I began life in South Carolina, in the southeastern United States, back in 1946. As far as I can judge, I had an existence that was more or less normal for a boy growing up in the American South in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Somewhere along the way, however, I discovered science fiction, and was hooked for life. For better or worse, this literature of the future literally changed my own future: broadening my horizons and transforming my dreams. Nothing would ever be the same again. Eventually, after completing high school, I went off to studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago, where I faced the dilemma of choosing whether to become an astronomer or an anthropologist. As was appropriate for an avid reader of science fiction, I wanted to be both (as well as an SF author, of course!).
I never finished my American university studies, however, because of military service in the United States Marine Corps. I spent a bit over a year in the Marines, and then came to Sweden on midsummer eve, 1968. After a couple of years in Stockholm and Norrköping, I ended up in Skåne, where I finished an undergraduate degree at Lund University in the mid nineteen seventies. I undertook graduate studies in Comparative Literature, with a thesis planned on the science fictional theme of intelligent artificial beings, but, for diverse practical reasons, the project had to be curtailed before it could be completed. I did remain at Lund University, however, and alongside of more mundane work producing educational information, and as a student counselor, I have continued my research on, and work with, SF whenever possible, and have spoken, written, taught, and lectured on science fiction on various occasions over the years, ranging from participation in fan conventions and providing radio interviews to holding courses on technology and civilization and lecturing at a graduate seminar in English literature.
A few years ago an entirely new interdisciplinary department was created in the Faculty of Arts here in Lund: the Human Ecology Division. I eventually became student counselor (and librarian) at this department, because I discovered that human ecology was a discipline exceptionally well suited for someone from the science fiction field. I have also become a graduate student again, and hope to finish a thesis in the (relatively) near future. Of course it deals with science fiction. The working title is 'Exploring the Consequences of Redesigning and Redefining Nature in Fact and Fiction', and in it I am examining -- in discourses both fictional and nonfictional -- the aesthetic and ethical aspects of radically changing our bodies and our landscapes in the world of tomorrow.