Biography

Steven Charles Gould (born February 7, 1955) is an American science fiction writer. He has written ten novels. His 1992 novel Jumper was adapted into a film released in 2008. Steven Charles Gould was born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, on February 7, 1955, to James Alan and Carita Louise Gould. His father was an Army officer; when Gould was in junior high his father was stationed at Fort Shafter in Hawaii for three years. The whole family learned to scuba dive there, and Gould went diving frequently.

Gould attended Texas A&M University and has set much of his writing in Texas. Aggiecon, which is held in College Station on the Texas A&M campus, was the first science fiction convention Gould attended, and he was chair of Aggiecon V in 1975.Gould submitted the first short story he wrote to Analog; it was rejected with a personal note from then-editor Ben Bova, who encouraged Gould to let him see his future work. The second story Gould wrote, "The Touch of Their Eyes", was read aloud by Theodore Sturgeon at a writing workshop at AggieCon in 1979. Sturgeon made one correction ("Calvary and Cavalry are two different things") and suggested that Gould submit it to Stan Schmidt, who had become editor at Analog in late 1978. Gould did, and the story was published by Analog in 1980.Gould was director of the south/central region of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1986 to 1989. He was also a guest lecturer at Texas A&M in 1990. Gould was president of SFWA for two years through June 2015.

Gould practices and teaches aikido, which is featured prominently in his books 7th Sigma and Helm. The young protagonists of both books become proficient at the martial art and eventually embrace it as a full lifestyle. His scuba diving hobby informed scenes in his novels Greenwar and Blind Waves. Greenwar was a collaboration with his wife, Laura J. Mixon.