I had 30 minutes to find an author of the appropriate letter and found someone in two! Amy Thomson is was born in America in 1958 and entered the writing field in 1994 with her first book Virtual Girl which went on to win the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and she’s continued writing thoughtful works since then.

Why do I say thoughtful when I only heard of her a few minutes ago? I read this interview on io9 and was captivated. Thomson gives her thoughts of creating aliens from scratch and also her ideas on population growth which seem to have some mirroring on mine.

I’m struggling to find her works in regular book shops so I can’t direct you somewhere particular to find them but I’m guessing they’d be well worth trekking them down somehow.

The Colour of Distance has a sequel, Through Alien Eyes, she has also published two standalone novels, Virtual Girl and Storyteller and many essays in publications such as Locus. I’m going to be keeping an eye out for her so I can add her to my To Be Read Pile which is probably taller than me by now.

At the very least you should read the interview.