The creation of Odyssey, a place where developing writers of fantastic fiction can focus on their craft and receive detailed, in-depth feedback on their work, has been a dream of Jeanne's which she has worked to make a reality.

Jeanne is a writer, editor, scientist, and teacher. She began her professional life as an astrophysicist and mathematician, teaching astronomy at Michigan State University and Cornell University, and working in the Astronaut Training Division at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

But soon her love of science fiction led her to earn her MFA in creative writing. She moved into a career in publishing, becoming a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where she created and launched the Abyss imprint of psychological horror, for which she won the World Fantasy Award, and the Cutting Edge imprint of literary fiction. She also ran the science fiction/fantasy publishing program. In addition, she edited a wide range of fiction and nonfiction. She worked with such authors as William F. Nolan, Joan Vinge, Robert Anton Wilson, Dennis Etchison, Tanith Lee, Kathe Koja, Poppy Z. Brite, J. M. Dillard, David Wingrove, Barry Gifford, Patrick McCabe, and Peter Dickinson. In her eight years in New York publishing, she edited numerous award-winning and best-selling authors and gained a reputation for discovering and nurturing new writers.

In 1994, she left New York to become a freelance editor and pursue her own writing career. She runs Jeanne Cavelos Editorial Services, a full-service freelance company that provides editing, ghostwriting, consulting, and critiquing services to publishers, book packagers, agents, and authors. Among its clients are major publishers and best-selling and award-winning writers.

Jeanne is currently at work writing a near-future science thriller about genetic manipulation, titled Fatal Spiral. Her last novel to hit the stores was Invoking Darkness, the third volume in her best-selling trilogy The Passing of the Techno-Mages (Del Rey), set in the Babylon 5 universe. The Sci-Fi Channel called the trilogy "A revelation for Babylon 5 fans. . . . Not 'television episodic' in look and feel. They are truly novels in their own right." The highly praised first volume, Casting Shadows, was called "Engrossing. . . . Powerfully written" by Speculative Vision. Her book The Science of Star Wars (St. Martin's) was chosen by the New York Public Library for its recommended reading list, and CNN said, "Cavelos manages to make some of the most mind-boggling notions of contemporary science understandable, interesting and even entertaining." The Science of The X-Files (Berkley) was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Publishers Weekly called it "Crisp, conversational, and intelligent."

Jeanne's first published book, the Babylon 5 novel The Shadow Within, was brought back into print by Del Rey due to popular demand. Dreamwatch magazine called it "one of the best TV tie-in novels ever written."

Recent works include a novella, "Negative Space" (which was given honorable mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction), in the anthology Decalog 5: Wonders and a chapter, "Innovation in Horror," which appears in both On Writing Horror: A Handbook by the Horror Writers Association and The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing. She has published short fiction and nonfiction in many magazines and anthologies.

The Many Faces of Van Helsing, an anthology edited by Jeanne, was released by Berkley in 2004 and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. The editors at Barnes and Noble called it "brilliant. . . . Arguably the strongest collection of supernatural stories to be released in years." Berkley released a mass market paperback edition and a Kindle edition in 2008.

Since she loves working with developing writers, Jeanne created and serves as director of Odyssey, the only major workshop of its kind run by an editor. She is also an English lecturer at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, where she teaches writing.

Jeanne has spoken widely on writing, publishing, science, and science fiction at venues as varied as the Smithsonian Institute, the Air Force Revolutionary Technologies Division, the Intel International Science Fair, the American Chemical Society, Dartmouth College, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, Turner Entertainment, the Art Bell radio program, and many radio shows, bookstores, and conventions. More information is on her website, www.jeannecavelos.com.