Michael Paul Kube-McDowell is a science fiction novelist. He has also dabbled in music, written for television, been a stringer for a daily newspaper, and published short fiction, reviews, assorted nonfiction and erotica. He was honored for teaching excellence by the 1985 White House Commission on Presidential Scholars. Kube-McDowell's short fiction has been featured in Analog, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as anthologies After the Flames and Perpetual Light. Three of his stories have been adapted as episodes of the TV series Tales from the Darkside.

Outside of science fiction Kube-McDowell is the author of more than 500 nonfiction articles on subjects ranging from space careers to "scientific creationism" to an award-winning four-part series on the state of American education.