Born in Neola, Iowa, and raised in Oklahoma, R. A. Lafferty (1914-2002) left the University of Tulsa after two years, working as an electrical engineer and occasional newspaperman. He served in the US Army in the Pacific during World War II. Publishing his first story in his mid-forties, he went on to write more than a dozen science fiction novels, as well as Okla Hannali, a historical novel about the Choctaw Nation.
