Suzy McKee Charnas (October 22, 1939 – January 2, 2023) was an American novelist and short story writer, writing primarily in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. She won several awards for her fiction, including the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the James Tiptree Jr. Award. A selection of her short fiction was collected in Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms in 2004. The Holdfast Chronicles, a four-volume story written over the course of almost thirty years (the first installment, Walk to the End of the World was published in 1974, and the last installment, The Conqueror's Child was published in 1999) was considered to be her major accomplishment in writing. The series addressed the topics of feminist dystopia, separatist societies, war, and reintegration. Another of her major works, The Vampire Tapestry, has been adapted (by Charnas herself) into a play called "Vampire Dreams". Life Suzy McKee Charnas was born in Manhattan to two professional artists, Maxine (Szanton) and Robinson McKee. Her father was an illustrator for Wonder Books, a company that made picture books for children, and her mother was a textile designer. Her parents divorced in her childhood. Charnas helped her mother raise one younger sister, who is six years younger than she was. Despite being from a low-income family, Charnas was able to pursue a prestigious education. She attended an arts high school in New York City and, influenced by her parents, even considered pursuing a career in the visual arts. She received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College, where she majored in economics and history. She continued her education at New York University, where she earned a master's degree in education. She taught in Nigeria as a part of the Peace Corps. Influences and themes Charnas' work focuses on the sociological and the anthropological—rather than exclusively the technological—dimensions of science fiction. Her background in history and economics, as well as her experiences in Nigeria, have had a profound impact on her work. She had keenly explored the genres of Western, adventure, and science fiction in the books she had read earlier in her life, yet she realized that these books lacked strong female characters. She considered Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness to have been a major inspiration for the initiation of her writing career, as it was one of the first feminist novels she had encountered. Despite this, she did not