George Zebrowski (28 December 1945–20 December 2024) was a prolific writer and anthologist. He edited three Nebula anthologies and headed SFWA’s committee that oversaw the selection of editors for Nebula Awards anthologies from 1983-95. His collection of Bulletins and Forums now makes up the majority of SFWA’s archives at Northern Illinois University. He was editor of the SFWA Bulletin during 1970 to 1975, and then, jointly with his long-time partner Pamela Sargent from 1983 to 1991. Together they won the Service to SFWA Award in 2000.

Born in Austria, Zebrowski moved to the US at age five. He attended one of the first Clarion Writers’ Workshops in 1968 at age 22, and, notably, rose quickly to publication, in collaboration with Jack Dann in 1970 with “Traps” and “Dark, Dark, the Dead Star” and his own “The Water Sculptor of Station 233.” Two years later, his first novel, Omega Point, was published with Ace Books. He went on to write more than a hundred published short stories and essays, along with twenty-one novels, including Star Trek tie-in works. He also edited more than a dozen anthologies, including five volumes of Synergy: New Science Fiction. Zebrowski won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1999 with his book Brutal Orbits, and he served on the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award jury from 2005-2013. Three of his short stories, “Heathen God,” “The Eichmann Variations,” and “Wound the Wind,” were Nebula Award nominees. 

Paul Levinson, former SFWA President, says, “George Zebrowski was a science fiction writer’s science fiction writer. What I mean by that is he was as passionate and committed to loving science fiction—thinking about it, writing about it, and of course, writing it—as he was when he first encountered it. When George called me, or when we met at a convention, I truly felt like I was 12 years old again, consumed by and beaming with that sense of wonder.  I guess it never leaves most teenage fans of the genre, but it more than didn’t leave George—he constantly contributed to it with his electric and eclectic imagination. It was truly a privilege to know him, and wherever he is now, he’s also permanently somewhere in my brain, and no doubt the minds of many lucky others.”

Writer and editor James Morrow recalls, “Before I knew George Zebrowski, I knew about him. The connection remains vivid in my memory. Sometime in the early 1980’s, I was hanging out with a filmmaker friend in his Boston apartment, where we were eventually joined by an accomplished book critic (his name escapes me) who specialized in science fiction. I had recently published my first novel, a dystopian satire called The Wine of Violence, that owed its existence primarily to Swift and Voltaire. At the time I was largely ignorant of contemporary SF, and I felt ambivalent about continuing to write in that genre. The critic told me that, if I wanted to appreciate the stylistic, intellectual, and sociopolitical feats of which SF was capable, I should read two recent novels without delay: In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford and Macrolife by George Zebrowski. I had heard of neither book (and neither writer), but I followed the critic’s advice. And so it was that, by dazzling me with the intensity of their imaginations and the range of their philosophic and scientific passions, Benford and Zebrowski inadvertently convinced me to remain in the SF field. Eventually I got to know George in person, and he quickly proved an admirable colleague, tirelessly working behind the scenes in SFWA politics and SF publishing (often to my personal benefit). Thank you, dear George. Ave atque vale. I owe you more than I can say.”

Writer Jack Dann says, in summary of a lifelong friendship, “George was one of the most ethical and moral people I’ve ever known. He simply could not embrace cynicism. He persisted in doing good deeds for people he did not even know because it was the right thing to do. For example: after discovering that a publisher was not paying proper royalties, he spent months negotiating until the writers involved received ‘windfall’ royalties amounting to thousands of dollars. George Zebrowski the writer…? His intellectual contemporaries were Arthur C. Clarke and Stanislaw Lem—Clarke was a longtime friend and correspondent. Like Clarke and Lem, George was interested in rigorously extrapolating ideas into plausible, possible future realities. He turned cold equations into futures that we could imagine living in. Quintessential thought experiments. If you would like to experience his excoriating insights and genius, take a look at what I consider his magnum opus: Macrolife: a Mobile Utopia. To sum up. George: brilliant, cranky, generous, loveable, and passionate about everything that interested him. A fiercely devoted friend. An argument ready to happen. Someone who did not—could not—suffer fools gladly. Well, perhaps he did because he suffered through our friendship for almost sixty years! Vale, my brother…”

George Zebrowski lived 78 years.