Sheila Finch was born in London, England, and attended Bishop Otter College before coming to the United States in 1957, where she did graduate work in medieval literature and linguistics at Indiana University. She has lived in California since 1962, and teaches Creative Writing, and the Literature of Science Fiction at El Camino College in Torrance. She also runs workshops in fiction writing each summer at Idyllwild Arts Academy in the San Jacinto Mountains. She has three daughters, six grandchildren, and two cats, all of whom supply enough ideas to keep a writer busy. She has published seven science fiction novels. The first one, "Infinity's Web", won the Compton Crook Award, and the most recent, "Tiger in the Sky", won the San Diego Book Award for best juvenile fiction. She has published short stories in F&SF, Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Fantasy Book, and a number of anthologies, as well as several articles about science fiction. "Reading the Bones," won the Nebula Award for best novella of 1998.