About me

I’m C.J. Cherryh. I write science fiction and fantasy. I travel, I figure skate, I take photos, I sometimes do art. I’ve been most of the way around the world—the only exception being the stretch fromPerth, Australia, to Ephesus, in Turkey: haven’t ever been in that sector of the globe.

I used to teach, I trained in linguistics and archaeology, and I have a web page at www.cherryh.com, if you didn’t happen to arrive here by that route. I live in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, and I share a house with Jane Fancher, another writer, and two cats, who have about 100,000 miles of travel on them. Jane’s webpage is www.janefancher.com —if you want the other side of any story. Plus I’m a klutz about picture managment and she loves doing it, so almost all incriminating pictures are on her website and Flickr account.

I’ve kept a journal for  many years on my website, and quite a lot of people know me pretty well from those pages, so if everybody else seems to ‘know things’ that aren’t in this blog, don’t panic. Just ask, and I or somebody else will answer.

This blog/webpresence is in no wise meant to supplant, replace, or take over from the several sites that have had content relating to my work (you know who you are, and I fully support your continuance.)

I also have a philosophy about the web. It is a place, like science fiction conventions, which grew up with rules, among the original participants, often good rules, and success brought in a whole lot of people who came in and brought different ways. I try, so far as I am able and have knowledge, to run two sites where you don’t get bombarded by ads, you don’t pick up tracking cookies, and where, if we sell something, it’s a decent value. I cannot control the Amazon store aspect of my website, and you may pick up cookies past that doorway, but it was a way to get you access to my books—all 500-odd links. Any page I would have made with those links would have been hopeless to navigate.

When I offer files for sale as e-books they will be DRM-free. I try to be honest with my readers, and hope my readers will be honest with me—and enable me to keep the lights on.

Let’s have fun on this site. I’ll be posting about my work, my life, the general craziness of a writer’s existence, my friends, and what I’m up to. Plus—the current project—the creation of Closed Circle—three writers’ response to the difficulties in the publishing industry: we are going to offer inexpensive e-books, and hope to be able to do it long-term.

71 Comments

  1. DKWebb13

    You have been one of my favorite authors for quite a long time now. One of the First of your books that I ever read (perhaps the first) was a SFBC edition of The Book of Morgaine. I also remember the start of your Alliance-Union stories. Your writing helped me survive graduate school and my post-doc at NIH with my sanity semi-intact. Your incredible worlds of wonder and imagination were an important escape hatch from the stresses of the real world. I can’t tell you how many weekends I disconnected the phone and spent a couple days doing almost nothing but immersing myself in some of your stories.

    THANK YOU!!!

  2. Scott

    CJ,

    I’d also like to say thanks for all the pleasant hours reading your books. I happened across _Merchanter’s Luck_ in high school and loved it, and have been enjoying your books and stories ever since. Plus I married a woman who turned into possibly the world’s biggest fan of the Chanur series. 🙂 So we’re both fans, and I’m guessing our son, who’s 9 now, will be as well once he’s a little older.

    –scott

  3. bitingduck

    I have loved your books since I was in grad school–many long years ago. Also share your opinion of DRM; great to hear it.

  4. nchaney

    CJ, as animation matures, I hope to one day see Chanur and her tribe on the big screen. Have you given any thought to adapting the series as a screen play? Really good animation could make costume obsolete. What say you ?

  5. joekc6nlx

    It is September 1, this is a most auspicious day!

    Happy Birthday, CJ!

  6. zinialin

    I am shy about writing in a forum such as you have here and I will likely have to figure out all that you have going and I will likely stick to the genealogy side for now however I have to “thank” you for Bren Cameron and your ability to develop him into a fun, funny and serious man growing up in Atevi society. My husband reads history and war books but we always share the stories we read. I told him I was on this site and that you actually read and responded and he asked if I could tell you that he just named his new car (he has always named his rigs) the “Atevi Chevy.” It is red with black interior and he was pleased to know that is Tabini’s colors so it fit. Thank you, CJ you really have been a life-saver for me with your work.

  7. wyvernwaddell

    Thanks for approving me 🙂 Love the site, I expect I’ll spend quite a while just reading everything before I post anything else. YAY!!

  8. deanwmn

    Started a comment and lost it, so I’ll try again. I was browsing in Amazon books the other day and ran across something rare (for me) – I ran across an early Cherryh I hadn’t read! “Sunfall”, it’s a small book of 6 short stories which arrived a couple days ago and is actually in quite good condition considering it was published in 1981 by DAW books (Book Club edition) and is stamped New Orleans Public Library June 18, 1984. Wow! Anyway, it has jumped to the top of my “to read” stack, as soon as I finish my current read.

  9. BlueCatShip

    I had bought the Collected Short Stories some years ago, but I don’t think I had ever bought Sunfall. Published in 1981, marked in 1984? 🙂 I was in high school then and didn’t read a C.J. Cherryh book until college, first or second semester, I think. (The Pride of Chanur and Downbelow Station, loaned by a college dorm mate.)

    Whoa. It’s been 40 years since I was a high school freshman, 14 and 15. I am still not used to being 55+. Dang….

    There is also a collection of her short stories called Visible Light from the 1980’s, if my memory’s right on the dates. These were also great, on a variety of subjects, some very strong and affecting, others lighter, all of them good reads. I’ve always loved short stories. The paperback was on the larger/thicker side, not as big as her later books,, in between her shorter novels and her epic / large novels. Definitely worth it if you haven’t read it. Many of those out of print books are getting more expensive to replace.

    I’m about to listen to her Alliance Space audiobook, which contains, IIRC, Merchanter’s Luck and maybe 40,000 in Gehennna. I’ve also got Andre Norton’s Forerunner Factor in audiobook format. (I haven’t been able to find Sargasso of Space in audiobooks from her Solar Queen series, and I want to reread it too.)

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