Spider Robinson was born in the Bronx, NY, in 1948, the year Robert A. Heinlein married Virginia Gerstenfeld—and in 2006 he became the only author ever to collaborate with Mr. Heinlein on a novel, VARIABLE STAR. Since 1973 he has published over thirty-five books, and won three Hugos, a Nebula, the John W. Campbell Award, and numerous other international honours.

He moved to Canada in 1974, and became a Canadian citizen in 2004. His Callahan’s Place stories inspired the creation of the long running Usenet newsgroup alt.callahans and other cybernetworks. From 1995-2004 he published an op-ed column (“The Crazy Years,” later called “Future Tense”) in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. In 2006 he became the first Writer In Residence at Vancouver’s H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, and in 2010 he was named sixth Writer In Residence at the Vancouver Public Library. He has written songs with David Crosby and Todd Butler, and recorded original music with Amos Garrett and Michael Creber. His award-winning podcast Spider On The Web has appeared regularly since 2007, and he has been Toastmaster at two World Science Fiction Conventions.

He was married for 35 glorious years to Jeanne Robinson, a dancer, writer and Buddhist priest with whom he co-authored the Hugo- and Nebula-winning THE STARDANCE TRILOGY. In 2004, they were both separately invited by First Lady Laura Bush to appear at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Since Jeanne’s death in May 2010, Spider has lived alone on an island in Howe Sound, British Columbia. He suspects his granddaughter Marisa Alegria da Silva might just be the long-awaited Maitreya Buddha, who will bring enlightenment to all sentient beings.