 McCaffrey said "she thought of the story when wishing herself alone, like a lady in an ivory tower".Judith Merril matched McCaffrey with her long-time literary agent Virginia Kidd (died 2003) and invited her to the Milford Writer's Workshop (to which she returned many times), where participants each brought a story to be critiqued.After her first Milford workshop in 1959 she worked on "The Ship Who Sang", the story which began the Brain & Brawn Ship series.