Kathryn Lance

Kathryn Lance (November 26, 1943 – January 29, 2022) was an American writer in many fields of fiction and non-fiction under her own name and various pseudonyms, as well as being the ghostwriter for numerous books purportedly written by other people. She had written dozens of young adult novels in the science-fiction, mystery, and horror genres, many of them in series as by Lynn Beach. She had also written magazine articles and stories for both adults and children. Her topics included diet, sports, fitness, sexuality, and biotechnology, in both corporate publications and such national periodicals as Family Circle, Parade, Self, Town & Country, Ladies Home Journal, and Writer's Digest.

Kathryn Lance was born in November 26, 1943, in El Paso, Texas. After growing up in Tucson, Arizona, Lance received degrees from the University of Arizona, including a master's in Russian. Moving to New York City in 1970, she initially wrote hundreds of scripts for the television soap operas Another World, Somerset, All My Children, and One Life to Live through 1973, then worked for Scholastic Magazines as associate editor until 1976. While there, she created and wrote The Halls of Haywood High, a successful teenage soap opera published biweekly in Senior Scholastic Magazine. In 1976 she published her first book, Running for Health and Beauty, which sold 500,000 copies in all editions. The first mass-market book about running, it is considered to have helped start the fitness boom.

She then turned to freelancing full-time, writing dozens of books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her first science-fiction novel for adults, Pandora’s Genes, was named to the Locus magazine Recommended list for 1986 and was chosen Best New Science Fiction of 1985 by Romantic Times.

Lance returned to Tucson in 1989, where she lived with her husband and four cats. In addition to writing, she had also taught novel-writing and other writing courses. Semi-retired in 2009, she wrote fiction and was a docent at Tohono Chul Park, leading nature walks. She was also a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Authors Guild, and previously a board member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.