Writing An Author Bio

Happy Monday!

So, if you caught my post last week, you’ll know that I recently received an honourable mention in the inaugural Fiction War—hurray! I received an email from the event coordinators not long afterwards which requested that all finalists submit an author biography and issued a mental sigh of relief that obviously this wouldn’t apply to me, and I wouldn’t have to figure this out, because I’m not a finalist… But I sent them a reply email, just to confirm. Turns out I still had to do one.

The sticking point?

I’ve never written a biography about myself before. I mean, to give you some idea of where I was at, I typed it into google to ask whether I should use first- or third-person. Cringe. Now you all know my secret shame (and also that most of my life is just googling to get help with how to breathe and eat puddin’ neatly and whatnot… and now I really want puddin’). Luckily, I Google-stumbled on this pretty great blog post by a lady called Anne R. Allen, titled ‘How to Write an Author Bio When You Don’t Feel Like an Author… Yet’. Hurray!

It’s simply laid out, provides some great walk-through examples of what and what not to do, and really helped me put my author bio together. So, what did I learn?

1. Author bios are always in third person. It can feel kind of weird writing it (but at least you know everyone else is in the same boat as you).
2. Keep it short and sweet. Short is good. You don’t want to overwhelm people, especially if you are on a social media platform or providing your bio for publishing with your work. No one wants to be overwhelmed with information (especially if some of it is a bit superfluous!). Amanda suggested having two: one that’s shorter for publishing in a magazine as your byline, and a longer version (about a page) for querying and posting on your website etc. Mine isn’t even 100 words, (because I really don’t have much to put in there!) but try and around 200 words maximum.
3. Personalise it a bit. Throw in a quip, an interesting fact or something personal that’s relevant to who you are as a writer and that might intrigue your reader… As someone who’s currently experiencing living in America as an expat Aussie, I find it consistently amusing (and sometimes annoying!) that so many other people are amused and fascinated by my accent, so I threw that in there.
4. Any accomplishments. If you’re like me, there may not be much to put here, especially if you’ve never been published anywhere or won any awards/prizes. Regardless, as you can see below, you can always come up with something, even if it seems very minor.
5. Something about your past. I spent the last seven years of my life in the military, and since I started that immediately after high school, it’s probably the most pertinent thing about me… Especially because (I think, anyway) it’s kind of interesting that this is where I’ve ended up from a career that neither required nor encouraged creative writing and artistic spirit.

And that’s pretty much it. For me, I didn’t have very much to put in (and I can imagine newer/unpublished writers might feel similar!), but I ended up with this:

Anastasia Pascoe is an ex-Australian Army artillery officer currently living in the USA with her partner James. When not being studied like a rare zoo animal for her strange accent, Ana can be found studying a Bachelor of Arts, where she is majoring in English and Writing with the intent of moving into the publishing industry post-graduation. Ana has been published in the 2016 Serious Flash Fiction Anthology and has recently finished her first novel.

Honestly though, Anne’s post kills it: if you walk away from reading this feeling like you’re not quite prepared to write your own author bio (fair call), then I strongly suggest checking her blog out for some more ideas. And read around! Author bios are everywhere and the more you see, the better you’ll be able to craft yours. And remember they’re constantly evolving beasts: be prepared to revisit your bio (long or short) as your career and your expertise progresses, so you’re always providing the best possible snapshot of you as an author.

Let me know how you go!

— Ana.