Hello, all. I write under the name R.A. MacAvoy, although my call-name has always been Bertie. I have been writing for publication for some forty years. I was given the John W. Campbell Award in 1983, for my first novel in the Speculative Fiction Field, much to my astonishment. That year I also was granted the inaugural Phillip K. Dick Award, which still was a piece of hand-calligraphed paper without a frame. I was overwhelmed by that one, actually, as I think Phillip Dick was a very important writer and I’m glad they thought of me.

For me, now, to describe what I do as a hobby and where I live, is somehow meaningless. I can mention I once ran a small stable, called Shanachie Stables, raising a few good Connemara Ponies, just as I am now running a very small House, called Shanachie Press, hoping for a few good books. I was a diver in Northern Pacific waters for years, learning night diving, mixed gasses and rescue diving. Much of my life has been spent in the martial arts, with emphasis on self-defense rather than competition. Shall I say that I wove a great deal of clothing and decorative hangings over the years? Or that I grow orchids? I mean – forty years? I don’t know where to begin.

And by now I have had so many polished author photos that I am here only including a snapshot my husband, Ron, took of me on our upper storey deck.

Oh! I have also been on the New York Times Bestseller list many times. But then, it is really not so hard to get on the New York Times Best Seller List. Stephen King wrote a very funny article about that.

If you are young to the S.F. field and don’t know who I am, I will prep you by warning that I often kill off my heroes, sometimes at the most unexpected times. But never in a depressing manner. I’ve never wanted to depress my readers. My outlook is essentially comic.

My latest book, just released, is a collaboration with Nancy Palmer, called Albatross. It is wildly genre-bending. Breaking, perhaps. The sequel, Shimmer, is expected to be wackier.

I can only hope you enjoy my work. That’s what writers do hope, after all.