Dana Jane Lovell wrote books, knitted Arran sweaters, and tried not to worry about her grown-up son.She'd been widowed young and was lonely - though she usually didn't admit it. The man at Denver airport was large, distinguished, mysterious about his private life, and said his name was Dan.She thought he'd be a witty and amusing travelling companion. But they'd both reckoned without the storm - the deluge of snow that cut them off from the world they both knew and hurled them into a breathtaking relationship. Anne McCaffrey, creator of the Dragons of Pern, breaks into the world of adult romantic fiction with her spellbinding Stitch in Snow.
Author
Anne McCaffrey was born on April 1st, 1926, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her parents were George Herbert McCaffrey, BA, MA PhD (Harvard), Colonel USA Army (retired), and Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey, estate agent. She had two brothers: Hugh McCaffrey (deceased 1988), Major US Army, and Kevin Richard McCaffrey, still living. Anne was educated at Stuart Hall in Staunton Virginia, Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. Her working career included Liberty Music Shops and Helena Rubinstein (1947-1952). She married in 1950 and had three children: Alec Anthony, b. 1952, Todd, b.1956, and Georgeanne, b.1959. Anne McCaffrey’s first story was published by Sam Moskowitz in Science Fiction + Magazine and her first novel was published by Ballantine Books in 1967. By the time the three children of her marriage were comfortably in school most of the day, she had already achieved enough success with short stories to devote full time to writing. Her first novel, Restoree, was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in s-f 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 fourteen novels about the Dragonriders of Pern that Ms. McCaffrey’s talents as a story-teller are best displayed. She died at the age of 85, after suffering a massive stroke on 21 November 2011. Obituaries: Locus, GalleyCat.
