Allen Steele has been a full-time science fiction writer since 1988, when his first short story, "Live From The Mars Hotel", was published in Asimov's. He was born in Nashville, TN, but has lived most of his adult life in New England. He received his B.A. in Communications from New England College in Henniker, NH, and his M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. Before turning to SF, he worked as a staff writer for daily and weekly papers in Tennessee, Missouri, and Massachusetts, freelanced for various business and general-interest magazines, and spent a short tenure in Washington D.C., covering Capitol Hill as a stringer for papers in Vermont and Missouri.

His novels include Orbital Decay, Clarke County, Space, Lunar Descent, Labyrinth of Night, The Jericho Iteration, The Tranquility Alternative, A King of Infinite Space, Oceanspace, Chronospace, Apollo's Outcasts, and V-S Day. He is best known for the Coyote series - Coyote, Coyote Rising, Coyote Frontier, Coyote Horizon and Coyote Destiny - along with three spin-off novels set in the same universe: Spindrift, Galaxy Blues, and Hex. His official website is www.allensteele.com.

Steele has published over 80 stories, principally in Asimov's, Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, and Omni, as well as in dozens of anthologies and small-press publications. His short fiction has been reprinted in five collections: Rude Astronauts, All-American Alien Boy, Sex and Violence in Zero-G, American Beauty, and The Last Science Fiction Writer. He has also written reviews and essays for a number of publications, including The New York Review of Science Fiction, Locus, Science Fiction Chronicle, and SF Age, and he is a former columnist for Absolute Magnitude and Artemis.

His work has received three Hugo Awards (two for Best Novella, one for Best Novelette), two Locus Awards (for Best First Novel and Best Novella), six Asimov's Readers Awards (four for Best Novella, two for Best Novelette), an Anlab Award (for Best Novelette), a Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award (for Best Novella), a Science Fiction Weekly Reader Appreciation Award (for Best Novella), and a Seiun Award (for Best Foreign Short Story). His stories have also earned four Hugo nominations, three Nebula Award nominations, two Sidewise Award nominations, and a Theodore Sturgeon Award nomination. In 2013, he received the Robert A. Heinlein Award in recognition of his long career writing space fiction.

Steele is a former member of the Board of Advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and also former member of both the Board of Directors and Board of Advisors of the SFWA. In April, 2001, he testified before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the U.S. House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of American space exploration. "Live from the Mars Hotel" was among the stories included in a DVD library of science fiction that the Planetary Society placed aboard NASA's Phoenix lander which touched down on Mars in May, 2008. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and their two dogs.