I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but lived in Casper, Wyoming for five years when I was very young (I have real-life grizzly stories), following my dad, a field geologist who retired from Amoco in the mid-eighties. (He passed away in 2014). I moved back to Tulsa with my family, where I lived for the next ten years in the primary home of my childhood in a central-east neighborhood, Longview (now called Fulton). My old grade school, Fulton, with distinctive circular, connected buildings was four blocks away, but is no longer a teaching school in the Tulsa Public School System.
There were some serious bumps in my road. We lost my older sister, Ann, to Crohn’s Disease when I was a high school student. At the time of her early death, she was a zoology graduate student at the University of Texas (Austin). My older brother eventually became a doctor and moved to the east coast, while I found out I had Crohn’s too. If you’d like to learn more about it, or contribute to finding a cure, please visit the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America website at http://www.ccfa.org.
I received two awards for Writing Excellence from the University of Tulsa for articles I published in my high school newspaper, where I was also an alto in the Concert Choir (meaning I was one of the best singers in a school with over 2,000 students), but my pursuit of a journalism degree at the University of Tulsa was short-lived. Typical for a baby boomer, I married a naval combat Vietnam veteran, Randy, and became a step-mother to Jason (now wed to Lanna and the father of beautiful twin girls); after graduating from a local business school after a year of study, I had several unsatisfying, outside employment experiences. This included twelve years as a staff member at a local educational institute. I liked the work, but not the bosses, some of whom have made it into my fiction. Writers always get the last word.
We had two accomplished daughters, Karen and Sarah (both now with college degrees, much better jobs than I ever had, both married to gifted fellas, and Karen with an adorable daughter and her own writing career).
My mother lived to 101, one day shy of 101 years, six months; we lost her in October, 2021. She had me later in life, and she was an amazing, published non-fiction book author (mostly on child psychology). I inherited some of her writing skills, and pre-edited a few of her books, but genre fiction is my life’s passion and my genuine career. As you’ll see in my three bibliographies, I’ve had some success selling *sf/f/df/h short fiction; I’m currently in a publishing resurgence I’d love to maintain. Although twilight is closer for me, too, I’d still like to be novelist, and I have an epic fantasy series for sale. I’ll post Chapter One of the first book here eventually.
For the past 11 years, until March, 2022, R and I lived in a cozy, new-build home in a quiet neighborhood in the quasi-country southwest of Tulsa, featured in my horror short story “The Twilight People,” available only for purchase from me (use the Contact page). We were one block west into Creek County, Oklahoma, where we might have been the only Democrats (I’m slightly exaggerating). The property taxes were cheaper, but we bought another house, and moved back into Tulsa proper to be closer to family and friends. The Creek County house sold in May, 2022.
R is now retired. And me? I’ll never retire.
Besides my family, friends, what other writers in the field are up to, and weird fiction in general, my other passions are films, occasional travel, and Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers. I’ve been the Veep since 2019, and the President twice.
The nicest thing an editor ever said to me–up to this point–was when Gardner Dozois, the former editor of Asimov’s, and a legend in the field whom we lost too soon told me: “B.J., you write better than 99 per cent of the rest of humanity.” If you don’t think about the actual numbers, in the company of the writers who’ve published in Asimov’s, trust me, it’s a compliment.
A few pictures from an old website are in the Gallery here. I hope to add more updated photos, but I have to like them. In this age when the constant posting of pix online is the norm, I’m not a photogenic person. My wide nose is slightly off-set above my mouth giving the impression of crookedness, and now my formerly thick, dark hair is thinning. I have French blood (not that the French are unattractive); dark hair, blue eyes, that’s me. Now my mother was considered, for example, “The best-looking woman in Casper,” and you should see her gorgeous wedding photographs. She wore a deep purple suit with a large, sparkling, multi-colored pin, and a minimal, dramatic, dark cherry-red colored hat with a bit of matching lace. But my brother got her looks, and I inherited too much from my dad.
I never thought I took many excellent pictures, even when I was younger, slender and more interesting-looking. Everyone has their own self-perception, which is “strong with Force”. I’ll see what I can do.
I’m on Facebook at BJ Thrower. You’re welcome to ask for a place there.
With such a sometimes dark, dramatic past, my fiction tends to be darker and dramatic too. But I have more recently sold a horror story with quite a bit of humor in it. If humor occurs naturally in the story line, I’ll definitely include it.
*See Glossary for the Uninitiated in Bibliography #1.