Timothy Zahn was born in Chicago in 1951 and grew up in the western suburb of Lombard. He attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, earning a B.S. degree in physics in 1973, and moved to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, for graduate work. He earned a M.S. degree there, also in physics, in 1975, and continued work toward a doctorate. Also in 1975, he began a new hobby: writing science fiction. At first a strictly spare-time avocation, over the next three years he gradually began to give more time to it, until he sold his first story in December 1978 ("Ernie," Analog, September 1979). Still working toward an eventual career in physics, he occasionally contemplated taking a year off after getting his doctorate, a grand experiment to see just how far his writing could take him.

That year arrived earlier than he’d expected. In July 1979, his thesis adviser died suddenly of a heart attack---ironically, the same day Zahn received word that his second story had been bought by Analog. With three years of work on his thesis project effectively wiped out, he worked for another semester on a new project, trying to drum up enthusiasm for it. But by that time writing had become far more interesting to him than physics; and so, in January 1980, he left the university and began the grand experiment.

With his wife of five months, Anna, working full-time to support them, Zahn produced eighteen stories that first year, bringing in just over $2000. As he’d originally set himself a goal of $1000 for the year, he decided to declare the experiment a success. From then on it was less a question of whether he could eventually earn a living writing as it was when that point would be reached. (It took until 1984, incidentally.)

Since then Zahn has published nearly eighty short stories and novelettes, twenty-five novels, and four short fiction collections. Along the way he has won a Hugo Award (for the novella "Cascade Point," in 1984) and has been nominated twice more. He is best known for his six Star Wars books (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, and Survivor’s Quest).

His most recent book is Dragon and Slave, the third of his six-part young-adult Dragonback SF series. His next two books will be the standalone SF book Night Train to Rigel, due out in October from Tor, and his seventh Star Wars book Outbound Flight, due from Del Rey next January.

The Zahn family lives on the Oregon coast.