About the Author

Elizabeth Moon grew up in South Texas, a few miles from the Mexican border, giving her early experience with major cultural differences and leading to a lifelong fascination with how culture shapes individuals and how they adapt (or don't) to new experiences. She has degrees in both history (Rice University) with several courses in cultural anthropology on the side, and biology (University of Texas). She served three years active duty in the Marine Corps between the two degrees (during which she worked with what were then quite large computers) and did graduate work in biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio. She married her husband while both were in the military; they have one adult son.

Moon's first fiction sale came in 1985--prophetically, her first two sales included a fantasy story set in her epic fantasy world and a hard SF story sold to ANALOG. She continues to go back and forth between science fiction and fantasy. Her first novel came out in 1988, winning the Compton Crook award for best first novel. So far, as of January 2016, she has 26 novels in print, and has published 50 shorter works in various magazines and anthologies. She won the Nebula Award for best novel with THE SPEED OF DARK (also short-listed for the Clarke Award), and was a finalist for the Hugo in 1997.

When not writing, Moon enjoys photographing wildlife and native plants, singing in a choir, cooking for friends and family, drawing, reading, knitting, and lying in a hammock pretending to be plotting the next book. She and her husband subscribe to and read several science and medical journals (since they're not near any academic libraries.)