November 21, 2011

Anne McCaffrey (April 1, 1926 to November 21, 2011) won fame as one of the first women to succeed in the literary genre of science fiction and fantasy. Her Dragonriders of Pern is a popular example of her writing: she sketches in that series a world where people have colonized the planet of Pern and live in a world somewhat similar to European medieval times. This prolific author was a graduate of Radcliffe, where she majored in Slavonic languages. She was married for 20 years and emigrated to the country of her forbears after a 1970 divorce. McCaffrey lived in County Wicklow the rest of her life, where she could indulge her love of horses.

Garrison Keillor reminds us " She was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Hugo Award for Science Fiction, in 1968."

She wrote many popular books but what may be less known is other jobs she had starting out, like:

Advertising copywriter and layout artist, Liberty Music Shops, NYC, 1948–50

and copywriter, then Sec. to Sales Manager, Helena Rubinstein, 1950–52. 

Her honors include the:

Golden Pen Award, 1982; 

Science Fiction Book Club Awards, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997; 

Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, from the American Library Association, 1999; 

Grand Master, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, 2005.

The above is from an article about her in Who's Who. There we also learn her hobbies, and we quote what she told the Who's Who editors:

"Equine events, raising Maine Coon cats, quilting" are her recreations.

April 1, 1926

Anne McCaffrey (April 1, 1926 to November 21, 2011) was a highly acclaimed writer of fantasy science fiction.Her Dragonriders of Pern is a series many people have heard of.

An obituary notes that

'.... the world of Pern.....was a distant planet settled by humans but threatened regularly by life-destroying "Threads", which fell from a neighbouring planet. To combat these, the humans genetically modified a species of winged reptile, native to Pern, each one of which was bonded symbiotically with a rider from the moment of the human's birth. These dragons then dealt with the global menace against the same kind of daunting odds as were faced by the RAF's "few" when repelling the Luftwaffe in 1940 – a parallel sometimes quoted by McCaffrey...

'McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After high school she went to Radcliffe College, where she majored in Slavonic languages and literature. Like many writers-to-be, she had several short-lived jobs in her 20s, including working for a music shop, the Helena Rubinstein cosmetics company, and writing advertising copy. She had a good soprano voice and studied singing for nearly a decade. While working in the theatre she became interested in stage direction of opera, and produced (and performed in) the first American performance of Carl Orff's Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus.

'McCaffrey married in 1950 and raised three children, ... The marriage ended acrimoniously 20 years later, and she moved herself and the children from New York to Ireland, where she lived for the rest of her life.

'Her writing career started slowly, with a few short stories published in the low-paying science-fiction magazines of the time, but once she had been recognised for her Pern stories, a course was set. The novels were all consistent with each other, but some were addressed overtly to younger audiences. Many Dragonrider books followed at a steady pace....

'A prolific writer (there are approximately 100 titles), McCaffrey developed many more sequences of stories and novels....

'Closely following the Pern books in popularity are the novels known as the Brainship sequence, which began with a story soon to make her famous, The Ship Who Sang (1961). This deeply personal work, with resonances of the death of her father (a colonel in the US army), describes a society in which the undamaged minds of severely disabled babies are groomed to become cyborg intelligences in command of starships. Such a cyborg mind is partnered with a "brawn", a trained human companion. The story ends with the funeral service of a brawn, in which the cyborg sings Taps, the US army bugle call. Audiences at McCaffrey's public readings were often moved to tears by the climax, and the author herself often succumbed....

'McCaffrey was a warm, kind and emotional woman with a wonderful no-nonsense attitude and a love of hard work. She was still writing just before she died.' 

No mention of her cat stories in the obit, but there are multiple books, as in

No One Noticed the Cat (1996) ‎which is blurbed: 'On the death of a wise ruler, his cat inherits his wisdom and guides the young prince who takes over. With advice from Niffy, Prince Jamas outwits his enemies, saves his country and gains the hand of a princess.'

There are others. Her tombstone, in Ireland, honors this affection for cats.