Biography
Alice Martha Lightner was born on October 14, 1904, in Detroit, Michigan to Frances (née McGraw) and Clarence Ashley Lightner. Her father was an attorney, who was a founder of the Detroit Public Library and her mother was a playwright. After graduating from Vassar College in 1927, she moved to New York and worked as a secretary, writing in her spare time. In 1935, she married Ernest Hopf, an artist originally from Germany. She and Ernest had one child, Christopher.
She was a naturalist and prolific science fiction writer during the New Wave. As other women writers did at the time, her pseudonym for her fictional works used only initials, as publishers feared boys would not read works written by women. Her juvenile fiction was published in the name of A. M. Lightner. She also published children's non-fiction books under the name of Alice L. Hopf on topics in natural history and entomology, and was a member of several New York-based scientific societies. Her non-fiction works, Biography of a Rhino and Misunderstood Animals received awards from the National Science Teachers Association in 1972 and 1973, respectively.
She died on February 3, 1988, at her home in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. She was survived by her husband, Ernest, their son, Christopher and daughter-in-law, C.C.
