Hi.  I’m Brenda Cooper.  I’m looking forward to penning a column here at Futurismic, at least for the rest of the year.  It’s an exciting spot for me, since I’m both a science fiction writer and a futurist.

So how does one become both of those things?  Well, I always knew I wanted to write.  Since I was three.  We all say that, but eventually I actually started writing real stories instead of beating myself up for not writing.  So now I’ve got about thirty stories published so far, and three novels out from Tor (one is a collaboration with Larry Niven).  The futurist part happened because I was part of a long-term strategy team for a city a little over a decade ago, and I found I really loved thinking and talking about the future.  In fact, I’m so rabid about that being a conversation that matters, that I’ve gotten somewhat known here in the Pacific Northwest region of the US and I now periodically get paid to talk to business audiences about the future.  I find the two avocations quite compatible.  Often I’m researching a talk when some fact I find demands to have a story written about it.

So what I’m planning here at Futurismic, starting soon, is to do a monthly column that mashes up the science fiction and the science of the future.  I’ll write about a technology or other futurist topic, and explore some of the ways that science fiction writers have either shaped or reacted to that topic.  I plan to explore cloning (did you know they just cloned a camel in Dubai?) and robotics (there is a robotic scientist named Adam), among other things.  I’m open to ideas, so feel free to comment on this post and leave me technologies you’re interested in.

For more information, stop by www.brenda-cooper.com.  The website won’t tell you I love dogs and reading and listening to podcasts while I walk the dogs.