Author. An award-winning Science Fiction writer, he was born Edward Hamilton Waldo in Staten Island, New York. His parents divorced when he was nine. When his mother remarried to a William Sturgeon in 1929, he decided to change his whole name. By the age of 20, Sturgeon was selling his fiction to the newspaper McClure's Syndicate. Writing short stories, his work began appearing in many of the top SF magazines of the time. It was so well liked by the editors that two Sturgeon stories were once found in a magazine. By the 1960s, he had written a number of titles including the books "The Dreaming Jewels," "The King and Four Queens," "To Marry Medusa," "Venus Plus X," "Some of Your Blood," and "The Rare Breed." His short story "The Slow Sculpture" won SF's most coveted awards, the Hugo and the Nebula. His most critically successful story was the 1953 novel "More than Human." The book was actually a trio of novellas that had been linked together, but it rose above the average SF novel to become an academically respected work of fiction. On the whole, Sturgeon's work was well liked by critics. He wrote about topics that were not typically recognized by society at large (such as homosexuality), and his focus was in relationships particularly as pertained to Love. He inspired other writers to take challenges and is said to have been an influence on many latter day authors including Kurt Vonnegut, Jr who claims that his famous character Kilgore Trout was modeled after Sturgeon. In the 1960s and 1970s, Sturgeon expanded his horizons to include work in television. He wrote two of the more famous episodes of "Star Trek" as well as several others that could never be produced. One of these scripts was used as a basis for a book in the "Star Trek" series. Also, Sturgeon was credited with the creation of two of the show's most well known plot devices, The Prime Directive and the Vulcan condition of Pon farr. Sturgeon's work was also the basis of episodes of anthology series such as "The New Twilight Zone," and two short stories ended up as TV movies. During his long career, Sturgeon gave many interviews. Supposedly he was quoted as saying "'Nothing is always absolutely so." This comment became known as "Sturgeon's Law." Another quote attributed to him "Ninety percent of SF is crud, but then, ninety percent of everything is crud" became known as "Sturgeon's Revelation." Sturgeon said the latter simply in response to criticism about his chosen genre, but the quotes took on a life of their own. Little has been reported about his personal life, but he was said to be a compassionate and caring individual with an interest in things sexual. His own love life appears to have been turbulent with four failed marriages before meeting his last wife, Janet. He was also the father of seven children. During the last 10 years of his life, Sturgeon spent a lot of his time teaching at colleges around the world. He died of from what has been described as lung ailments in Eugene, Oregon.