Earlier life

Jack Dann was born in New York State in 1945 and grew up in Johnson City, New York. His father was an attorney and a Judge. Dann describes himself as having been "a troublesome child in a very small town" and in his teens associated with a local gang. Following an incident during which gang members let off fireworks, which lead to injuries, his parents enrolled him in a military academy, which he choose against the alternative option of a reform school, and where he remained for two years.

Subsequently he commenced theater studies at Hofstra University in New York City. However in 1965 he contracted peritonitis after a poorly performed operation for appendicitis. He was considered unlikely to survive by his doctors, and spent four months recovering in hospital, at one stage sharing a ward with members of the Mafia who had been injured in a gun battle. He attributes a major change in outlook to his survival, and began a search for a fulfilling and meaningful vocation, which eventually lead to him taking up writing.

Following discharge from hospital, he moved to Binghamton, New York where he continued his studies. He was awarded a BA in social and political science in 1968 and later undertook postgraduate studies in law at St John's Law School from 1969-1971. He lived in Binghamton for much of the next 30 years, although he also spent considerable time outside of the US during these decades, including three years in Malaysia. His long term loyalty to the town which persisted until his move to Australia in 1994 earned him the description of 'the hermit of Binghamton' among his friends.

He was introduced to genre fiction and in particular science fiction from an early age, as his father had a collection of science fiction books which lined the walls of Dann's bedroom and he recalls "gazing at the colorful covers before I could read." In the late 1960s, he encountered a number of now well-known writers and editors in the science fiction and fantasy field, including George Zebrowski, Pamela Sargent, Gardner Dozois, Jack Haldeman and Joe Haldeman, two of whom, Zebrowski and Sargent, also lived in Binghamton and were students with Dann at Binghamton University (then known as SUNY Binghamton).

Dann was soon collaborating with Zebrowski, "sitting on opposite sides of a table in his dining room and writing on an old manual typewriter" and in 1970 sold two of these collaborations, "Dark, Dark the Dead Star" and "Traps," to the magazine Worlds of If, with 'Traps' being Dann's first published work when it appeared in March 1970. Dann had previously sold a story to Damon Knight for Orbit, but this took almost two years to be published. Zebrowski also introduced Dann to the world of science fiction conventions and fandom, a culture he has been involved in ever since.

Initially he combined continued sales of his stories with work as a door-to-door salesman, which began after a commission for his first novel, Starhiker, was not finalized by his prospective publisher and he had become indebted, expecting payment for the piece. While continuing his writing, he moved on from sales to commence a business career, starting companies in the advertising, cable and insurance industries, among others and later working as a business consultant. He also taught writing at Cornell University in 1973.

He published his first book as editor, An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1974, and his first novel, Starhiker, in 1977.

Move to Australia

In 1994 he moved to Melbourne join Janeen Webb, a Melbourne science fiction critic, academic and writer, whom he met at a conference in San Francisco and married in 1995. He has since collaborated with Webb on several writing and editing projects and the couple are well known in Australian speculative fiction culture.

He currently lives on a farm overlooking the sea in the Gippsland region of Victoria, but also typically spends some period of each year in Los Angeles and New York.

He was editor of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Bulletin from 1970 to 1975. He was assistant editor 1970-1972, and managing editor 1973-1975. He has been a consulting editor for Tor Books since 1994.

Of the more than 70 books he has published, most have been themed fiction anthologies in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres, of which he has been editor, or co-editor. His anthologies tend to be prefaced by his essays on the theme of the anthology and the writers represented therein.

His first published anthology was Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1974), collecting stories by Jewish Authors and/or relating to Jewish themes. The volume celebrated a strong Jewish tradition of fantasy in literature and also brought attention to Jewish writers in the field, some of whom had not been previously widely recognised for their contributions to its genesis. It was one of the most acclaimed American anthologies of the 1970s, and was later followed by Outstanding Stories of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1981). Dann also co-edited, with Grania Davidson Davis, Everybody Has Somebody in Heaven: Essential Jewish Tales of the Spirit, a collection of short fiction by Avram Davidson, a Hugo and multi World Fantasy Award winning Jewish American writer of science fiction, fantasy and crime, which was published in October 2000.

In 1987 he published In the Field of Fire, co-editing with then wife, Jeanne Van Buren, a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories relating to the horrors of the Vietnam War. It was nominated for Best Anthology in the 1988 World Fantasy and Locus awards. The collection was the first science fiction anthology to have a review featured on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.

In 1998 he published an anthology of Australian science fiction and fantasy Dreaming Down-Under co-editing with wife Janeen Webb. It won Australia's Ditmar Award and is the first Australian book ever to win the prestigious World Fantasy Award.

In August 2003 he published Gathering the Bones, as co-editor with Ramsey Campbell and Dennis Etchison, a collection of horror stories from the United Kingdom, The US and Australia, which was included in Library Journal's "Best Genre Fiction of 2003" and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award.

He has also published, as editor, a further volume of Australian speculative fiction Dreaming Again, anthologies of Nebula Award winning stories, and many other anthologies, both singularly and in collaboration with others.

"Magic Tales" Anthologies

Many of his anthologies have been editorial collaborations with Gardner Dozois. Of these, the most extensive series has been the "Magic Tales" anthologies, initially published by Ace Books and commencing with Unicorns! in 1982. Across over 30 volumes, this series collected and republished short stories centering around a number of fantasy and science fiction themes, such as aliens, mermaids, dinosaurs, dragons, and clones. The selected stories tend to be reprints of previously published works, and some are decades old. Each book has a preface by the editors, and each story is preceded by a short introduction, focusing on other works by the story's author.

Existing main articles for anthologies edited or co-edited by Jack Dann

• Beyond Singularity
• Clones
• Dangerous Games
• Escape from Earth
• Futures Past
• Hackers
• Immortals
• Nanotech
• Robots
• Timegates
• Wandering Stars
• Wizards