. At least that’s my hope. I usually, but not always, try to bring some of that optimism across in my stories.
Copyright © 2012 by Charles M. Knudsen
