Lawrence M. Schoen has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award, and won the Coyotl Award for Best Novel. He holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, spent ten years as a college professor, served as the director of research for a medical center for the better part of two decades, is a world authority on the Klingon language, operates the small press Paper Golem, and is a practicing hypnotherapist specializing in authors’ issues.

His most notable fiction ranges from light, humorous tales of a stage hypnotist entrancing aliens on interstellar cruise ships and getting into trouble with his alien companion animal that eats anything and farts oxygen, to more literary explorations of how we think about death, race, and friendship via a metaphor of anthropomorphic animals. At the end of the day he considers all of his writing to be about the human condition, whether he manages it with extraterrestrials or talking elephants.