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Carolyn Joan Clink was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, on April 17, 1958. She lived in Ralston, Alberta, until she was five. From 1964 to 1970, she lived in West Hartford, Connecticut, then settled with her family in Toronto, Ontario.

Carolyn is an accomplished poet who now lives just west of Toronto with her husband, science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer. They met October 17, 1975, in their high-school science-fiction club, NASFA (of which Rob was cofounder), and were married on December 22, 1984, in a small ceremony at Carolyn's parents' house. Carolyn is the oldest of five children; her brother David Livingstone Clink is also a widely published poet.

Carolyn has had two poems published in Analog, the world's number-one bestselling science-fiction magazine (July 1996 and October 1997; the cover of the latter issue is shown at left). She has also had poetry in all five volumes of Canada's acclaimed horror anthology series Northern Frights, in the science-fiction anthologies Tesseracts 4 and 7, in Weird Tales, Chiaroscura, Tales of the Unanticipated, Star*Line, and Gaslight, and in the Canadian SF magazines TransVersions and On Spec. More recently, she had poetry in the Canadian anthologies The Stars As Seen from this Particular Angle of Night: an anthology of speculative verse and Land/space: an anthology of prairie speculative fiction.

Her poems have also appeared in many mainstream publications, including: Dalhousie Review, Poetry Toronto, White Wall Review, Hart House Review, Hazmat, Nōd, Gusts, and Sijo West. She was the $500 prize winner in McClelland & Stewart's "Celebrate Our City" contest, honoring Toronto's sesquicentennial, and the First Prize winner in Poetry Toronto's "Father's Day" contest.

Her poems are collected in three chapbooks:

• Snapshots, (May, 2007) published by believe your own press,
• Changing Planes, (2000) published by Junction Books, and
• Much Slower Than Light, (updated September, 2003) published by Who's That Coeurl? Press.

• Contradiction 14 in Niagara Falls, New York (November 4-6, 1994)
• ValleyCon 22 in Fargo, North Dakota (October 10-12, 1997)
• ConCat 10 in Knoxville, Tennessee (November 27-29, 1998)
• Context 12 in Columbus, Ohio (October 8-10, 1999)
• EerieCon 3 in Niagara Falls, New York (April 20-22, 2001)
• CanCon 2001 in Ottawa, Ontario (August 17-19, 2001)
• Minicon 38 in Minneapolis, Minnesota (April 18-20, 2003).

In 2002, Carolyn edited Herb Kauderer's chapbook Ghosts Dream of Madmen. She and Phyllis Gotlieb co-edited the poetry for TransVersions: An Anthology of New Fantastic Literature (Paper Orchid Press, Mississauga, October 2000). She also co-edited the acclaimed Canadian SF&F anthology Tesseracts 6 with her husband Rob (Tesseract Books, Edmonton, December 1997). In 1994 and 1995, she was the poetry judge for Early Harvest, a young-adult writing contest sponsored by the Vaughan Public Library.

Carolyn is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and both she and her brother David are members of the Algonquin Square Table poetry workshop, which meets every other Sunday at the University of Toronto's Hart House; Carolyn and other members of her workshop gave a public reading there on November 24, 1999, and again on January 28, 2004.

Carolyn studied astrophysics for two years at the University of Toronto (1977-79), then earned a Bachelor of Technology degree in Graphic Arts Management from Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnic University (awarded 1983).

She worked for thirteen years for large commercial printing companies (Southam Murray and Quebecor Concord), the first five years as an estimator and the final eight as a production coordinator. In June 1997, she went to work full-time for Rob as his salaried assistant, in charge of all aspects of Rob's writing business except for the actual writing.

In her spare time, she is taking English courses towards an Honours Bachelor degree at York University, and Computer courses towards a Digital Imaging Certificate at Humber College.

Carolyn is shown here with her brother David in 2001. (Photo by Peter Halasz) David has five poetry chapbooks. The first, His Name was Gord and he used to run with the bulls, was published by Junction Books in May 2001. The rest of his chapbooks were published by believe your own press: The Surly Blondes of Earth (February, 2002), A come-on from the horse on seventh avenue (October, 2002), Shapeshifter, (October, 2004), and One Dozen (May 2007). He has a book of poetry forthcoming from Tightrope Books in 2008. See his web site at poetrymachine.com.

You can email Carolyn Clink at: carolyn@sfwriter.com.

Check out Carolyn's embryonic web site at sfpoet.com.

  More Good Reading  

Carolyn's Afterword to Tesseracts 6