TODAY IN STAR TREK HISTORY: Margaret Wander Bonanno Is Born

Margaret Wander Bonanno.

FEBRUARY 7, 2023 – While it is coming up on two years since the unexpected death of Star Trek novelist Margaret Wander Bonanno, today in Star Trek history let’s celebrate the birth of this author, whom fellow Trek scribe Dayton Ward called a “gifted writer with a wicked sense of humor, but also a kind soul, warm and welcoming….”

Bonanno was born in Brooklyn, New York on this date in 1950 and published her first novel, A Certain Slant of Light, in 1979.

She was a Star Trek fan from the beginning, from the “first time I saw Spock on screen, which was the pilot. I was 16 and couldn’t get a date, and it’s oh, my, who is this person? He was always my focus…. He was so different from the boys we knew…. He’s looking me in the eye, and he’s explaining things.”

Prior to her Star Trek tie-in debut, Bonanno had written a few mainstream novels for Seaview Books, before the publisher was taken over by Putnam, in 1982. She said about the experience of deciding what to write next that she was an English major and never took physics, so science fiction didn’t seem right at first. Then the opportunity came along to write Star Trek.  “This is a world I know. I can’t read hard science fiction … but I know Spock like a brother, so it’s important to me.” The result was Dwellers in the Crucible, which was published in 1985.

Bonanno went on to publish six other Trek novels, including an ebook novella. She also contributed a short story to Shards and Shadows in the Star Trek: Mirror Universe series.

Controversy surrounded the publication of her novel, Music of the Spheres, which was released as Probe but had been heavily rewritten. It was eleven years before she published her next Trek novel.

Outside of Star Trek, she published more mainstream fiction, children’s books, a biography of Angela Lansbury, and other science fiction, including a collaboration with Nichelle Nichols, Saturn’s Child. Two of the entries in her Preternatural series were New York Times Notable Books.

For those who say they can’t follow her stories, she did admit that she couldn’t write linear narratives – she “writes in Celtic knots” and that she preferred character studies to blowing things up.

And so a toast to Margaret Wander Bonanno, on what would have been her 73rd birthday.