C. J. Cherryh

I write full time; I travel; I try out things. The list includes, present and past tense: fencing, riding, archery, firearms, ancient weapons, donkeys, elephants, camels, butterflies, frogs, wasps, turtles, bees, ants, falconry, exotic swamp plants and tropicals, lizards, wilderness survival, fishing, sailing, street and ice skating, mechanics, carpentry, wiring, painting (canvas), painting (house), painting (interior), sculpture, aquariums both fresh and salt, needlepoint, bird breeding, furniture refinishing, video games, archaeology, Roman, Greek civ, Crete, Celts, and caves. I've traveled from New York to Istanbul and Troy; outrun a dog pack at Thebes, and seen Columbia lift on her first flight. I've fallen down a muddy chute in a Cretan cave, nearly drowned in the Illinois River, broken an arm, been kicked and tossed by horses, fended off an amorous merchant in a Turkish tent bazaar, fought a prairie fire, slept on deck in the Adriatic, and driven Picadilly Circus at rush hour. I've waded in two oceans and four of the seven seas, I've seen Halley's Comet from Australia's far coast, and I want to visit the Amazon, the Serengeti, and see the Erebus volcano in Antarctica. I've seen the Northern Lights and experienced tornadoes and a small earthquake. I choose to live downwind of five active volcanoes, (one of which has just waked up) and directly atop the evidence of world-class cataclysms: lava flow and Ice Age flood. I love snow and cold, and with my good friend Jane Fancher, I took up figure skating at 61. I took silver (to her gold) in my first small competition six months later. We practice the sport daily, and we both have ambitions to compete in adult Nationals... if I can ever get my outside back edges steady. I see this planet as part of the whole universe: I'm stuck on it a while, and until I get the chance to get off it---(I want to do a flyby of Mars and take a look at Nix Olympica and the Vallis Marinaris, personally; and I want to see Titan and Saturn's rings and the Red Spot on Jupiter)--- I don't plan to neglect where I am either, and I'm keeping a constantly updated list of wonders this planet has to see. This Official Biography is courtesy of the author's website. Please visit http://www.cherryh.com for more information.