Vonda Neel McIntyre was an award-winning American science fiction author and biologist. She was a trailblazer for women in sci-fi and has been a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and several feminist organizations.
With Dreamsnake (1978), McIntyre became only the second woman to win the Nebula Award and the third to win the Hugo Award for best novel.
Vonda N. McIntyre was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She spent her childhood living in several east coast states and Den Haag, Netherlands, before her family settled in Seattle, Washington, in the early 1960s. Her parents declined corporate offers that would have forced the household to move around frequently.
McIntyre received her B.S. (hon) from the University of Washington in 1970 and attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in Clarion, where she discovered her passion for science fiction writing. She then attended graduate school at UW, studying genetics from 1970–1971.
McIntyre's writing career began when she received her first rejection slip at 14 for a Fantastic Four comic book script. Her first short story sale was in the summer of 1969 when she was 20 years old.
Vonda McIntyre wrote her first novel, The Exile Waiting (1975) while living at Le Guin’s isolated cabin in Oregon. The story is about a young female thief trying to escape a dystopian society on a far future Earth was published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1975 after being rejected by Joseph Elder, who later became her publisher.
Susan Janice Anderson and McIntyre also edited the humanist sci-fi anthology Aurora, Beyond Equality, which included James Tiptree Jr.'s award-winning story Houston, Houston, Do You Read?
McIntyre authored several notable works, including Dreamsnake, which won the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award in 1979.
Dreamsnake is the story of a young healer, Snake, who uses genetically modified serpents to deliver healing venom; a third serpent — the dreamsnake — is used when the patient is incurable. An error in trust leads to the death of her dreamsnake, and Snake struggles to function fully as a healer.
She also wrote The Moon and the Sun, which won the Nebula Award in 1997, and Entropy's Bed at Midnight, which won the Hugo Award in 1974 for Best Short Story.
In addition to her writing, McIntyre was an accomplished teacher and workshop organizer. She organized the first incarnation of Clarion West Writers Workshop. She also taught workshops in Melbourne, Australia, Auckland, New Zealand, and several other locations.
McIntyre had a variety of interests outside of writing and teaching. She was an accomplished equestrian, showing horses in hunting, jumping, and three-phase events. She also earned a first-degree black belt in Aikido and tried white-water rafting, though losing her sunglasses in the middle fork of the Salmon River has made her hesitant to repeat the experience.
Her other hobbies included amateur web design, crocheting, handcrafts based on mathematical principles, and the invention and design of beaded sea creatures.
McIntyre was a founding member of Book View Café, a publishing cooperative that releases her backlist and new short stories in ebook form.
In February 2019, Vonda McIntyre was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She completed work on the final novel, Curve of the World, set in ancient Crete, just two weeks before she died.
Photo credit: vondanmcintyre.net
