Sheila Finch

Following her marriage to Clare Grill Rayner in 1957 (divorced 1980), she emigrated to the US and completed her BA in English Literature at Indiana University Bloomington in 1959, followed by an MA in linguistics and medieval history in 1962.

From 1963 to 1967, when the family lived in San Luis Obispo, California, she taught part-time at Cuesta College and began publishing poetry.

[2][3] The word has gained widespread acceptance in the science fiction industry and was used to describe the character Uhura in the remake of Star Trek.

[4][5] Finch created a series of tales about communicating with aliens which eventually was consolidated in collection of short stories entitled The Guild of Xenolinguists (Golden Gryphon Press, 2007).

A few early linguists, neurolinguists, ethnographers and computer scientists established the Guild which then took over the responsibility for training xenolinguists to make first contact and to record alien languages in the field.