Martin L. Shoemaker
Martin L. Shoemaker is a software developer and a science fiction and fantasy author. Software helps him think about technology and its impact on our lives, inspiring his fiction; fiction lets him explore how people work with new technologies, inspiring his software.
Programming pays the bills, but his second-place story Scramble, in the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest, earned him lunch with Buzz Aldrin.
His Clarkesworld (8/15, Issue 107) story Today I Am Paul received the Washington Science Fiction Society’s Small Press Award, and was also nominated for the Nebula award. He has been reprinted in Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-third Annual Edition (edited by Gardner Dozois), The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One (edited by Neil Clarke), The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (edited by Rich Horton), and The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 8 (edited by Allan Kaster). He has been translated into French, Hebrew, Czech, Polish, German, and Chinese.
Others of his stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Galaxy’s Edge, Digital Science Fiction, Forever Magazine, Humanity 2.0, Time Travel Tales, Trajectories, Little Green Men: Attack!, The Glass Parachute, Writers of the Future Volume 31, and the charity anthology The Gruff Variations: Writing for Charity Anthology, Vol. 1. His novella Murder on the Aldrin Express was reprinted in Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirty-First Annual Collection and in Year’s Top Short SF Novels 4. His novelette Racing to Mars won the first place and received the Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Analytical Laboratory award, 2016.
Martin also runs The Instant Story Show, where improvisation meets science fiction. With the help of his assistant Bill Emerson, Martin dictates a short story live, with audience input.
Here is the list of Martin’s stories:
- Today I Am Paul, Nebula Award nomination for short story, 2015. Clarkesworld, August 2015; Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-third Annual Edition; The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One; The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy; Bli Panika (Hebrew translation); Galaxies Magazine (French translation); Visionarium (German translation); XB-1 (Czech translation); Nowa Fantastyka (Polish translation); Quasar (Italian translation).
- Murder on the Aldrin Express, Analog September 2013. Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-first Annual Edition; Year’s Top Short SF Novels 4, Forever Magazine Issue 11, February 2016
- Father-Daughter Outing, Heir Apparent – Digital Science Fiction Anthology 4, November 2011
- Not Close Enough, Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, May 2013
- Il Gran Cavallo, Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 5, November 2013, and Digital Science Fiction Anthology 6, Infinity Cluster: Digital Science Fiction Short Story (Digital Science Fiction Short Stories Series Two) (Volume 2)
- Pallbearers, Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 7, March 2014 and Digital Science Fiction Anthology 5
- Brigas Nunca Mais, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2015
- Unrefined, Writers of the Future Volume 31, May, 2015
- Scramble, Digital Science Fiction Short Story (Cosmic Hooey Book 1), September 2015
- Racing to Mars, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2015
- The Night We Flushed the Old Town, Therefore I Am: Digital Science Fiction Anthology (Digital Science Fiction Short Stories Series One) (Volume 2), November, 2015
- Bookmarked, Galaxy’s Edge: Issue 22, September 2016
- The Vampire’s New Clothes, Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 21, July 2016
- A Hamal in Hollywood, Rocket’s Red Glare, May 2017
- Not Far Enough, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2017
- Family Secrets, July 2017
- Blue Collar Space, May 2018, is the name for Martin’s series of near-space, near-future hard science fiction stories. These stories are set on Luna, on Mars, in Jupiter orbit, and everywhere in between. It includes the award-winning stories Scramble, Unrefined, and Racing to Mars , as well as numerous other short stories, novelettes, and novellas. You can find more information about the series at his homepage.
- Today I am Carey, March 2019
When Martin is not writing, he is a software developer with 27 years experience in the industry. He worked in the fields of color science, online shopping, databases, material handling, medical imaging, and customer relations management.
He studied Computer Science at University of Michigan and Grand Valley State University.
He is a frequent speaker, and his most popular presentations are UML (Unified Modeling Language) courses, which he both wrote and presents.
Martin wrote two books on UML: UML Applied: A .NET Perspective from Apress and Ulterior Motive Lounge: UML, 80s Flicks, and Bunny Slippers, the world’s first UML comic strip. A slightly twisted introduction to the Unified Modeling Language, originally published online in 2009, this successful comic strip uses humor and simple examples to teach UML to a wide audience.
Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. Visit his writing homepage and personal blog Old Town Tales. Read his list of books at Goodreads. View his LinkedIn profile and his professional site, The UML Guy, and his professional Facebook site. Read about Martin at SFWA.
