Sheri S. Tepper


Sheri Stewart Tepper was an American writer of science fiction, horror and mystery novels. She is primarily known for her feminist science fiction, which explored themes of sociology, gender and equality, as well as theology and ecology. Often referred to as an eco-feminist of science fiction literature, Tepper personally preferred the label eco-humanist. Though the majority of her works operate in a world of fantastical imagery and metaphor, at the heart of her writing is real-world injustice and pain. She employed several pen names during her lifetime, including A. J. Orde, E. E. Horlak, and B. J. Oliphant.

Early life and education

She was born Shirley Stewart Douglas near Littleton, Colorado.

Career

Stewart recalled she "spent ten years...working all kinds of different jobs" as a single mother of two. She wrote poetry and children's stories as Sheri S. Eberhart. From 1962 to 1986, she worked for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, eventually as its executive director.
By the mid-1980s, she was publishing science fiction novels, including The Revenants, books of the True Game series, Necromancer Nine, and Wizard's Eleven. Other related works followed throughout the decade, including two other trilogies. Later novels in the 1990s and 2000s followed often, including Beauty, which won a Locus Award; Shadow's End, Six Moon Dance, Singer from the Sea, The Visitor, The Companions, and The Margarets.
As of 1998, she operated a guest ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. That year saw her first and possibly only appearance at a science fiction convention, when she was at the 25th WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention held annually in Madison, Wisconsin.
In November 2015, she received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

Personal life

She married at 20, and divorced in her late twenties. She married Gene Tepper in the late 1960s.
She died on October 22, 2016 at age 87.

Works

Novels

Series

Educational pamphlets for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood: