The title story, โFire.โโwritten especially for this volumeโis a harrowing postapocalyptic adventure in a world threatened by global conflagration. Based on Handโs real-life experience as a participant in a governmental climate change think tank, it follows a ragtag cadre of scientists and artists racing to save both civilization and themselves from fast-moving global fires.
โThe Woman Men Didnโt Seeโ is an expansion of Handโs acclaimed critical assessment of author Alice Sheldon, who wrote award-winning SF as โJames Tiptree, Jr.โ in order to conceal identity from both the SF community and her CIA overlords. Another nonfiction piece, โBeyond Belief,โ recounts her difficult passage from alienated teen to serious artist.
Also included are โKronia,โ a poignant time-travel romance, and โThe Saffron Gatherers,โ two of Handโs favorite and less familiar stories. Plus: a bibliography and our candid and illuminating Outspoken Interview with one of todayโs most inventive authors.
Elizabeth Hand flunked out of college a couple of years after seeing Patti Smith perform and became involved in the nascent punk scenes in DC and New York. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonianโs National Air and Space Museum. She was eventually readmitted to university to study cultural anthropology and received her BA. She is the author of many novels, including Winterlong, Waking the Moon, Glimmering, Mortal Love, Illyria, and Radiant Days, as well as three collections of stories, including the recent Saffron and Brimstone. Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chosen as notable books by both the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship. A regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, she lives with her family on the coast of Maine.