Vonda N. McIntyre was raised on the east coast of the United States and in The Hague, Netherlands, and then in Seattle in the early 1960s. In 1970 she earned a biology degree from the University of Washington. She also attended the Clarion Writers Workshop. She went to the University of Washington to pursue a master's degree in genetics.

In 1973, McIntyre won a Nebula Award for the novelette "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand". In 1975, her first novel, *The Exile Waiting*, was published. She has also written several Star Trek and Star Wars novels.

McIntyre now lives in Seattle, Washington.