She enjoys receiving email from her readers. Now retired, she lives in Eugene, Oregon and welcomes visitors to her website at It includes a large section on space colonization, of which she is a strong advocate, as well as essays on other topics and detailed information about her books.

Most recently she has worked as a freelance editor of nonfiction anthologies for high schools. In addition she has published three permafree ebook collections of essays.Between 19 Engdahl was a computer programmer and Computer Systems Specialist for the SAGE Air Defense System.

Although all her novels take place in the distant future, in most csses on hypothetical worlds, and thus are categorized as science fiction, they are are directed more to mainstream readers than to avid science fiction fans.Engdahl has also issued an updated edition of her 1974 nonfiction book The Planet-Girded Suns: Our Forebears' Firm Belief in Inhabited Exoplanets, which is focused on original research in primary sources of the 17th through early 20th centuries that presents the views prevalent among educted people of that time. Her Children of the Star trilogy, originally written for teens, was reissued by a different publisher as adult SF.Recently she has written five independently-published novels for adults, the Founders pf Maclairn dulogy and the Captain of Estel trilogy. That one, Enchantress from the Stars, was a Newbery Honor book, winner of the 2000 Phoenix Award of the Children's Literature Association, and a finalist for the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Rediscovery category. She is best known for her six traditionally-published Young Adult novels that are also enjoyed by adults, all but one of which are now available in indie editions.

Sylvia Engdahl is the author of eleven science fiction novels.

Enchantress from the stars