Author biography?

[Ireth]

So I'm working on a short story for an anthology (Short Story Anthology: Call for Submissions | Sorin Suciu), and in my initial submission they want the following:

A brief author biography
A short synopsis (no more than two lines) of what you will write about
A writing sample: up to 500 words of your original published or unpublished work.

I have the short synopsis written, and I plan to use an excerpt from the story I'm submitting, which is fine. But I have no idea what to put in the biography. I have no previous publishing/editing/etc. credentials, no degree in creative writing or involvement in writing groups like SFWA. So what can I say that will help my case and not hurt it?

 

[CupofJoe]

Write you life as if it was a blurb... You have 50 [or so, how short is brief] words to sell yourself. I'd go for the things that make you - you.
You live "In a meadow full of flowers and plotbunnies", there must be a few words in that...

 

[Ireth]

Thanks, Joe. Any idea how I'd put it all together in an email submission? Would it be "bio, summary, excerpt" or "summary, bio, excerpt", or maybe even "summary, excerpt, bio"? I can't see that last one as being too viable, as it'd be hard to see where the excerpt ends and the bio begins.

 

[CupofJoe]

Thanks, Joe. Any idea how I'd put it all together in an email submission? Would it be "bio, summary, excerpt" or "summary, bio, excerpt", or maybe even "summary, excerpt, bio"? I can't see that last one as being too viable, as it'd be hard to see where the excerpt ends and the bio begins.

I don't know for certain but my guess would be to go with the order they have give you [even though I agree with you that it might not be the best].
Then use subs/ line breaks to break the different sections up.
At least then you can't have guessed/chosen wrong...
They have not asked for your name or the title of the piece...
So...

• Your name
• Your Bio
• Title
• Synopsis
• Sample

Now I am contradicting myself as well as that looks top heavy. Give them what they need first...
Revised order... I would go for...

• Title
• Synopsis
• Sample
• Your name
• Your Bio
• Your Contact Details

[It seems obvious but include your contact details! About 5% of emails and subs I get at work have all the information I need but not how to contact the person - I work on Conferences for some of the year]
And I've just seen the cause/charity... A worthy one indeed.
Good luck!

 

[Ireth]

Thanks again. I asked the guy who's putting this all together, and he said just my email address would suffice. I think your first example would be the better way to go. I plan on including the title of the work before my summary, like so:

"[author bio which includes my name]

Summary of my story, working title [TITLE]:

[summary]

Excerpt:

[excerpt]"

Does that look okay?

 

[CupofJoe]

It works for me but I might separate Title and Summary more definitively...
If they want an email address and only that, so much the simpler...
One thing I've learned submitting to conferences and journals [back in the day], and you are probably going to do this already, is to write the submission in Text [and not RTF or HTML formats].
That way you know that what you send is what they see, even if it looks boring.
If you make it all "pretty" in HTML and then they read it in Text, you don't know what they are going to see.

 

[Nimue]

Though they put it in that order in their request, I kind of agree with Joe's second suggestion--the story sample should come before the bio, shouldn't it? Not only is it more important, but there's a slim not-impossible chance that whoever's reading might be biased by the bio one way or another. (As in, the story I'm about to read about is written by someone with no prior published works, or written by someone under 25, or written by a woman, something like that. I mean I think that happens unconsciously anyway, but better to lead with the writing itself?)

 

[Ireth]

That's true. But then how do I easily distinguish between the end of my story excerpt and the start of the bio? The excerpt includes a scene break, and I don't want to replicate that for fear of being confusing.

(It's entirely possible I'm missing a really obvious answer because I'm really tired right now. =_=;; )

 

[Russ]

Subtitles?