John J. Kessel
Professor
- Email: tenshi@ncsu.edu
- Phone: 919-515-4170
- Office: Tompkins Hall 274
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Biography
John Kessel is a professor of creative writing and American literature. A winner of the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the Locus Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, his books include Good News from Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, and The Pure Product. His story collection, Meeting in Infinity, was named a notable book of 1992 by the New York Times Book Review, and Kim Stanley Robinson has called Corrupting Dr. Nice "the best time travel novel ever written." With James Patrick Kelly he edited the anthologies Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology; Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology; and most recently, The Secret History of Science Fiction. His recent collection The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories contains the 2008 Nebula-Award-winning story “Pride and Prometheus.”
Kessel has taught at NCSU since 1982, and helped organize and served as the first director of the university's Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.
Interests
speculative fiction
fantasy
fiction writing
science & literature
Publications
Books:
Freedom Beach (with James Patrick Kelly). Bluejay Books, 1985
Another Orphan. Tom Doherty Associates (St. Martin's Press),1989
Good News From Outer Space. Tom Doherty Associates (St. Martin's Press), 1989
Meeting in Infinity (story collection). Arkham House, 1992
Corrupting Dr. Nice. Tom Doherty Associates. 1997
The Pure Product (story collection) Tom Doherty Associates, 1997
The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2008
The Collected Kessel (story collection), Baen Books, 2012
As editor:
Intersections (anthology, with Mark L. Van Name and Richard Butner, ed.). Tor, 1996
Feeling Very Strange, (anthology, with James Patrick Kelly). Tachyon Books, 2006
Rewired, (anthology, with James Patrick Kelly). Tachyon Books, 2007
The Secret History of Science Fiction, (anthology, with James Patrick Kelly). Tachyon Books, 2009
Kafkaesque, (anthology, with James Patrick Kelly). Tachyon Books, 2011
Nebula Awards Showcase 2012, (anthology, with James Patrick Kelly). Pyr Books, 2012
Digital Rapture, (anthology, with James Patrick Kelly). Tachyon Books, 2012
Education
- Ph.D. in American Literature, Creative Writing from University of Kansas, 1981
- M.A. in English from University of Kansas, 1974
- B.A. in Physics & English from University of Rochester, 1972
