Timothy Zahn

writer, 1984 Hugo Award

Timothy Zahn was born and raised in the Chicago area. He earned a B.S. in Physics from the University of Michigan in 1973 and an M.S. in Physics from the University of Illinois in 1975. Zahn began writing science fiction in 1975 as a hobby. As he worked towards his doctorate in physics, he began to devote more of his time to writing, selling his first short story to *Analog* in 1978. . In 1980, he left the university to begin his year of full-time writing. His wife Anna was working full-time to support him during this endeavor. He wrote 18 stories in that year and brought in $2,000 (doubling the goal he had set of $1,000). He knew he could earn a living at writing eventually, but it took him until 1984 to achieve that goal. His best known work is *The Thrawn Trilogy*, the *Star Wars* novels that actually revived flagging interest in the *Star Wars* universe. He won a Hugo award in 1984 for the novella *Cascade Point* and has been nominated for Hugos on two other occasions. He currently lives with his family on the Oregon Coast.