Sheila Finch is best known for her many stories about members of the Guild of Xenolinguists, the translators for the languages in the worlds we will explore in the future. In 1998, she won the Nebula Award for her novella set in the Xenolinguists universe, “Reading The Bones,” which she later expanded to a novel of the same name. Finch’s first novel, Infinity’s Web(1985), received the Compton Crook award and her young adult book, Tiger in the Sky (1999; Book 2 of David Brin’s Out of Time), won the San Diego Book award for best juvenile fiction. Other novels include Triad (1986), The Shaper Exile trilogy (The Garden of the Shaped [1987], Shaper’s Legacy [1989], Shaping the Dawn [1989]), and Birds (2004). She also penned the acclaimed Myths, Metaphors, and Science Fiction: Ancient Roots of the Literature of the Future&(2014) and most recently A Villa Far From Rome (2016). Finch’s stories have been collected in The Guild of Xenolinguists (2007) and Forkpoints: Stories of Decisions Made and Roads Not Taken (2022).

Now retired, she spent many years as a teacher of college creative writing in southern California as well as at conferences and conventions around the world. Many of her students became published authors.

All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Sheila a fabulous birthday!