"For the first five years of my life no one could understand a thing I said," remarked prolific author Kate Wilhelm in an essay in Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). Perhaps that is why Wilhelm has spent most of her adult life putting her voice forward in an array of award-winning novels and short stories, primarily science fiction. Wilhelm outgrew her speech impediment, but fortunately for her many readers, never outgrew her desire to write.

Wilhelm was born the fourth of six children in Toledo, Ohio. She spoke quite a bit, but her mother and father were the only ones who could interpret her noises. "Very early I stopped trying to communicate, thinking, I suppose, there was little point to it," Wilhelm commented in CAAS. "To a certain extent I became an invisible child, and this continued for most of my life before I left home. When I...