Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey in 2008
Born	Anne Inez McCaffrey (1926-04-01)1 April 1926 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	21 November 2011(2011-11-21) (aged 85) Dragonhold-Underhill, County Wicklow, Ireland
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Irish (naturalised citizen)
Period	1965–2011
Genre	Science fiction, romance
Notable works	Restoree, Dragonriders of Pern, The Ship Who Sang
Spouse	Horace Wright Johnson (divorced)
Website
pernhome.com/aim

Anne Inez McCaffrey (1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011) was an American-born writer who emigrated to Ireland, best known for the Dragonriders of Pern fantasy series. Early in McCaffrey's 46-year career as a writer, she became the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and the first to win a Nebula Award. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.

In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006. She also received the Robert A. Heinlein Award for her work in 2007.

Anne Inez McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second of three children of Anne Dorothy (née McElroy) and Col. George Herbert McCaffrey. She had two brothers: Hugh ("Mac", died 1988) and Kevin Richard McCaffrey ("Kevie"). Her father had Irish and English ancestry, and her mother was of Irish descent. She attended Stuart Hall (a girls' boarding school in Staunton, Virginia), and graduated from Montclair High School in New Jersey. In 1947 she graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College with a degree in Slavonic languages and Literature.

In 1950 she married Horace Wright Johnson (died 2009), who shared her interests in music, opera and ballet. They had three children: Alec Anthony, born 1952; Todd, born 1956; and Georgeanne ("Gigi", Georgeanne Kennedy), born 1959.