Jeff VanderMeer is the author of Hummingbird Salamander ; the Borne novels ( Borne , The Strange Bird , and Dead Astronauts ); and the Southern Reach series ( Annihilation , Authority , Acceptance , and Absolution ), the first volume of which won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland. VanderMeer has spoken at MIT, Columbia, Yale, and Vanderbilt, and he gave the 2024 John Hersey Memorial Address at the Key West Literary Seminar. His environmental nonfiction has appeared in Time , The Nation , and Esquire , among other publications. VanderMeer founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group nonprofit in 2023.