Anne Mini grew up in the middle of a Zinfandel vineyard in the Napa Valley, the daughter of California ‘s best-known 1930s radical (subject of John Steinbeck ‘s In Dubious Battle) and the beatnik ex-wife of science fiction author Philip K. Dick. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, she traveled the Pacific Northwest, writing for the Let’s Go series of travel guides. Following a brief stint writing back label copy for wine bottles, she earned a master ‘s degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. A well-respected blogger on the writing life, her highly popular Author! Author! website has garnered numerous Internet awards. Author! Author! (www.annemini.com), provides writers with practical, in-depth advice on everything from query letter construction and manuscript formatting to the most delicate of craft issues.
A book doctor by trade who studied her art with authors as diverse as Saul Bellow, Jorge Edwards, and Philip K. Dick, Anne aims to demystify the curvy road to publication, alerting those new to the game to all the things every writer is supposed to be born knowing — but none of us actually is. Her memoir, A Family Darkly: Love, Loss, and the Final Passions of Philip K. Dick, won the 2004 Zola Award for Nonfiction. She has also won writing fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Norcroft, and France’s La Muse, as well as being named a finalist for an NEH Fellowship. Currently, she lives in Seattle, running a book doctoring business and working on a trilogy, The Sex Life of Harvard, a fictional account of how undergraduate life — and the attitudes of a generation — changed radically with the advent of AIDS.