Creating 'A Sense of Rightness'

“That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.” – Anne McCaffrey

An actress and singer for 15 years before she started writing, McCaffrey’s first short story was published in the late 1950s and her first novel in 1967 after her 3 kids were off to school each day and she made more time for her writing.   That first novel, Restoree, was written as a protest against what she termed “absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in science fiction novels in the ‘50s and early ‘60s.” 

From that point she moved forward into the myriad worlds of her imagination writing two massive best-selling series, The Ship Who Sang and the 14 novels about the Dragonriders of Pern.  That latter group was led by The White Dragon, one of the first sci-fi books to ever appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.   

                                      She became the first woman to win both Hugo and Nebula awards for fiction and science fiction and also was honored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as a “Grand Master” and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Born in Massachusetts in April, 1926, McCaffrey says she always used emotion as a writing tool, something she developed during her years on the stage.  Known for the vivid scenes and settings she created, she also never hesitated to put problematic elements into her work.

“(My worlds) contain scary things; problems, but also a sense of rightness,” she said about her books shortly before her death in 2011.   “That makes them alive and makes us want to live there.”

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