Make us want to believe

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

I think writers need windows on a view to remind them that a whole world is out there, not the minutiae with which they might be dealing on a close scale.  McCaffrey’s writing exemplifies that.

An actress and singer for 15 years before she started writing, Anne McCaffrey’s first short story was published in the late 1950s and her first novel in 1967 after her three children 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.”  It is, however, in the handling of broader themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly the two series The Ship Who Sang and the 14 novels about the Dragonriders of Pern that her talents as a storyteller are best displayed.  And her 1978 novel The White Dragon was one of the first sci-fi books to ever appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.

 

Anne McCaffrey

McCaffrey says she always has used emotion as a writing tool, something she developed during her years on the stage.  Known for the vivid scenes and settings she creates, she also never hesitates to put problematic elements into her work.  “(My worlds) contain scary things; problems, but also a sense of rightness that makes them alive and makes us want to live there,” she said.

The first woman to win Hugo and Nebula awards for fiction and science fiction, she 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.

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