Nancy Kress’s SF has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her most recent book is Tomorrow's Kin, an expansion of the Nebula-winning novella “Yesterday’s Kin,” which takes the story forward several generations.
One of Kress's five favorite "birds that are more than warm-blooded bipeds—birds with ambition," as shared at Tor.com:Bones of the Earth by Michael