Charles Stross was born in Leeds in England in 1964, but now lives in Edinburgh in Scotland, where he shares a flat with his wife, Feòrag NicBhrìde (who designed the stunning phoenix logo being used for this year’s P-CON website), as well as a large quantity of computers in various stages of age and functionality. He's a full time writer, with the usual background of weird jobs behind him. He has degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has previously worked as a pharmacist (a job he quit after the second time they were staked out by the police, anticipating an armed robbery), technical author, software engineer, and freelance computer journalist.

Charlie also writes science fiction, though. He has a collection of stories titled Toast out from Cosmos Books, and his first novel, Festival of Fools, was published in February 2003 as a trade paperback in the UK by Big Engine and in subsequently as a hardback in the US by Ace Books, who have re-titled it Singularity Sky. The Atrocity Archive, previously serialised in issues 7-9 of Spectrum SF, was published as a hardback by Golden Gryphon in early 2004. A sequel to Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise was published by Ace in the US, with UK publication by Orbit. A Family Trade, the first volume of The Merchant Princes, was published by Tor in October 2004.

His novels Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise were both shortlisted for the Hugo award (in 2004 and 2005 respectively), and his novel Accelerando is shortlisted for the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke awards in 2006. (The novellas it is based on have racked up an impressive count of Hugo and Nebula misses.) His next novels are The Clan Corporate (Tor, May 2006), Glasshouse (Ace, August 2006) and The Jennifer Morgue (Golden Gryphon, November 2006).

In his copious spare time, Charlie enjoys drinking alcoholic beverages from small breweries, and collecting weird gadgets and orphan computers.

Profile by Anne M Kletcha