Stanley Schmidt was born in Cincinnati and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1966. He began selling stories while a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, where he completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1969. He continued freelancing while an assistant professor at Heidelberg College in Ohio, teaching physics, astronomy, science fiction, and other oddities. (He was introduced to his wife, Joyce, by a serpent while teaching field biology in a place vaguely resembling that well-known garden.) He has contributed numerous stories and articles to original anthologies and magazines including Analog, Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Rigel, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, American Journal of Physics, Camping Journal, Writer's Digest, and The Writer. He has edited or coedited about a dozen anthologies.
Since 1978, as editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, he was nominated 34 times for the Hugo award for Best Professional Editor, and won in 2013 for Best Editor, Short Form. He is or has been a member of the Board of Advisers for the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, and has been an invited speaker at national meetings of those organizations, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers, as well as numerous museums and universities. In his writing and editing he draws on a varied background including extensive experience as a musician, photographer, traveler, naturalist, outdoorsman, pilot, and linguist. Most of these influences have left traces in his six novels and short fiction. His nonfiction includes the book Aliens and Alien Societies: A Writer's Guide to Creating Extraterrestrial Life-Forms, and The Coming Convergence: The Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future, and hundreds of Analog editorials, some of them collected in Which Way to the Future? He was Guest of Honor at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore, and has been a Nebula and Hugo award nominee for his fiction.
In September 2012, he retired from editing Analog (after a longer run than any previous editor, including John W. Campbell), and now anticipates doing more of his own writing, as well as many of the other things mentioned above.
Since retiring...
"As I mentioned when I retired from editing Analog, that was all I was retiring from. The aftermath of relocating ate up a lot of time during the first months, but I am now back to writing regularly at lengths both long and short. I've also maintained a close relationship with Analog, some of the results of which have already appeared or soon will.
"My guest editorial "Meditation on a Bar Stool" was in the April issue, and a short story, 'Opportunity Knocks' is scheduled for October. That one's a collaboration: my wife Joyce and I brainstormed it while driving a truck full of belongings from old home to new. It also happens to be related to an earlier story of mine, but that is not a prerequisite—though I wouldn't mind if the story made you want to buy the novel!
"Which leads me to mention also that FoxAcre Press, which has already reissued several of my books in print-on-demand format, is now also publishing those in several e-book formats, and is preparing several others to be released soon as both e-books and POD. I hope you'll watch for them and enjoy them."
February 2015: You Can Take the Editor Out of Analog, But...
"Since I last updated this, I've kept several fingers in the Analog pie. 'Opportunity Knocks,' the story I co-wrote with Joyce Schmidt, appeared in the October 2014 issue, with a delicious opening spread by John Allemand. More recently, the January-February 2015 issue had my science fact article 'Orbits to Order,' about how to get orbits that (gravitational) nature alone can't provide, and April had 'Hiding the Info-Dump: Feeding Information Without Choking the Reader,' about the perils and potentials of exposition in fiction writing. 'A Future for Analog,' a special essay for the 1000th issue of the magazine, will appear in June 2015.
"Also, FoxAcre Press has released Generation Gap and Other Stories in print-on-demand and e-book formats, as well as Argonaut.
"Last but by no means last, retirement finally allowed me to finish a brand-new novel, Night Ride and Sunrise, which Analog serialized starting in the July-August 2015 double issue. FoxAcre Press is releasing a version in print and ebook in 2017.
Paper and e-editions are also available through your local bookseller and online.
Author photo by Joyce Schmidt