Pat Cadigan
American science fiction author
Patricia Oren Kearney Cadigan (born September 10, 1953) is a British-American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories often explore the relationship between the human mind and technology. Her debut novel, Mindplayers, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988.
Early years
Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
In the 1960s Cadigan and a childhood friend "invented a whole secret life in which we were twins from the planet Venus", she told National Public Radio. "The Beatles "came to us for advice about their songs and how to deal with fame and other important matters." She goes on to say: "On occasion, they would ask us to use our highly developed shape-shifting ability to become them, and finish recording sessions and concert tours when they were too tired to go on themselves." The Venusian twins had other superpowers, that they would sometimes use to help out Superman, Wonder Woman and other heroes, she said.
Cadigan was educated in theater at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and studied science fiction and science fiction writing at the University of Kansas (KU) under science fiction author and editor James Gunn.
Cadigan met her first husband, Rufus Cadigan, while in college; they divorced shortly after she graduated from KU 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 the 1976 Labor Day weekend; she served on the committee as the convention's guest liaison to writer guest of honor Robert A. Heinlein, as well as helped to develop programming for the convention. At the same time, she also worked for fantasy writer Tom Reamy at his Nickelodeon Graphics Arts Service studio, where she daily typset various jobs.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pat Cadigan” is american science fiction author. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cadigan, American and science, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q266947. VIAF identifies the subject as 19728542. The Library of Congress control number is n92004143. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1988, 1975 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pat Cadigan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.