Bio: Robert A. Heinlein is considered to be one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time. Heinlein won four Hugo Awards for best novel of the year with the books "Double Star" in 1956; "Starship Troopers" in 1960; "Stranger in a Strange Land" in 1962 and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in 1967.

In 1975, the Science Fiction Writers of America instituted the Grandmaster Nebula to honor the lifetime achievements of the greatest living SF writers. Robert A. Heinlein was to be the first so honored. "It was like George Washington becoming the first President", said Isaac Asimov, "There was no argument".

One of his major contributions to the genre was to bring into SF some of those sciences which until then had been practically ignored: administration, politics, economics, sociology, linguistics, mathematics, genetics, parapsychology and others; transforming his work into a precursor of New Wave SF.

Robert Anson Heinlein was born July 7th, 1907, into a family of seven children in the small town of Butler, Missouri. In late 1938 the science fiction magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories announced a contest that led to the writing of his first story. Instead of submitting the story to the competition, Heinlein decided instead to send it to John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction for publication. Campbell bought the story, "Life-Line", for seventy dollars, and was published in the August 1939 edition of Astounding. Encouraged by his initial success, Heinlein spent the next three years writing science fiction stories for Astounding and other magazines. It was during this period that he became the first modern science fiction author to live exclusively from the sale of his stories.

From 1948 to 1962 he devoted himself exclusively to writing and produced some of his most famous work. One of the most important moments in modern science fiction happened during a brainstorming session for the story "Gulf" (1949), when Robert's wife Virginia came up with the idea for a science fiction character based on Mowgli from "The Jungle Book." Over the next 11 years, Robert worked (and re-worked) the story that would become the world's best-selling science fiction novel: "Stranger in a Strange Land" (1961). Heinlein became a national celebrity.

Robert A. Heinlein died during a nap on the morning of May 8th, 1988. See a longer bio here.