Anne Inez McCaffrey (1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011)[2][3] was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series.

In addition to handcrafting the Nebula Award trophies, her responsibilities included production of two monthly newsletters and their distribution by mail to the membership.

Ireland had recently exempted resident artists from income taxes, an opportunity that fellow science-fiction author Harry Harrison had promptly taken and helped to promote.

[23] Judith Merril matched McCaffrey with her long-time literary agent Virginia Kidd and invited her to the Milford Writer's Workshop (to which she returned many times), where participants each brought a story to be critiqued.

[30] McCaffrey explained that it did not require a sequel; it "served its purpose of an intelligent, survivor-type woman as the protagonist of an s-f story".

McCaffrey made a fast start in Ireland, completing for 1971 publication Dragonquest and two Gothic novels for Dell, The Mark of Merlin and The Ring of Fear.

During the next few years the family moved several times in the Dublin area and struggled to make ends meet, supported largely by child-care payments and meager royalties.

Editor Roger Elwood sought short contributions for anthologies, and McCaffrey started the Pern story of Menolly.

[37] Editor Jean E. Karl at Atheneum Books sought to attract more female readers to science fiction and solicited "a story for young women in a different part of Pern".

[4] The second Pern story, "Dragonrider", won the 1969 Nebula Award for best novella, voted annually by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Progress was not made until 1974–1975, when the New England Science Fiction Association invited McCaffrey to its annual convention (Boskone) as guest of honour (which included publication of a novella for sale on-site).

She wrote two books in the Planet Pirates trilogy with Elizabeth Moon McCaffrey died at age 85 on 21 November 2011 at her home in Ireland, following a stroke.

[26] Astronomer Steven Beard often helped with science questions,[48] and McCaffrey acknowledged reproductive biologist Jack Cohen several times.

[example needed] The Science Fiction Hall of Fame citation of Anne McCaffrey summarises her genre as "science fiction, though tinged with the tone and instruments of fantasy", and her reputation as "a writer of romantic, heightened tales of adventure explicitly designed to appeal—and to make good sense to—a predominantly female adolescent audience.

I had trouble getting male readers to believe I was serious, and a good enough writer to interest them.In 1999, the American Library Association gave McCaffrey the 11th Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for teens.

The panel chair observed that "McCaffrey's focus on the personal and emotional need of human beings mirrors the quest of today's teens to find their own place in society.

Unlike most science fiction books of the era, Restoree's heroine is a strong-willed, intelligent woman who is willing and able to think for herself and act on her own initiative.

Although Pern's history is connected to the Federation, McCaffrey only used it as a backdrop for storytelling and did not consider her different "worlds" to be part of the same universe.

When colonists from Earth and other planets make a decades-long space journey to Pern (an acronym designating "Parallels Earth, Resources Negligible" stamped on the original exploration team report) to escape interstellar wars, their fledgling society is threatened by Thread, a mindless organism that falls like a "hungry rain" to consume all organic material.

The survivors of the original expedition create genetically engineered "dragons" from a native species of small fire-breathing, winged reptiles as self-propagating weapons to destroy the encroaching organism in the sky.

The majority of the Dragonriders of Pern books take place approximately 2500 years after the planet's colonization, when new challenges face the now low-tech, agrarian society that depends on the telepathically linked dragons and riders for protection from their ancient menace, and their long-forgotten origins are ultimately rediscovered.

[51] The stories in this series deal with the adventures of "shell-people" or "Brains", who as infants (due to illness or birth defects) have had to be hard-wired into a life-support system.

Under a permanent biohazard travel restriction due to a potentially-fatal symbiotic organism on the planet's surface, Ballybran is the source of valuable crystals that are vital to a number of industries, and home to one of the FSP's wealthiest (and most reclusive) organisations: the Heptite Guild.

The Heptite Guild is known to require absolute, perfect pitch in hearing and voice for all applicants (especially those seeking to mine crystal by song).

On exploring a nearby planet, she finds and befriends the remaining crew of a stranded ship who suffered the same fate years before, plus a new sapient species.

[54] Two civilisations in near-identical circumstances – an overlarge, lethargic population and a tragic history with sentient aliens – end up attempting to colonise the same planet by accident.

The series involve a group of intergalactic miners who adopt a mysterious alien foundling with unicorn-like physiognomy and apparent magical abilities.