Rebecca Moesta

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Rebecca Moesta Anderson was born on the 17th of November, 1956, not in the United States, but in West Germany, to American parents who had settled abroad. That transatlantic start would become a kind of pattern in her life: moving, adapting, building something new wherever she landed. From a childhood in Pasadena, California, to graduate courses overseas, to a science fiction club in a national laboratory, her path to becoming a published author was anything but direct. How did a proofreader at one of America's most prominent research facilities end up co-writing fourteen novels set in a galaxy far, far away? And what does it take to build a publishing company from the ground up while raising a family across two continents?

• 2. From Pasadena to Darmstadt

  ›

  Pasadena, California, is where Rebecca Moesta grew up, staying there into her early twenties before her life took its first major turn. She studied at California State University, Los Angeles, earning a Bachelor of Liberal Arts, and not long after graduating she married a physicist who had recently completed his degree at nearby Caltech. That marriage brought a new name, Rebecca Moesta Cowan, and a new destination.

  In 1981, the couple moved to New Haven, Connecticut, staying for a year before relocating again, this time to Darmstadt, West Germany. They remained in Germany until 1987. During those years, Moesta enrolled in graduate courses through Boston University and earned a Master of Science degree in Business Administration. It was also during this period in West Germany that she gave birth to her son, Jonathan. The family eventually returned to the United States and settled in Livermore, California, a city that would prove far more consequential than a simple landing place.

• 3. A Lab, a Club, a Meeting

  ›

  In 1989, Moesta took a job at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working as a proofreader and copy editor. It was a role that suited her training, but what happened on the margins of that job changed her life entirely. At the laboratory, she started a science fiction club, a gathering of colleagues who shared her interest in speculative fiction.

  Through that club, she met Kevin J. Anderson, the writer who would become her second husband. She divorced her first husband in 1990 and married Anderson in 1991. The laboratory had given her more than a career in technical editing; it had given her a creative partner. Together they would redirect their professional lives toward the kind of fiction Moesta had always read and loved.

• 4. Star Wars and Young Jedi Knights

  ›

  Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta began writing science fiction novels together, and the first major fruit of that collaboration was a long-running series set in the Star Wars expanded universe. The Young Jedi Knights series eventually stretched to fourteen novels, beginning with Heirs of the Force in June 1995 and running through Crisis at Crystal Reef in December 1998.

  The pace was relentless. In 1995 alone, three titles appeared: Heirs of the Force in June, Shadow Academy in September, and The Lost Ones in December. The following year brought four more books. Alongside the main Young Jedi Knights run, the couple also contributed to the Junior Jedi Knights branch of the expanded universe, including Anakin's Quest, Vader's Fortress, and Kenobi's Blade, all published in 1997. The sheer volume of output across those years speaks to the discipline both writers brought to collaboration.

  The Star Wars work was not the couple's only foray into licensed fiction. Under the joint pseudonym Kem Antilles, they co-wrote Highest Score in 1996, a novel set in the world of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, placed in the year 2370.

• 5. Beyond the Expanded Universe

  ›

  Moesta's writing life extended well past the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises she had helped populate. In 2002, she contributed to the Buffyverse with a work called Little Things. A few years later, she and Anderson launched the Crystal Doors series, a trilogy that unfolded across three volumes: The Island Realm in 2006, The Ocean Realm in June 2007, and Sky Realm in 2008.

  The couple also produced two Titan A.E. young adult novels and two high-tech pop-up books, a form that sits somewhere between children's publishing and novelty design. Together, these projects trace a career that moved fluidly between franchise universes, original concepts, and formats that stretched the conventional definition of a book. The Crystal Doors trilogy, in particular, marked a turn toward wholly original storytelling, with world-building that owed nothing to an existing film or television property.

• 6. WordFire Press

  ›

  Moesta and Anderson own and run WordFire Press, a publishing company the couple built themselves. The press represents a move into the infrastructure of publishing, not just the writing side. Running a publishing operation alongside an active fiction career places Moesta in a dual role that few authors occupy simultaneously.

  Moesta has continued to work as a copy editor within that enterprise, including editing her husband's output. Her career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she first worked as a proofreader and copy editor, turned out to be the foundation for skills she would use long after leaving that job. The editorial work that once paid the bills became an ongoing part of how she and Anderson run their shared professional life.