Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who wrote during a Golden Age of the genre. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to the science fiction author Greg Bear. He was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. Anderson was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
