Kathryn Cramer

Kathryn Elizabeth Cramer (born April 16, 1962) is an American science fiction writer, editor, and literary critic.

Early years

Kathryn Cramer is the daughter of physicist John G. Cramer. She grew up in Seattle and graduated from Columbia University with degrees in mathematics and American studies.

Career

Cramer has worked for five literary agencies, most notably the Virginia Kidd Agency and Eastgate Systems, and for several software companies, including consulting with Wolfram Research in the Scientific Information Group. She co-founded The New York Review of Science Fiction in 1988 with David G. Hartwell and others, and was its co-editor until 1991 and again since 1996. It has been nominated (as of 2007) for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine every year of its existence, fifteen times under her co-editorship.

Cramer was the hypertext fiction editor at Eastgate Systems in the early 1990s. She was part of the Global Connection Project, a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, Google, and National Geographic using Google Earth and other tools following the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.

Cramer has written a number of essays published in the New York Review of Science Fiction. Book reviews for that journal include such works as This is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow, Ellipse of Uncertainty: An Introduction to Postmodern Fantasy by Lance Olsen, and Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem. She is a contributor to the Encarta article on science fiction and wrote the chapter on hard science fiction for the Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction ed. Farah Mendlesohn & Edward James. Several of her essays have been reprinted, for example "Science Fiction and the Adventures of the Spherical Cow" (NYRSF August 1988) in Visions of Wonder, ed. Milton T. Wolf & David G. Hartwell (Tor 1996).

Personal life

Cramer was married to David G. Hartwell from 1997 until his death in January 2016. She lives in Westport, New York, with their two children.