It’s the birthday of science-fiction author Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011, #nicelonglife), the first woman to win a Hugo Award (1968) and the first woman to win a Nebula Award (1969). McCaffrey is best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series which features, you know, dragons. And the people who ride them.

McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father was a colonel in the U.S. Army; her mother was an estate agent. McCaffrey wrote her first novel in Latin class, but since the novel wasn’t in Latin, she got in trouble. She studied Slavonic languages and lit at Radcliffe (1947) and also trained for the opera; she married in 1950, had three childen, and began publishing stories that decade. Her first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967 and featured the sort of strong, spirited female character she would become renowned for: she’d gotten sick of “all the weak women screaming in the corner while their boyfriends were beating off the aliens” (from Dragonholder, a biography of McCaffrey by her son Todd).

Nineteen sixty-seven was also the year McCaffrey began to create the Pern novels. The inspiration came to her when she asked herself, “What if dragons were the good guys?” She then created the world of Pern, where dragons were needed to combat the deadly Thread, a type of spore that rains down on the planet periodically. McCaffrey eventually published more than 20 Dragonriders of Pern novels and a bazillion other novels and series as well.

When McCaffrey’s marriage ended in 1970, she moved to Ireland, where she had learned of an income-tax exemption for writers. She eventually built a house there called Dragonhold-Underhill, so named because it was “the house that dragons built.” McCaffrey bred horses on the side but always maintained that dragons are smarter than horses. Which is hard to argue with.

McCaffrey died at 85 after having a stroke. She was survived by her two sons, daughter, and grandchildren. One of the sons, Todd, collaborated with McCaffrey on a number of the Pern novels and is a writer in his own right.

Have a crisp, snowy first day of April, if dragons are building your house then seriously, make sure they’re licensed contractors, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.