Vonda N. McIntyre was raised on the east coast of the United States and in The Hague, Netherlands, and then in Seattle in the early 1960s. In 1970 she earned a biology degree from the University of Washington. She also attended the Clarion Writers Workshop. She went to the University of Washington to pursue a master's degree in genetics. In 1973, McIntyre won a Nebula Award for the novelette "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand". In 1975, her first novel, *The Exile Waiting*, was published. She has also written several Star Trek and Star Wars novels. Vonda McIntyre died at her home in Seattle, Washington of pancreatic cancer on April 1, 2019, aged 70.