(William Denbrough in IT by Stephen King)
He/him
Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 1970, I started writing as soon as I learned how to build sentences, first in longhand in ever-growing stacks of notebooks, then on the ancient IBM typewriter a friend of my mother gave me.
In 1986, my first science fiction story, Illusie (Illusion) was accepted for the Dutch anthology Ganymedes, which promptly folded. Discouraged by this setback, I kept writing, but didn’t submit anything for years, instead focusing on a university degree in biology and a patchwork career of university and marketing research, croissant baking, teaching programming, and project management.
Then, in 2001, an American friend suggested I try my luck in the States. I wrote the short suspense story Deep Red, and sold it to the first market I submitted it to. The same friend pointed out the Writers of the Future contest in 2003, and after becoming published finalist with Conversation with a Mechanical Horse in 2003, the time travel tale Meeting the Sculptor won first place in 2004. Since then, I have sold some 40 more stories to various markets, including Escape Pod, Space & Time Magazine, the Machine Of Death anthologies, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge, Little Blue Marble, and Reckoning.
My stories have been translated into (or will be appearing shortly in) French, Dutch, Romanian, Chinese, Galician, Portugese, German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, and Catalan. My first full-length novel Klaverblad (Cloverleaf), a thriller in my native Dutch, was published in 2021 to widespread critical acclaim, and went on to win the Schaduwprijs (Shadow Prize) for best suspense debut of the year; its sequel Kleinste kwaad (Lesser evil) was published in 2024 to even more strident critical acclaim.
I was an active member of the SFWA, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America; the first ever Dutchman to qualify for active membership.
