Jeff VanderMeer, born in 1968 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, is an American author, editor, and literary critic who has been called the weird Thoreau by the New Yorker for the ecological themes that run through his fiction. He spent part of his childhood in the Fiji Islands, where his parents worked, an early immersion in strange and vivid landscapes that shaped his imagination.
He began writing as a child and published his first short story at fourteen. For years he was a central figure in the New Weird, a literary movement blending science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and he built an early following with the Ambergris books, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.
VanderMeer reached mainstream success with the Southern Reach series, beginning with Annihilation in 2014, about a series of expeditions into a mysterious zone called Area X where nature has begun to reclaim an abandoned stretch of coast. Annihilation won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award, was translated into dozens of languages, and was adapted into a film directed by Alex Garland.
Alongside his fiction he wrote Wonderbook, described as the world's first fully illustrated guide to creating imaginative fiction, as well as Booklife, an early career guide for writers navigating the internet age. With his wife, the award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer, he has co-edited many influential anthologies.
He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where his hiking through the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge directly inspired Area X. A committed environmentalist, he founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group, and his nonfiction on nature and ecology has appeared in many national publications.
