Colin Greenland

Colin Greenland was born in Dover, Kent in 1954, and wrote his first book, about a fire engine that laid an egg, five years later. He was educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate, and Pembroke College, Oxford. His doctorate thesis on New Wave science fiction was published in 1983 as The Entropy Exhibition, and won the University of California's Eaton Award for SF Criticism in 1985.

In 1980 Colin Greenland was appointed Arts Council Writer-in-Residence at the Science Fiction Foundation. His first novel, Daybreak on a Different Mountain, was published in 1984. He has collaborated with the fantasy artist Roger Dean, and his interviews with Michael Moorcock have been collected and published under the title Death is No Obstacle. Greenland's fourth novel, Take Back Plenty, the first volume of the adventures of Tabitha Jute, appeared in 1990, to immediate and lasting acclaim. It remains the only novel ever to have won all three British SF awards: the Eastercon, the British SF Association, and the Arthur C. Clarke.

Take Back Plenty was followed in 1995 by a sequel, Seasons of Plenty. The Plenty Principle, a collection of short stories featuring a new 18,000-word adventure of the cantankerous and resilient Captain Jute, was published in 1997, and Mother of Plenty completed the trilogy in 1998. Colin Greenland's work has been translated into eleven languages and broadcast on BBC national radio.

After eight years at Ortygia House, home of many British SF writers, in April 1996 Colin Greenland moved to Cambridge, where he now lives with his partner, the writer and editor Susanna Clarke.