Kathleen Ann Goonan (May 14, 1952 – January 28, 2021) was an American science fiction writer. Several of her books have been nominated for the Nebula Award. Her debut novel Queen City Jazz was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and her novel In War Times was chosen by the American Library Association as Best Science Fiction Novel for their 2008 reading list. In July 2008, In War Times won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Her novel This Shared Dream was released in July 2011 by Tor Books. Personal life Goonan was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the setting of her first novel, and at age eight moved to Hawaii, the setting for her second novel, while her father worked for the Navy for two years. In her last years, she divided her time between the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and the Florida Keys with her husband, Joseph Mansy, whom she married in 1977. She earned a degree in English literature and philosophy from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and, following graduation, received an Association Montessori Internationale teaching certification from the Montessori Institute in Washington, D.C. She then opened a Montessori school in Knoxville. Following a later move to Hawaii, she became a full-time writer. She was a Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing and Science Fiction at the Georgia Institute of Technology. On January 28, 2021, Goonan died from bone cancer. Fiction Goonan is best known for novels which give snapshots taken at different times of a world where nano- and biotechnologies ("bionan") produce deep changes in humans and their habitat. She explored themes of cultural and social change and catastrophe. She was a great lover of jazz and music in general, and peppered her tales with references to (and reincarnations of) the likes of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Sun Ra. Goonan's first novel, Queen City Jazz (Tor), was published in 1994 to critical acclaim including from cyberpunk SF writer William Gibson who described it as "An unforgettable vision of America transfigured by a new and utterly apocalyptic technology." It was a New York Times Notable Book for 1994 and a finalist in 1998 for the British Science Fiction Association Award. It became the first book in what she would later call her Nanotech Quartet. Because of Gibson's praise, her work has sometimes grouped with cyberpunk. However, she deals little with