Press Kit

Brief biography: Sue Burke began writing professionally as a teenager for her local newspaper. By then she was also an avid science fiction fan. She has worked for newspapers and magazines as a reporter and editor, and began publishing fiction in 1995. She has also published essays, poetry, and translations. Among her non-writing jobs, she taught English to Spanish teenagers in Madrid, Spain.

Where she’s lived: Born in Milwaukee, WI, in 1955; Austin, TX; Madrid, Spain; and now Chicago, IL. She is married and has no children or pets, just houseplants who have trained her well.

Publications: More than 40 short stories, along with a million words of journalism and other non-fiction; and translations from Spanish into English including short stories, novels, poetry, and historical works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Novels: Semiosis, Interference, Immunity Index, Dual Memory, and Usurpation.

Education: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, 1976; Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, 1996; Master’s-level Diploma in Translation, Spanish into English, from the Chartered Institute of Linguists Educational Trust, 2013. Winner of the 2016 Alicia Gordon Award for Word Artistry in Translation from the American Foundation for Translation and Interpretation.

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You lived in Spain? Why? Even before we were married, my husband and I wanted to live overseas and learn another language and culture. When we got the chance to move to Madrid, Spain, we took it. We lived there from December 1999 to July 2016, then we returned to the Midwest to be closer to family and because Spain’s economy had not recovered from the 2008 crisis.

What inspired Semiosis? After one of my houseplants killed another one, I did some research. I learned that plants here on Earth lead aggressive, active lives. Plants can sense what happens to them. Plants can count. Plants can communicate with each other. Plants sometimes try to control animal behavior, even human beings, but they do it subtly and often for mutual benefit, so we rarely notice. Imagine if they could think — and then imagine how plants on a distant planet would react to a new human colony. Much of what plants do in the Semiosis trilogy are things they actually do on Earth, but without apparent forethought.

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Links:

• Personal website: http://www.sue.burke.name
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burke.sue
• Twitter: @SueBurkeSpain
• Instagram: @sueburkespain
• Blue Sky: @sueburke.bsky.social
• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2933334.Sue_Burke
• Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Sue-Burke/e/B007IG9WGW

Member:

• American Translators Association
• Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)
• Pórtico: Asociación Española de Fantasía, Ciencia Ficción y Terror
• Broad Universe
• Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA)

Contact: https://semiosispax.com/contact/

Photos by Daniel Lewis. https://www.badassity.com