Jack L. Chalker
Jack L. Chalker,
author of the Well World series, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in
1944. He remained in the area until his death in 2005.
While working as a history and geography teacher, Chalker was deeply
involved in the science fiction community. In the 1960s, he was one of
the founders of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and published a
science fiction journal, Mirage. He was an active member of the Science
Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and served as the group’s
treasurer.
In 1977, Chalker’s first novel, Midnight at the Well of Souls, was
published. The next year, two additional novels were published, Exiles
at the Well of Souls and Quest for the Well of Souls. By 1978, Chalker
left teaching to write full time.
Chalker continued writing books in his Saga of the Well World series,
with titles being published in 1980, 1999, and 2000. Between 1981 and
1983, he penned the Four Lords of the Diamonds series. A prolific
writer, Chalker wrote a total of eleven series of novels, as well as
many non-series novels. Chalker left an unfinished novel, Chameleon,
when he died. He had also begun planning a follow-up for it, which was
titled Ripsaw.
Over his career, Chalker received many awards. He received a Hugo award
nomination in 1963 for his work as a publisher at Mirage Press, the
publishing company he founded in 1961. He won the Daedalus Award in
1983, and was posthumously awarded the Phoenix Award in 2005.
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