Kate Wilhelm, a prolific, prizewinning author of science fiction and mystery novels, died on March 8 in Eugene, Ore. She was 89.

The cause was respiratory failure, her son Richard Wilhelm said.

In addition to writing novels, Ms. Wilhelm and her husband, the author and editor Damon Knight, trained generations of writers through their Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop (now at the University of California, San Diego), and the annual Milford Writers’ Conference (originally in Pennsylvania but more recently in Wales).

Ms. Wilhelm was one of the few women writing science fiction under their own names in the 1960s, and her books quickly gained a following as well as awards.

Unlike many of her colleagues, she straddled genres, between futuristic fantasies and enigmatic mystery novels.