C. J. Cherryh (C. J. Cherry) was born September 1, 1942 in St. Louis, MO. She received a B. A. degree in Latin from University of Oklahoma in 1964, and an M. A. in Classics from Johns Hopkins University in 1965. After a brief teaching career, she turned to full-time writing in 1977. Cherryh focuses on alien races, culture, and power as key elements in her work, making use of her training in the classic and in anthropology in her writing. Cherryh has been awarded the Hugo award three times, the Locus Award, and the John W. Campbell award, all attesting the quality and popularity of her work.

Carolyn Janice Cherry was born in St. Louis, MO, on September 1, 1942. She received a B.A. in Latin from the University of Oklahoma in 1964, and an M.A. in Classics from John Hopkins University in 1965. Cherry taught classics and ancient languages in the Oklahoma City public school system after her graduation, although she wrote SF and fantasy stories in her spare time.

In 1976, Cherry's professional writing career was launched with the publication of her first two novels, _Gate Of Ivrel_and Brothers of Earth. (She added a "h" to her last name because her editor Donald A. Wollheim of DAW Books thought that the name "Cherry" sounded too much like that of a romance writer, and Cherryh used her initials in order to disguise her gender.)

Those two novels were the first of many works set in Cherryh's famed "Alliance-Union Universe", which has come to include over 25 novels and a number of short stories. Many of Cherryh's most important works take place in this universe, including Downbelow Station(1981), Merchanter's Luck(1982), Cyteen(1988), and the _Faded Sun_trilogy (1978-1979). The Alliance-Union Universe is set in a far future marked by conflicts between and among privately-funded planetary stations and powerful merchant families.

Cherryh has written a large number of other works, including the cycle of novels (1994-2015) set in the "Foreigner Universe", a series chronicling the lives of a group of descendants of an Earth ship lost while on its way to found a new station; the "Gene Wars" novels Hammerfall(2001) and Forge of Heaven(2004); the fantasy "Fortress Series"(1995-2006); and many others.

C.J. Cherryh received the 1977 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and since then has also been lauded with numerous nominations and awards. She has won the 1979 Hugo Award for Best Short Story ("Cassandra") and the 1988  Skylark Award (the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction). She won the 1982 Balrog Award for Short Fiction ("A Thief In Korianth") and the 1982 Hugo Award for Best Novel ( Downbelow Station _)._Her novel _Cyteen_won both the 1989 _SF Chronicle_Award, the 1989 _Locus_Award, and the 1989 Hugo Award fo Best Novel.