Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Katherine Anne MacLean majored in math and science in high school and earned a B. A. in economics from Barnard College in 1950, afterward doing postgraduate work in psychology at various universities. In 1951 she married Charles Dye, whom she divorced a year later, and in 1956 married David Mason. They divorced in 1962. Her son, Christopher Dennis Mason, was born in 1957. MacLean has worked variously as a nurse's aide, store detective, pollster, economic graphanalyst, laboratory technician in penicillin research, EKG technician, food analyst, editor, book reviewer, public relations and publicity writer, photographer, and office manager and payroll bookkeeper. One of the organizers of the Free University of Portland, MacLean has taught creative and expository writing there, literature (including science fiction) at the University of Maine and elsewhere, and through all of this has continued to write science fiction, primarily short stories, with sound science, impeccable...