<p>Anne Inez McCaffrey (1926-2011) was an American-born Irish writer best known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (for the novella Weyr Search) and the first to win a Nebula Award (for the novella Dragonrider). Her novel <i>The White Dragon</i> became one of the first science fiction books to appear on <i>The New York Times</i> bestseller list. She is also the author of the Acorna Universe series, which is a set of ten novels.</p>