Pat Cadigan is an American science fiction author. Her work is part of the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories all share a common theme of exploring the relationship between the human mind and technology.

Life and early work
She was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Cadigan was a student at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Kansas. She studied with James Gunn at Kansas and graduated in 1975. That same year Cadigan joined the convention committee for MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention being held in Kansas City, Missouri over Labor Day weekend 1976. Her job as a committee member was to help guest of honor Robert A. Heinlein.

She also worked for fantasy writer Tom Reamy at his Nickelodeon Graphics typesetting and graphic design business. Reamy died in 1977 and Cadigan went to work as a writer for Kansas City's Hallmark Cards. She went to live in England with her son Bob Fenner in 1996. She is now married there to her third husband.

Writing
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she was a magazine editor. She worked on small press fantasy and science fiction magazines called Chacal and Shayol with her second husband, Arnie Fenner. Cadigan sold her first professional science fiction story in 1980. She became a full-time writer in 1987.

Cadigan's first novel was Mindplayers. It introduced a common theme in her writing. Her stories make the human mind a real place where people can go and do things. What is real becomes unclear.

Cadigan has won several awards, including: Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1986; the Philip K. Dick Award in 1987 for Mindplayers; the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991; the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1992 and 1995 for her novels Synners and Fools.

Other writers
Robert A. Heinlein had become her friend after she helped him when he was a guest at the 34th Worldcon in Kansas City. He partly dedicated his novel Friday to her.

Childhood fantasies
In the 1960s, Cadigan and a childhood girlfriend "invented a whole secret life in which we were twins from the planet Venus," she told National Public Radio. The Beatles asked "us for advice about their songs" and help being famous, Cadigan says. In this fantasy, sometimes the girls would shape-shift to become The Beatles and finish recording songs or playing concerts for them. As Venusian twins, Cadigan said they had other superpowers too. Sometimes they would help Superman, Wonder Woman and other heroes, she said.

Original novels
Mindplayers (1987)
Synners (1991)
Fools (1992)
Tea from an Empty Cup (1998)
Dervish is Digital (2001)

Books from movies
The Making of Lost in Space (1998) (book on the making of the movie Lost in Space)
Resurrecting the Mummy: The Making of the Movie (1999) (book on the making of the movie The Mummy)
Lost in Space: Promised Land (1999) (spinoff novelisation from the movie Lost in Space)
Cellular (2004) (novelization of the movie Cellular)
Jason X (2004) (novelization of the movie Jason X)
Jason X: The Experiment (2005)

Short-story collections
Patterns (1989)
Dirty Work (1993)
Home By The Sea (1993)
Letters From Home (1991)

One of her early stories appeared in Rock On (1981).

References 

1953 births
Living people
American science fiction writers
Writers from New York
Writers from Massachusetts
People from Schenectady, New York