Robert J. Sawyer was born in Ottawa, Canada. His family moved to Toronto when he was a baby, and he has lived there ever since.
Sawyer sold a few SF stories in the ’80s, beginning with ‘‘If I’m Here, Imagine Where They Sent My Luggage’’ for The Village Voice (1981), gradually transitioning to a career as a full-time SF writer in the early ’90s. Sawyer’s short fiction includes Aurora Award